Gunga Din Highway

Picked up this one down at the big sale at Fort Mason, here in San Francisco, to benefit the victims of the earthquake that has devastated Pakistan and killed 20,000 Pakistanis. Tables were piled high with books, many signed by their authors, men and women who had donated them to a good cause. Many were in Asian languages I couldn't even read, but one or two of these I bought for Asian friends. This book, GUNGA DIN HIGHWAY, proved a delightful surprise. In a way, the book it reminds me most of is an oldie, the BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN from the 1950s, by Wallace Stegner, with its multi-generational narrative and its expansive, troubling vision of the USA. In other ways it has some of the zany hippie humor you find in something like Tom Robbins' JITTERBUG PERFUME or EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES. Either way, it's a winner. And especially if you have an interest in cultural issues, for Frank Chin, the author, is a topnotch commentator with a waspish wit who absolutely hates the Charlie Chan movies. Our hero is the Number Four Son, that is, he once upon a time played the eager son of the great Chinese detective Charlie Chan, at a time when (the fictional) white actor, Anlauf Loraine, played Chan, the fourth white actor to do so. Oddly, our hero Longman Senior has an intense relationship with his peers, the other Asian American actors who didn't get to play the father, but were always relegated to playing the son, including the real-life stars Victor Sen Yung, Benson Fong and Keye Luke, all of whom are dissed in context of the character. Longman and his wife, Hyacinth, name their first born American son, Ulysses, after the famous banned modernist novel by James Joyce, and thus it's no wonder that Ulysses grows up to be, well, as one of his girlfriends puts it, "oversexed." Through the 1950s and 1960s, the novel shows us a panoramic view of the sexual and cultural awakenings of several families whose lives intertwine in New York, Oakland, Seattle, Honolulu, Portland and Frisco. Pandora Toy is an alluring, freshly conceived and brilliant young writer, who hooks up with Ulysses, which distances him somewhat from his kinship with his "blood brother," the actor Ben Mo. Chin's pictures of bohemian living, young people too poor to buy a house, and almost too poor to sign a lease, yet thriving in big city energy, might have come out of the musical RENT. It's a long book, but no longer than, say, THE GRAPES OF WRATH or THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, two other 20th century novels that came to mind while I flipped through the pages of GUNGA DIN HIGHWAY. You should be able to read it over and over again, for such is its quality, that no sooner are you done with the final chapter, then you'll be wanting to start it from the beginning, like some kind of Mobius strip of Asian American experience.

always a pleasure to read. You won't be sorry if you buy this book!

The dialogue is priceless in this novel! I'm going to read it again and again. It takes place mostly in the 60s, where our hero, Ulysses, grows up as a brakeman for the railroad. His father is a movie star who banks off of what Frank Chin calls the white "racist love" of America. What would that be? Well, being Charlie Chan's son, being a "neurotic, exotic" Asian, being a prostitute, dragon lady, or an effeminate, passive individual; all in all, having a westernized expectation of an Asian. Our hero, Ulysses, is the true Chinaman and you should make an effort to read this book.

I liked it more than DONALD DUK (although, I loved that book), because it's a step higher in experiencing how it is to be a Chinaman. Frank Chin has changed my life, but no other book has done it more than this one. Incidentally, Chin happened to be the first Asian in history to get a play produced in America. If you're interested, you should get it here ... Since his play came out it caused a storm of controversy, as this one will too.

You won't be sorry. This book entails many of Frank Chin's thoughts on Charlie Chan, theatre, movies, railroads, etc. You can't help but tell how some of the events in Ulysses' life reflect that of Frank Chin's (you'll know what I mean when you read this book). Bear in mind though, this is a very thick and dense book. It'll make a good read as you travel (like how I did), but I go back to the book as a reference point on how Hollywood has stereotyped Chinese, or just to simply read great story and dialogue. Frank Chin is an expert on pointing out stereotypes, and you should be too. Why not start by reading Gunga Din Highway? For your information there is a movie entitled Gunga Din (stars Cary Grant) that is probably one of the most blatant racist movies I've ever seen. Furthermore, did you know that they were thinking about making Charlie Chan into a movie (starring the no-talent Russel Wong) as a some sexy Chinaman (Charlie Chan is an effeminate character)? Frank Chin comments that this won't help the Chinese image because it's like putting a black man in a Ku Klux Klan hood!Read this story about Ulysses who endures through a life surrounded by people who expect him to live like the stereotypical Chinaman. Are you living like that?