The Year of the Dragon | |
---|---|
Written by | Frank Chin |
Characters | The Eng family |
Date premiered | May 22, 1974 |
Place premiered | USA |
Original language | English |
Subject | Asian American identity |
Genre | Realism |
Setting | Chinatown |
The Year of the Dragon is a play written by Chinese American playwright Frank Chin. It is one of the first plays by an Asian American playwright to be produced on a mainstream New York stage. It premiered in 1974 at the American Place Theatre, and starred Randall Duk Kim, who had played the lead in Chin's earlier play, The Chickencoop Chinaman . [1] The rest of the cast included Pat Suzuki, Tina Chen, Conrad Yama, Lilah Kan, Doug Higgins, and Keenan Shimizu.
The play portrays a Chinese American family in Chinatown, San Francisco during Chinese New Year. Chin wrote the play as a critique of the racism in American society, and the play satirizes "American tourists who eroticize, objectify, and commodify Chinatown and its residents." [2]
A television production of the play was filmed by PBS for Great Performances in 1975 with George Takei replacing Kim as Fred, after Kim declined the television adaptation for artistic reasons, feeling that there would not be an adequate amount of rehearsal time for the adaptation to work. The rest of the original cast appeared in the PBS production. [3]
In addition to subsequent productions, the play was revived in 2001 by East West Players in 2001, under the direction of Japanese American actor Mako Iwamatsu, who had directed the first EWP production in 1974. [4]
The play tells the story of Fred Eng, a 40-something tour guide who lives at home in San Francisco's Chinatown with his parents and younger brother, Johnny. Fred is frustrated because ten years earlier he had given up his dreams of being a writer to help his cancer-stricken father run the tour guide business. Yet, not only is his father still alive, he also has no respect for Fred's desire to be a writer and mocks Fred for dropping out of college, even though Fred did so to help him. Fred also hates working as a tour guide, as he must act out the white tourists' fantasy of what Chinese people are like, unable to make them understand that Chinatown is not China and that its residents are Americans too. Fred is also frustrated that his brother Johnny, in addition to running with a bad crowd, is not interested in leaving Chinatown for a better life, but wants to become part of the family business.
The conflict of the play centers around a Chinese New Year celebration when Fred's sister, Sissy, comes to visit with her sinophile white husband, Ross. Sissy has been on tour promoting a Chinese cookbook that she and Fred have written; the indignity of being reduced to writing food porn as his only marketable outlet for writing further upsets Fred. On the same day that Sissy and Ross arrive, Pa's first wife (and Fred's biological mother) arrives from China, thanks to the new immigration laws that allowed Chinese women to immigrate to the US to join their husbands. The arrival of "China Mama" creates conflict between Pa and his current wife, Hyacinth, who feels betrayed by his decision to bring his first wife over after he had promised not to and by the fact that she herself had risked losing her citizenship by marrying Pa. It also becomes clear that Pa wants to split the family in two as he nears the end of his life, favoring his "Chinese" family over his "American" one.
Chin's play is set partly in a realistic apartment setting and partly in a theatrical setting in which Fred speaks to the audience as though they are his tour group. By dividing the play in this way, Chin forces the audience (who at the time were mostly white) to consider their own versions of Chinese Americans and of Chinatown life against a more realistic depiction in which sons and wives are not passively obedient to their fathers, American-born Chinese do not desire to move to China, and white interest in Chinese culture is not always a positive thing. Chin also touches on the artistic problems for Chinese Americans, noting that Fred's only options as a writer are autobiography and cookbooks, and that Pa has internalized the Chinese stereotypes he has seen in the movies, so far as to imitate Charlie Chan and refer to Fred as "number one son." Through these thematic and dramaturgic devices, Chin confronts the audience with the myth of the "model minority" and presents a more disturbing picture of Chinese American life, one that is probably no different from the average American life, but that does not accord with American stereotypes.
The play has been published together with his earlier play, The Chickencoop Chinaman .
(as of March 2008):
The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia. It is also the oldest and largest of the four notable Chinese enclaves within San Francisco. Since its establishment in the early 1850s, it has been important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that has retained its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, and identity.
Frank Chin is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre.
Randall Duk Kim is an American actor. On stage, he is known both for his extensive classical repertoire and as an interpreter of the works of playwright Frank Chin. He is the co-founder of the American Players Theatre. To film audiences, he is best known for his portrayal of the Keymaker in The Matrix franchise, and as the voice of Master Oogway in the Kung Fu Panda franchise. He is an Obie Award winner and an Outer Critics Circle Award nominee.
This is an alphabetical index of topics related to Asian Americans.
Jeffery Paul Chan was an American author and scholar. He was a professor of Asian American studies and English at San Francisco State University for 38 years until his retirement in 2005.
Chinaman is an offensive term referring to a Chinese man or person, or widely a person native to geographical East Asia or of perceived East Asian ethnicity. The term is noted as having pejorative overtones by modern dictionaries. Its derogatory connotations evolved from its use in pejorative contexts regarding Chinese people and other East Asians, as well as its grammatical incorrectness which resembles stereotypical characterizations of Chinese accents in English-speaking associated with discrimination. The usage of the term Chinaman is strongly discouraged by Asian American organizations.
Forbidden City was a Chinese nightclub and cabaret in San Francisco, which was in business from 1938 to 1970, and operated on the second floor of 363 Sutter Street, between Chinatown and Union Square.
Pam Chun is a writer and marketing consultant, most notable as the author of the book The Money Dragon.
The American Place Theatre was founded in 1963 by Wynn Handman, Sidney Lanier, and Michael Tolan at St. Clement's Church, 423 West 46th Street in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, and was incorporated as a not-for-profit theatre in that year. Tennessee Williams and Myrna Loy were two of the original board members.
Asian American theatre refers to theatre written, directed or acted by Asian Americans. From initial efforts by four theatre companies in the 1960s, Asian-American theatre has grown to around forty groups today. Early productions often had Asian themes or settings; and "yellowface" was a common medium for displaying the perceived exoticism of the East in American performance. With the growing establishment of second-generation Asian-Americans in the 21st century, it is becoming more common today to see Asian-Americans in roles that defy historical stereotypes in the United States.
Ben Fee (张恨棠/木云) was an American writer and labor organizer who rose to prominence in the Chinatowns of San Francisco and New York in the mid-twentieth century. He was president of the Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association and leader of the Chinese section of the United States Communist Party.
Chinese American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of Chinese descent. The genre began in the 19th century and flowered in the 20th with such authors as Sui Sin Far, Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Amy Tan.
Asian American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of Asian descent.
Stephane Gauger was a Vietnamese-born American film director, screenwriter and cinematographer.
Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers is a 1974 anthology by Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong, members of the Combined Asian American Resources Project (C.A.R.P.). It helped establish East Asian American literature as a field by recovering and collecting representative selections from Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Americans from the past fifty years—many of whom had been mostly forgotten. This anthology included selections from Carlos Bulosan, Diana Chang, Louis Chu, Momoko Iko, Wallace Lin, Toshio Mori, John Okada, Oscar Peñaranda, Sam Tagatac, Hisaye Yamamoto, Wakako Yamauchi, many of whom are now staples in East Asian American literature courses. Because of this anthology and the work of C.A.R.P., many of these authors have been republished. At that time, however, they received little attention from publishers and critics because they did not subscribe to popular stereotypes but depicted what Elaine H. Kim calls the "unstereotyped aspects of Asian American experience". The "aiiieeeee!" of the title comes from a stereotypical expression used by East Asian characters in old movies, radio and television shows, comic books, etc. These same stereotypes affected the anthology itself: when the editors tried to find a publisher, they had to turn to a historically African-American press because, as Chin states:
The blacks were the first to take us seriously and sustained the spirit of many Asian American writers.... [I]t wasn't surprising to us that Howard University Press understood us and set out to publish our book with their first list. They liked our English we spoke [sic] and didn't accuse us of unwholesome literary devices.
The Chinaman Pacific and Frisco R.R. Co. is a 1988 short-story collection by Frank Chin that collects many of the short stories he had published in the 1970s. It won the American Book Award. The collection deals with Chinese-American history by recalling the work of early Chinese immigrants in such jobs as "coolie, railworker and launderer".
The Chickencoop Chinaman is a 1972 play by Frank Chin. It was the first play written by an Asian American to have a major New York production.
Feodor Chin is an American actor, writer, and comedian from San Francisco, California. As an actor, he was classically trained at UCLA, the American Conservatory Theater, and has studied with renowned acting coach, Larry Moss. He was a Maude Night performer at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre for three seasons. TV credits include Big Little Lies, Good Trouble, American Auto, Pam & Tommy, Medical Police, Lethal Weapon, Jane the Virgin, The Affair, Speechless, and New Girl. Animation credits include the title role in Netflix's Uncle from Another World, Futurama, Marvel's Hit-Monkey and What If...?, and Cartoon Network's Regular Show. He is the voice of Zenyatta and Lee Sin in the hit video games, Overwatch / Overwatch 2 and League of Legends. He was a performer for the ABC Discovers Talent Showcase and a writer for the CBS Diversity Comedy Showcase.
Donald Duk is a coming-of-age novel written by Frank Chin, first published in February 1991. It is about an eleven-year-old boy turning twelve, completing a cycle of the Chinese zodiac, in San Francisco, and his struggles juggling cultures and growing into his name.
The Iron Moonhunter is a short children's picture book published in 1977, written and illustrated by the activist Kathleen Chang. The book purportedly retells a Chinese-American myth set in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the construction of the First transcontinental railroad, starting in the fall of 1866.