Quote:
“Pointing to the lawyer, she cried: “You not one hundred man good; you just common white man.”/ “Yes, ma’am,” returned James Clancy, bowing and smiling ironically” (Sin Far 885)
Summary:
In the Story “In the Land of the Free”, this is Lae Choo answer to the lawyer, after she thought he was really trying to help them recover their child, but she was told that they had to pay, so she yells at him. In the end he takes for payment Lae Choo’s jewelry, and they manage to fix the paper for the child.
“Pointing to the lawyer, she cried: “You not one hundred man good; you just common white man.”/ “Yes, ma’am,” returned James Clancy, bowing and smiling ironically” (Sin Far 885)
Summary:
In the Story “In the Land of the Free”, this is Lae Choo answer to the lawyer, after she thought he was really trying to help them recover their child, but she was told that they had to pay, so she yells at him. In the end he takes for payment Lae Choo’s jewelry, and they manage to fix the paper for the child.
Response:
From this passage I can draw some conclusions about who is the “common white man”, according to Lae Choo, who reflects Bonnin’s feelings. First, Lae Choo thought the lawyer was going to help bring “the little one” back, but it was too innocent of her to think that a “common white man” would help her without seeking his own interests. Lae Choo realizes she is like every other American man, no different from the ones who took her baby away. This white man wants to bring the baby back but for a huge amount of money, which Hom Hing doesn’t have, but Clancy doesn’t care about this, because he is playing the role of proposing a solution to the couple’s problem but if they can’t pay, there is nothing he can do about it. Basically, this man has no feelings; he is only there to do business, because he knew the parents were really frustrated and hopeless about getting their baby back, so he will take advantage of this situation to make his own profit.
Furthermore, the fact that the lawyer simply answers “yes ma’am” and the smiles ironically means that he couldn’t care less about what Lae Choo thinks. He is after all a common white man, and he doesn’t care about their situation because they are the ones in trouble; he is only doing his job. Plus, the irony for him would be that he is after all white and they are the immigrants, they do not belong there, so whatever the Chinese woman says to him is meaningless. I think with this passage, Sin Far is clearly showing the position of the Chinese immigrants in the American society by that time.
Furthermore, the fact that the lawyer simply answers “yes ma’am” and the smiles ironically means that he couldn’t care less about what Lae Choo thinks. He is after all a common white man, and he doesn’t care about their situation because they are the ones in trouble; he is only doing his job. Plus, the irony for him would be that he is after all white and they are the immigrants, they do not belong there, so whatever the Chinese woman says to him is meaningless. I think with this passage, Sin Far is clearly showing the position of the Chinese immigrants in the American society by that time.
1 comment:
20/20 Good strong detailed analysis!
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