摘 要

多元文化为美国少数族裔创造了宽松的社会环境，正是在这种社会文化氛围和华裔
美国作家的共同努力下，华裔美国文学在近三十年取得了巨大的发展，成为美国文学的
重要组成部分。1993 年，美国华裔作家伍慧明出版了她的第一部小说《骨》，此书一经
出版便引起轰动，获得评论界和读者的一致好评。《骨》的成功奠定了伍慧明在华裔美
国文学中的地位，使她成为继汤亭亭、谭恩美之后引起广泛关注的华裔美国作家之一。
《骨》讲述了生活在唐人街一家三代的故事。故事以叙述二女儿的自杀开始向我们
揭示了一个普通移民家庭的悲剧，进而折射出华人一个半世纪以来在美国的遭遇。以往
的研究大多关注作品中“骨”这一意象，而忽略了“家”这一重要意象。在后殖民主义
理论中，
“家”是少数族裔身份定位的重要线索。本文以解读此意象为出发点, 运用后殖
民主义的相关理论分析文本，可以对作品有更深刻的解读。
本文共分五章。第一章引言，集中介绍了伍慧明的生平，《骨》的故事梗概，作品
的国内外研究现状和对本篇论文的大致介绍。第二章至第四章是正文部分。第二章首先
简要介绍了关于后殖民主义的基本理论，如后殖民主义的产生，代表人物和影响等，之
后介绍了“家”的传统定义和相关问题，并简要回顾了美国华裔移民的历史和“家”这
一主题在华裔美国文学中的表述。第三章从后殖民主义的观点出发，讨论了“家”在地
理意义和心理意义上的变化。在地理层次上，“家”对于三代人来说是不同的地方：中
国——唐人街——唐人街之外；在心理层次上，“家”的变化即是心态的变化，以王灵
智教授对华裔划分的五种心态为框架来分析里昂一家三代人的“心中之家”的变化。第
四章探讨了“家”这种意义变迁背后复杂的社会、历史和文化因素。首先从历史及社会
状况揭示了华裔美国人在美国所受到的种族歧视，其次从文化角度看，大量中西文化冲
突的存在使老一代华人与新一代的华裔产生不同形式的矛盾和冲突。因此使三代人对
“家”有了不同的选择和定义。第五章是结论部分，总结了论文的主要观点：通过运用
后殖民主义理论，对《骨》中“家”这一意象进行全面分析，凸现了小说的主题，使小
说的寓意更加深刻，同时赋予伍慧明笔下的“家”重要的历史文化内涵。

关键词：家；后殖民主义；身份

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 An Interpretation of the Family Image in Bone from the
Postcolonialist Perspective

Abstract
In a more favorable social environment, Chinese American literature has made great
progress in the last three decades and has become one of the most important parts in the
American literary field. In 1993, Chinese American writer Fae Myenne Ng published her first
novel Bone and achieved an immediate success. This novel got highly praised by the critics
and the readers. Fae Myenne Ng has become one of the new excellent Chinese American
writers after the famous Chinese American writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan.
Bone describes a tragedy of a Chinese immigrant family life in Chinatown. The tragedy
of this family is also a national history of the Chinese American in America over the past
century and a half. The previous studies pay much attention to the image “bone” and neglect
the important image “family”. It can gain a deeper understanding of the novel by interpreting
this image in the postcolonialist theory.
This thesis can be divided into five Chapters. The first chapter is the introduction which
includes the biographical information of Fae Myenne Ng, the plot of Bone, and literature
reviews of this novel. The body consists of three chapters. The second chapter is the
theoretical foundation: first introduces the basic theories of postcolonialism, then a brief
analysis of the traditional definition of family, a history of Chinese American immigrant and
the theme of family in the Chinese American literature. The third chapter discusses the
changes of family on both geographical and psychological levels. On the geographical level,
“family” means different places for the three generations: China; Chinatown; outside of
Chinatown. On the psychological level, Professor Wang Lingchi classifies Chinese American
into five categories. This theoretical framework can be used to analyze the Leongs’
psychological changes. The fourth chapter is the discussion of the reasons of the family
migration. In the historical and social conditions, the Chinese American suffer from the racial
discrimination, and there are many conflicts and contradictions between the two different
cultures and the two generations of Chinese Americans. So the three generations have
different choices of “family”. The last chapter, conclusion, summarizes the thesis and draws a
conclusion. Through a detailed interpretation of the “family” image in Bone from
postcolonialist perspective, the thesis comes to a conclusion that Ng has contributed greatly to
the family issues, which contains deeper cultural and historical implications.

Key Words：Family; Postcolonialism; Identity

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 目 录
摘 要.................................................................. I
Abstract................................................................. II
1 Introduction............................................................ 1
1.1 Fae Myenne Ng ..................................................... 1
1.2 An Introduction to Bone ........................................... 2
1.3 Literature Review ................................................. 3
1.3.1 Literature Review in America................................. 3
1.3.2 Literature Review in China................................... 7
1.4 Significance of the Thesis ........................................ 8
2 Theoretical Foundations ............................................... 10
2.1 A Brief Review of Postcolonialism ................................ 10
2.1.1 The Origins of Postcolonialism.............................. 10
2.1.2 Underlying Theories of Postcolonialism...................... 11
2.1.3 Representative Theorists and Their Perspectives............. 12
2.1.4 Postcolonialist Manifestation in Ng’s Bone ................. 14
2.2 Family Writing ................................................... 14
2.2.1 Chinese Immigrant History................................... 15
2.2.2 Family Writing in Chinese American Literature............... 17
2.2.3 Family Writing in Bone ...................................... 18
3 Family Migrations...................................................... 20
3.1 Geographical Migration of the Family ............................. 20
3.2 Psychological Migration of the Family ............................ 21
3.2.1 Grandpa Leong............................................... 22
3.2.2 Mah and Leon................................................ 22
3.2.3 Leila, Ona and Nina......................................... 24
4 Exploration of the causes of the Family Migration ..................... 27
4.1 Historical and Social Conditions ................................. 27
4.2 Cultural Influence ............................................... 31
4.2.1 Comparison between Chinese Culture and American Culture..... 31
4.2.2 Cultural Conflicts.......................................... 33
5 Conclusion............................................................. 35
References............................................................... 36
Acknowledgements.........................................................３８

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 1 Introduction

1.1 Fae Myenne Ng

Chinese American literature, as an important part of American literature, has gained
more and more attention through the effort of all the Chinese American writers in the past
thirty years. Fae Myenne Ng has become one of the outstanding Chinese American women
writers after the renowned writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan.
Fae Myenne Ng is an American novelist, and short story writer. She was born in 1957
and she grew up in San Francisco Chinatown. Her parents were first—generation immigrants.
Her mother was a sewing lady who made brightly colored fashion items, and sewed
everything from mini-skirts in bright floral prints. Ng had a good relationship with her mother
and often communicated with her. Her father immigrated to the USA in 1940, arriving in
America on the S.S. Coolidge. He worked as a cook for a University of California—Berkeley
fraternity house. Her parents' jobs supported Fae Myenne Ng and her brother to finish their
study. She spoke Cantonese at home and went to the Cumberland Presbyterian Chinese
School. Ng attended the University of California Berkeley and received her Master Degree in
Liberal Arts from the Columbia University School of Arts in 1984. Since1989, she has lived
in Brooklyn, New York where she worked as a waitress and occasionally as a lecturer at UC
Santa Cruz and Berkeley to support her writing. Ng was married to writer Mark Coovelis,
now divorced.
In the early years of her career she had some success in publishing stories, including “A
Red Sweater”, which won a Pushcart Prize in 1987, and her talents had earned her a D.
H .Lawrence Fellowship (1987), her story collection, The First Dead Man and Others,
received the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Award (1988), and
Fellowships from Redcliffe College’s Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute (1988) and the
National Editorial Association (1990). She had also been a resident Fellow at the McDowell
Colony, Yaddo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Djerassi Foundation.
It took more than ten years and many drafts to complete the first novel. In 1993 Fae
Myenne Ng became a national bestselling author with her debut novel Bone, which was based
on the collective experience of generations of Chinese immigrants and her individual life
experience in Chinatown. Ng was rewarded for her efforts with a tremendous amount of
praise and widespread attention from readers and critics. She received many awards for Bone,
such as the Lila Wallace - Reader's Digest Literary Fellowship, the Pushcart Prize, a National
Endowment for the Arts Award, a McDowell Fellowship, and a Fellowship in Literature from
the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In addition, Bone had been included in Pushcart
Prize Anthology, which would be great honor for any writer.
In 2008, Ng proudly returned after a fifteen year hiatus with her second novel entitled
Steer Toward Rock. Ng artistically manages to unveil an intricately beautiful story that
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successfully balances the thorny complexities we experience between troubled love and
maintaining respect for one’s heritage. And though it’s been fifteen years since her first novel,
Fae Myenne Ng has certainly made it well worth the wait.
During her Guggenheim Fellowship term, Fae Myenne Ng will be continuing work on
the third and last installment of her trilogy, tentatively titled Donatella, Getting Away With It.

1.2 An Introduction to Bone

In this moving novel, Fae Myenne Ng takes readers into a common Chinese immigrant
family of three daughters in San Francisco's Chinatown. The plot is very simple. It is a world
in which three generations of the Leong family live in an uneasy tension as they try to find the
cause of the middle daughter Ona's suicide.
Fae Myenne Ng's portraits of the everyday heroism of the Leongs—who impose deep
hurt on each other in struggles to survive, yet sustain one another with loyalty and love—have
made Bone one of the most critically acclaimed novels of recent years and immediately a
classic of contemporary American life.
It is a story of the Leong family, a Chinese immigrant family in San Francisco, Leon,
Mah, and their three American—born daughters—Leila, Ona and Nina, during the period of
the late 1950s to the mid-1980s. .
Leon immigrates to America thanks to Leong, a “paper father” who has no blood relation
to Leon. Leon agrees to sponsor Leong for $5,000 and promises to send Leong’s bones back
to China after his death. Mah comes to America with Dulcie Fu, her ex-husband. When Mah
is pregnant with Leila, Dulcie Fu goes to a new gold mountain in Australia with a promise
that sends for Mah once he settles down in Australia. He never comes back and sends for Mah
and her daughter. After six years, Mah decides to marry Leon for a green card. Then they have
two daughters: Ona and Nina.
The story begins with the middle daughter Ona’s suicide, jumping from the thirteenth
floor of the Nam, a local housing project. Then, the novel describes the different reactions that
the narrator, the eldest sister Leila, her mother, her stepfather and the youngest sister Nina
have to the Ona’s death.
Mah thinks that the tragedy is a punishment on her, for she had affair with her boss
Tommie Hom. Leon feels that Ona’s death because he broke his promise to bring grandpa
Leong’s bones back to China. Leila, the eldest sister and the narrator becomes the pillar of her
family after Ona’s death. Nina, the youngest sister，escapes to New York and works as a flight
attendant. The sisters believe that they could have stopped Ona’s death if they had had one
more conversation with her. At last, the family have worked through the tragedy. They accept
the death of Ona and learn to live with it.

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1.3 Literature Review
Since the publication of Bone, it has received the hot reaction from the readers and
periodicals，Ng and Bone have been the focus of the critical circle. Comparatively speaking,
the study of Ng in China more lags behind than that in America. But now we can also find a
large number of articles on Ng and her works in scholarly journals.
1.3.1 Literature Review in America
Besides the enthusiastic reaction from the readers and periodicals, there have been
countless critical articles to this novel in America since the Bone was published. Most of the
critics focused on the theme, character, setting, and style of this novel. With the literary
approaches been diversified, this novel has been explored from different angles, such as
feminism, psychological studies, etc.
Sau—ling Wong, an associate professor of Asian American studies of University of
California and University of Berkeley, predicts Bone as an “instant classic” and a “stunning
novel, a work of great wisdom and compassion” regarding life in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
She also says that “It is simple in the way that Mozart’s music is simple: entire lifetimes of
living, suffering, and loving have gone into the crafting of everyday words into profound,
artless-seeming art…Fae Myenne Ng is an amazing writer”. (Ng 1993: ii)
James P. Draper maintains that Bone is one of the best novels in Asian American
Literature:

Hard criticisms exist side by side with sympathetic comments. Many critics
think that Bone chronicles the haunted lives of the Leong family as it explores
the myth and mystery that pervade Chinese — American culture in San
Francisco's Chinatown. Johnson Pamela argues that the novel chronicles a
believable journey through pain to healing, exposing the emotional scars—the
bleeding hearts and aching kinship bones—of its characters as they try to
survive. In fact, in this profoundly moving novel, Fae Myenne Ng takes readers
into the hidden heart of San Francisco's Chinatown, to a world of family secrets,
hidden shames, and the lost bones of a ‘paper father’. (Draper 1993)

(1) Periodicals’ Reviews

Orlando Sentinel acclaims Bone that “Sometimes the best, most artful stories are those
told in the simplest language. Such is the case with Bone… a novel as spare, clean, and lovely
as its title”. (Ng 1993: i) For compared with Maxine Hong Kingston who loves to combine
Chinese myth, folklore and classics with the Americans’ reality and intentionally incorporates
Chinese language or Chinese Americans’ speaking of pidgin English in the novel, Ng’s

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writing style is more simple and real.
Publishers Weekly reviews that it “makes a stunning debut” when introducing Bone. (Ng
1993: i)
The New York Times praises that “[Bone is an] incantatory first novel… [Ms. Ng] is
blessed with a poet’s gift for metaphor and a reporter’s eye for detail. Ms. Ng writes with
grace, authority and grit”. (Ng 1993: i)
San Francisco Bay Guardian comments that “Ng raises the stakes for Asian—American
literature and makes a bid for the arrival of a major American voice… Bone is a pioneer
work”. (Ng 1993: i)
A positive review from Academic research Library that “Ng handles all this anguish in
an admirably no—frills style, remaining conversational without succumbing to minimalistic
blight” and discusses that “Ng’s simplicity conveys the sensation of being suspended between
two cultures and two languages”. (Ng 1993: i)
Liberal Journal, an influential magazine in America, says that “in sharp contrast to the
overdramatized lives of Chinese American in Amy Tan’s work, Ng’s simply written first novel
is totally without sensationalism. Yet because her characters are depicted so realistically, the
reader cannot but be moved by the hopes, grief, and quarrels of two generations of Chinese
Americans in San Francisco’s Chinatown”. (Ng 1993: i)
A review in Global Boston has estimated Bone, “this type of prosaic style with stable but
unaffected from presents its gritty strength, thus exactly declaring the naissance of an
unprecedented talent in American literary world”. (Lin 2007)
A comment from Washington Post has valued it, “Ng creates a simple but graceful work,
with rays of light of imagination and keenness”. (Lin 2007)
(2) The Traditional Approaches
With traditional approaches, the critics mainly focus on the varied themes and the
characters of this novel.
Michiko Kakutani sees the cultural and the generational conflict inherent in the
immigration experience as a central theme of the story. Kakutani points out that all three
sisters “feel at once suffocated by Mah and Leon’s provincialism and guilty about the
freedoms and luxuries they take for granted as young American women; at once resentful of
their parents’ enslavement to the past and wistful about the history that eludes them here in
the United States”. (Nelson 2000: 264)
Heather Ross Miller believes that Bone puts on trial a false American dream. “To be
American, our national dream insists, is to live redeemed, and freed from a burdensome past”.
However, the novel shows to us what is sacrificed in the process of becoming an American,
just as what Ng says “the personal and spiritual cost of leaving one life in order to make
another”. (Nelson 2000: 265)
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 David Leiwei Li in Imagining the Nation: Asian American Literature and Culture
Consent sees the geographic dispersal of Chinese Americans and what residential locations
indicate “social position and individual disposition”. (Li 1998)
Cristina Garcia acclaims the novel for getting “the profound loneliness at the heart of
immigration experience, of the immigrant family itself—a cutting off from the past, a furious
remaking of the present, febrile hopes for the future”. (Nelson 2000: 264) However, she
thinks that Ona is not adequately developed in the story. Although much of the story revolves
around the aftermath of Ona’s suicide, and although Leila spends much time analyzing the
event, “Ona remains a cipher throughout, barely convincing even as a memory”.
Allen Gee demonstrates that Leila, the central character, the narrator “I” “creates a
distinguishable hierarchy based on her attempt to find a center that is neither too Chinese nor
too American, thus informing us of the complexity of Chinese American consciousness”. (Gee
2004) He stresses that “to deconstruct any narrative’s hierarchies in order to expose the values
of a center is by no means an indictment”.(Gee 2004) So he argues that in order to reveal
“how the construct of Leila’s character orders and reinforces a hierarchy or informs us a
Chinese American consciousness is to decipher the meaning or comprehend the dynamics of
an ethnic space, as well as to examine identity formation”.(Gee 2004)
Richard Eder, the editor of the Los Angeles Times. For Eder, the strength and surprise of
the book are the portraits of Mah and Leon. On one hand, Leon and Mah are “real rebels”
(Nelson 2000: 264) against the past. Mah and Leon come to American in search of a better
life, and they toil at menial jobs to provide their children more opportunities. They also rebel
against their marriage of convenience in their own ways. Leon’s seafaring journeys and his
moving into the bachelor hotel are ways of escaping from its troubles. Mah’s affair with her
boss is an unconscious protest. On the other hand, Eder thinks that Mason Louie, Leila’s
boyfriend, is “facile and sentimental”. He is “a perfect prince”. (Nelson 2000:264)
Frederick Luis Aldama argues that how the characters try to re-imagine and re—live the
co—modified space of Chinatown.
(3) New Criticism
The new critics emphasized on the work itself. Influenced by this trend, some critics
began to pay attention to the language and style.
Thomas W. Kim studies subjectivity and authenticity in Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone. He
thinks that Bone frustrates “readers’ assumptions of ethnic identity and experience, placing
rhetorical and narrative obstacles in the way of easy identification and interpretation”.(Kim
1999) Kim says that “by depicting the contingent historical and political process by which
Asian American subjects are constituted, the novel challenges the stability and coherence of
identity”.(Kim 1999)He also claims that authenticity is uncovered to be a social and political
construction rather than reaffirm notions of self-identity and respect for presumably stable and
determinate cultural differences and states that the novel enables a critique of hegemonic
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definitions of legitimacy.
Louis B. Jones comments that what makes Bone authentic are its “ambivalence and
ambiguities far removed from the good—against—evil moral structure one finds in the
traditional tales of older societies”. (Nelson 2000:265) He also has reviewed the spare and
minimal style of the novel, Bone has “the sort of profound restraint that first strikes the
readers as deceptively simple, but on closer inspection, it seems an example of that rarer
quality, simplicity itself”. Suzanne Samuel also agrees that “Ng is a master storyteller. Her gift
for observation and language makes Bone truly extraordinary”. (Nelson 2000:265)
Lisa Lowe shows great interest in the novel’s technique and structure. One feature of the
novel is the reverse chronology of the narrative. She declares that the structure is employed in
the novel for thematic purposes. The structure motivates the readers to continue reading until
they find the culprit and the cause of the crime. That is, the beginning of the book seems to
suggest that the discord in the Leong family is the result of Ona’s suicide, but as we read on,
we realize that the discord precedes the death. “When the event of the suicide is at last
reached, it dissolves, apprehensible not as an origin but as a symptom of Leong family’s
collective condition.” (Nelson 2000: 265)
Donald C. Goellnicht comments suicide in Bone as “a trope of the failure to negotiate
hybrid subjectivities” (Goellnicht 2000) in Of Bone and Suicide: Sky Lee’s Disappearing
Moon Café and Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone.
Julie Sze analyses the gossip’s meanings in both destructive and therapeutic aspects;
Nicole Waller explores how food imagery functions as means to retrieve or create
alternative histories.
Shuchen Susan Huang remarks “how mobility redefines and reconfigures ‘home’”.
(4) Additional Approaches
Some researchers tried to interpret this novel from completely different aspects.
Phillipa Kafka, the American scholar and her critical work (Un)Ding the Missionary
Position: Gender Asymmetry in Contemporary Asian American Women’s Writing are very
useful for doing research in Asian American literature. In this book, Kafka places Fae Myenne
Ng’s Bone in a sequence of contemporary Asian American women’s literature influenced by
Second Wave feminism. She thinks that Bone as an allegory through which Ng “links
personal and family problems to historical and political ones, primarily gender and race
asymmetry”. (Kafka 1997:51)She also considers that the parents can free themselves from the
abuses of gender asymmetry and Leila’s feminist behavior of “leaving the past behind when it
is appropriate” is the proper way rather than Nina’s postfeminist one of “ignoring it by fleeing
it entirely”(Kafka 1997: 77) from studying the “gender and race asymmetry” and the
allegorical meanings in Bone. The most important is that she cites Esther Ngan—Ling Chow’s
categorization of binary opposites that create cultural dilemma for “traditionally oriented
Asian American women”. Kafka believes that women experience a series of binaries as
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“obedience vs. independence, collective vs. individual interest, fatalism vs. change, and self—
control vs. spontaneity”. She argues that Bone speaks as both a private and national allegory
criticizing Chinatown and society in general for “intolerance of difference” (Kafka 1997:52)
and exclusivity. That is to say, she contends that either “the blending of two cultures” or a
wholeness that overcomes oppositions to achieve “a unitary self” can fully account for Ng’s
women character’s experience of and response to oppositions. She concludes that Bone as the
female characters’ syncretism of terms in problematic binaries.
Dinae C. LeBlanc teaches women’s studies, literature, and creative writing at the
University of Wyoming. She has examined neologism as oppositional language in Bone with
the focus on the diction of the word “backdaire”(Ng 1993: 194) and “updaire”(Ng 1993:193)
at the end of the novel. She asserts that the neologism suggests self—affirmation that
transcends a compromise of patriarchal signifiers through new language specific to a Chinese
American woman at a given moment when she has no other language to express her
experience. The mode of self-affirmation in Bone refuses to be distributed to the mode of
either one pole or the other pole; it tries to found a new language and a new perspective to
surpass the binaries opposition. The use of “backdaire” is a rejection of Chinese and English
as discreet languages, suggesting the need for a blended language to reflect difference. Ng’s
women characters have invented a new language out of these oppositions to rename and
account for the experience that uniquely their own. LeBlanc also claims that the feminist or
Postfeminist binary is nothing but recreation of hegemonic structure. The outcome of Leila’s
renaming is ambiguous, but “backdaire” is the germ of an oppositional language with power
to challenge hegemonic discourse. (LeBlance 2000)
Juliana Chang employs Freud’s theory of melancholia to reveal the “encrypted secret of
racialized labor exploitation”. (Chang 2005)
1.3.2 Literature Review in China
In the domestic critical circle, compared with that of some other famous Chinese
American literature such as Maxine Hong Kingston’s Women Worrier: Memories of a
Girlhood among Ghost (1976) and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1989), Bone and Ng have
not caught enough attention of both critics and readers in China, perhaps for the late
publication of Bone. For Bone comes out late in the end of last century, the research work on
Bone begins rather late in China. But luckily, it still gets its deserved attention among readers
and critics, many readers and critics have attached importance to the book in recent years.
In Taiwan, the well—known writer and critic Guo Qiangsheng praises, “Personally I
think Bone is the most important work in contemporary Chinese American literature. If we
still believe that a great novel must convey the weight of life and the naturalness of literary
works is the criteria for assessing a work, Ng’s Bone is definitely better than her peer’s
works”. (Guo 2007)

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 In mainland China, many reviewers also show their great interest in Bone.
Most of reviewers analyze the novel from the perspective of cultural identity. Zhao Yan
in her postgraduate thesis criticizes the culture assimilation mode of “Melting Pot” and
advocates multiculturalism from the process of Leila’s self-identification and her strategies
that result from a confused cultural identity. Qin Taojiao argues that the main characters had
been experiencing identity crises which are epitomized in the event of Ona’s death and have
ultimately negotiated a hybrid Chinese American identity by working through the trauma with
the theory of trauma. (Qin 2006) Professor Lu Wei discusses Bone from the feminist and
postcolonial perspective to the self, national and cultural identities of Chinese Americans. In
addition, she also tries to challenge Philipa Kafka’s categorization of binary oppositions, she
believes what Ng represents is a new generation of Chinese American women who are
different from their predecessors. (Lu 2002) Liu Qinli studies the sufferings of the first and
second—generation Chinese Americans with the confrontation of the conflicts and confusion
between American and Chinese cultures and presents how the Chinese Americans find their
own identity in American society in Bone.(Liu 2005)
Some reviewers pay attention to the text structure and narrative characteristics in Bone.
Wang Li studies Ng’s narrative strategy of anachronies and duration. She assumes that
alternations of the past and the present is the main feature which also reveal the situation of
the Chinese American who live in modern America but inevitable indulge in the memory of
the past. Furthermore, she praises that the handling of the narrative time implies the choice of
Leila toward the balance between Chinese and American culture.(Wang 2007) Lu Jun
attempts to study the structural features in Bone. He discusses the point radiation structural
type that Ng uses and thus building up the image of bones, which consistent with the
implication of novel. (Lu 2006)
Other reviewers analyze the images in Bone. Li Hong studies different characters and
finds that Ng has made up an ideal cultural image for people who caught between two worlds.
(Li 2006) Yu Xiaoxia explores the male characters and analyzes their attitudes toward life and
cultural identity in Bone. (Yu 2006)

1.4 Significance of the Thesis

Fae Myenne Ng’s first novel Bone is very popular after its publication. People begin to
pay special attention to this novel and have made varied comments when it came out. From
the above analysis, we can see that critics at home and abroad have pointed out certain aspects
of the novel which broadened our horizons, and were very helpful to our understanding of this
work. Many reviews have been presented, but Bone is still worthy of further analysis. Bone
surely will provoke more study in future.
Based on the achievements of critics both at home and abroad, my thesis intends to
analyze the novel according to postcolonialism perspective. Of course, some studies have

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been made to interpret the novel from this aspect. However, the previous studies pay much
attention on the image “bone” and neglect the important image “family”. In Bone, the changes
of “family” on geographical and psychological level indicate the different identities of the
three generations and reveal the complex social, cultural and psychological factors. In
postcolonial theory, family has multiple meanings in language, social, and cultural aspects. It
is an important clue to establish identity. In the postcolonial society, family is the identity of
the ethnic minority, who suffered the bitter from physical and psychological dislocation, only
family can provide them with the sense of belonging and dignity.
This thesis tries to explore the themes of Bone from the perspective of postcolonialism
that is based on the cultural and historical background of Chinese immigration. In order to
present a better understanding of the novel, efforts will be made to give a thorough and
detailed interpretation of the “family” image. The following chapters will show how to
interpret the “family” image in the novel from postcolonialism.
Chapter two concentrates on the theoretical foundation—postcolonialism. The author
will give a general introduction to postcolonialism, including the origins, the main arguments
and how it manifests in Bone. In addition, this chapter also introduces the family writing in
Chinese American literature. The third chapter discusses the changes of family on both
geographical and psychological levels. The fourth chapter is the discussion and analysis of the
reasons of the family migration. It includes the historical and social conditions and the
cultural influences. The last chapter summarizes the thesis and draws a conclusion.

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2 Theoretical Foundations
As the thesis attempts to analyze the image “family” in Bone from the perspective of
postcolonilism, it’s necessary to introduce some of the main theories before going further.
Postcolonialism is an academic trend of strong political characteristics and with the color
of cultural criticism in the western academic circles. It is mainly a discourse between suzerain
and ex-colony and it is one of the most concerned and rapidly expanding fields of literary and
cultural theory at the turn of the century. In postcolonialism, “family” is an important clue to
study the identity of ethnic minorities. Starting from interpret the “family” image within
postcolonialsm that can gain a deeper understanding of Bone.

2.1 A Brief Review of Postcolonialism

First of all, it should give a clear explanation about colonialism and postcolonialism.
Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous majority and minority of foreign invaders.
The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and
implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant
metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are
convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule. Postcolonialism is a
specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of,
the cultural legacy of colonialism. Postcolonialism comprises a set of theories found amongst
philosophy, film, political science, human geography, sociology, feminism, religious and
theological studies, and literature. Postcolonialism also refers to the ways in which race,
ethnicity, culture, and human identity itself are represented in the modern era, after many
colonized countries gained their independence. Some critics use the term to refer to all culture
and cultural products influenced by imperialism from the moment of colonization until today.
In the last few decades, postcolonialism has taken its place with other theories as a major
critical discourse. The term postcolonialism have several meanings. Generally speaking, it
means the study of culture groups, practices, and discourses in the colonized world.
As a literary theory or critical approach, it involves the analysis of literary texts and other
cultural discourses that emerged after the end of the colonial period or after the economic and
cultural success that was made in response and resistance to colonialism. It deals with
literature produced in countries that once were colonies of other countries and literature
written by the citizen in colonial countries and has colonized people as its subject matter. It
focuses on how the colonizing culture twist the experience and realities of the colonized
people’s try to reestablished their identity and declare their past.
2.1.1 The Origins of Postcolonialism
By the middle of the twentieth century, the vast majority of the world was under the
control of European countries. At one time, Great Britain, for example, ruled almost 50
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percent of the world. After the two World Wars, European powers formally withdrew from the
colonized countries, countries such as India, Jamaica, Nigeria, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Canada,
and Australia won independence. But the West’s control still persisted. A number of newly
independent states’ and less developed countries’ freedom is constrained due to the newer
forms of economic and cultural colonialism. As a result, with the spread of cultural and
economic globalization, native ethnic cultures have been marginalized and destroyed. The
literature and art produced in these countries after independence, which emerged as a
challenge to this tradition and legacy of colonialism, has become the object of “Postcolonial
Studies”.
The beginnings of postcolonialism can be traced back to the 1950s, when France ended
its long entanglement with Indochina; Alfred Sauvy coined the term “third world”. In the
1960s, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, George Lamming, and other critics began to publish
texts which become the foundation of postcolonial writings. At the end of the 1970s,
postcolonialism came into being, with the publication of Palestinian-American scholar
Edward Said’s Orientalism, which is a seminal text for postcolonial studies and has spawned
a host of theories on the subject. In the late 1980s the term postcolonialism first appeared in
academic journals and as a subtitle in Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin’s text
The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literature (1989). In 1990s,
the term had firmly established in scholarly writing, it had become the focus of attention in
the field of critical theories, especially in the field of literary criticism.
2.1.2 Underlying Theories of Postcolonialism
The form of postcolonialism owes much to other theories such as Marxism,
Poststructuralism, feminism and postmodernism. Particularly, Antonio Gramsci’s “cultural
hegemony”, Franz Fanon’s distinguished idea of “Ethnic Culture”, and Michel Foucault’s
discourse theory, are three major sources of postcolonialism.
Antonio Gramsci is an Italian writer, politician, political theorist, linguist and
philosopher. Gramsci is seen by many as one of the most important Marxist thinkers of the
twentieth century, in particular as a key thinker in the development of Western Marxism. He is
renowned for his concept of cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the state in a
capitalist society. Gramsci suggested that capitalism maintained control not just through
violence and political and economic coercion, but also ideologically, through a hegemonic
culture in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the common sense value of all. For
Gramsci, hegemonic dominance ultimately relied on coercion, and in a crisis of authority the
masks of consent slip away, revealing the fist of force.
Frantz Omar Fanon is a French psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and author. He is
known as the father of contemporary postcolonialism. His works remain influential in the
field of postcolonial studies and critical theory and have incited and inspired anti—colonial
liberation movements for more than four decades. Fanon’s ideas on colonial culture are
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mostly expressed in Black Skin, White Masks (1952). In this book, Fanon uses psychoanalysis
to explain the feelings of dependency and insufficient that Black people live in a White world.
As a result, the Black people will try to imitate the cultural code of the colonizer. Fanon has
touched upon many key concepts of postcolonialism. “Race” becomes a social rather than
biological category, the classification being the articulation of popular beliefs held by people
about others after Fanon’s analysis. Another concept is identity. It is an ideological construct
designed to support and to consolidate imperialist definition of selfhood.
Michel Foucault is a French philosopher, sociologist, and historian. Foucault is best
known for his critical studies of social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, the
human sciences, and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human
sexuality. His writings on power, knowledge, and discourse have been widely discussed and
taken up by others. Foucault's discussions on power and discourse are often drawn upon by
critical theorists. In The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault argues that a given discourse is
a reflection of power structures and that what one deems to be truth or valid knowledge is
based upon the discourse of that time. The critical theorist seeks to uncover power structures
in order to strive for equality. By using discourse analysis, power structures may be uncovered
and analyzed for their truth claims. This is one of the ways that Foucault's work is linked to
critical theory.
2.1.3 Representative Theorists and Their Perspectives
The most influential postcolonial theorists are Edward Said, Homi bhabha and Gayatri
Chakravotry Spivak. Robert Young addresses the three figures as “The Holy Three
Musketeers” of postcolonialism in Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race.
B.M. Gilbert claims that postcolonial theories are works of Said, Bhabha and Spivak. They
take different approaches to the postcolonialism and offer a solid theoretical foundation for
the analysis of postcolonial texts.
Edward Wadie Said is a Palestinian—American literary theorist and a founding figure in
postcolonialism. He is an influential cultural critic and author, known best for his book
Orientalism (1978), which presented his influential ideas on Orientalism, the Western study of
Eastern cultures. Orientalism has an influence on the fields of literary theory, cultural studies
and human geography, and to an extent on those of history and oriental studies. Said claims
that Western writings on the East and the perceptions of the East are suspect. According to
Said, the history of European colonial rule and political domination over the East distorts the
writings of the most knowledgeable, well—meaning and sympathetic Western Orientalist.
Said makes a conclusion that Western writings on the Orient describe it as an irrational, weak,
feminized “Other”, compared with the rational, strong, masculine West, a comparison he
suggests derives from the demand to create difference between West and East that can be
attribute to enduring essences in the Oriental make-up.

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 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an Indian literary critic and theorist. She is famous for the
article “Can the Subaltern Speak?”(1985), regarded as a founding text of postcolonialism,
and the book In Other Worlds (1988). Spivak is perhaps best known for her political use of
contemporary cultural and critical theories to challenge the legacy of colonialism on the way
readers engage with literature and culture. She concentrates on the cultural text of those who
are marginalized by dominant western culture: the new immigrant, the working class, women
and the postcolonial subject. She carries out a series of historical studies and literary critiques
of imperialism and feminism. By championing the voices and texts of minority groups,
Spivak has challenged some of the dominant ideas of the contemporary era. Such ideas
include, for example, the notion that the western world is more civilized, democratic and
developed than the non—western world, and that the present, postcolonial era is more modern
and progressive than the earlier historical period of European colonialism in the nineteenth
century.
Homi Bhabha is one of the most important figures in contemporary postcolonial studies.
Bhabha's postcolonial theory owes much to poststructuralism, include Jacques Derrida’s
deconstruction; Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis; and the works of Michel Foucault. Bhabha
also says that Edward Said is the writer who has influenced his thoughts most. His thoughts
are mainly expressed in his masterpiece The Location of Culture (1994). In this book, he coins
a number of the new terms and key concepts, for example, hybridity, mimicry, difference,
ambivalence and so on. These terms describe ways in which colonized people have resisted
the power of the colonizer.One of his central ideas is that of "hybridity," which describes the
emergence of new cultural forms from multiculturalism. Instead of seeing colonialism as
something locked in the past, Bhabha shows how its histories and cultures constantly intrude
on the present, demanding that we transform our understanding of cross—cultural relations.
Bhabha develops the notion of hybridity to “the Third Space”, which effects the ‘hybrid’
moment of political change. Here the transformational value of change lies in the
rearticulation, or translation, of elements that are neither the One, nor the Other, but
something else besides, which contests the terms and territories of both.
From what has been mentioned above, the ultimate aim of postcolonialism is contesting
the residual effects of colonialism on culture. It is not simply concerned with salvaging past
worlds, but learning how the world can move beyond this period together, towards a place of
mutual respect. Postcolonialists perceive that some logics of colonialism are still active today.
Exposing and deconstructing the stereotype of viewing Western culture as the mainstream
culture of humanity will remove the power of persuasion and coercion. Postcolonialism is a
hopeful discourse. The “post” refers to ‘after colonialism began’; it defines the discipline as
one looks forwards to a world that has moved beyond all that colonialism “legacy”. Asking
what it means to be human, postcolonialism aims at decolonizing the future.

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2.1.4 Postcolonialist Manifestation in Ng’s Bone
After 1980s, there appears a new group of Chinese American writers, for example, David
Wong Louis, Gus Lee, Gish Jen, Fae Myenne Ng and so on. They concerned with the
relationship of racial majority and minority, individuals and society, and the real living
conditions of Chinese American that may be a bit different from Maxine Hong Kingston and
Amy Tan.
In Bone, Fae Myenne Ng describes the miserable destiny of three generations of a
Chinese American family that have been struggled for survival in America. By dating from
the location of grandfather’s remained bone, Ng attempts to analyze several generations’ fate
based on the review of history. The story in Bone is simple, but it can be extended the rough
life experience of individuals to family and even nations. It is an important measure in the
context of postcolonialism to explore the reality of national history, so rereading and rewriting
the true story of minorities exclusive from the mainstream society which is different from the
official version of history, and remodeling the cultural identity of minority and nation. The
characters in the story are the minorities in society and the marginal people. It is another
characteristic of postcolonialism to make the silenced social groups sound and the concealed
history appear in public by criticizing on the mainstream discourse and the major social
communities.
This thesis will try to analysis some problems of the novel on the previous study
achievements from the perspective of postcoloialism. First, the novel will be explored along
the social and historical development in the ethnic groups and the mainstream American
society. Then, the fiction will be explored on the level of psychological aspect of the main
character for the contemporary postcolonialism emphasize on the psychological problems.
Ng lays much stress on the past history in order to establish Chinese Americans’ cultural
identity. The task of postcolonialists is to recover the history and cultural identities hidden by
colonialism. The Chinese American writers try to locate their place in the past to make a place
in future.

2.2 Family Writing

What is a family? In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by
consanguinity, affinity, or co—residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the
socialization of children. Extended from the human “family unit” by affinity, economy,
culture, tradition, honor, and friendship are concepts of family that are metaphorical, or that
grow increasingly inclusive extending to nationhood and humanism.
There are also concepts of family that break with tradition within particular societies, or
those that are transplanted via migration to flourish or else cease within their new societies.
As a unit of socialisation and a basic institution key to the structure of society, the family is
the object of analysis for sociologists of the family. Genealogy is a field which aims to trace
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family lineages through history. In science, the term “family” has come to be used as a means
to classify groups of objects as being closely and exclusively related. In the study of animals
it has been found that many species form groups that have similarities to human
“family”-often called “packs”.
Nowadays, American families are more racial and ethnic diversity than ever before, and
most of this diversity results from the immigration. In the 1960s, multiculturalism arose in
American, as a result of the Civil Rights movements, anti-war campaigns, women’s liberation
movements and so on. Multiculturalism gained momentum in the 1970s and 1980s. In the
1990s multiculturalism became a dominant social force. The popularity of multiculturalism is
largely owed to the fact that white people are no longer the majority. By contrast, the other
ethnic groups are rapidly and constantly flow into American with their diverse cultural
practices of their countries of origins. Such the discourse of American multiculturalism
represents a progress over the monoculturalism because it allows for some free social space to
practice own culture. Therefore the Euro-centric cultural hegemony has been challenged by
any other voices.
The Chinese American literature as a new part of American literature depicts the Chinese
Americans’ confusion about their identity. To solve this puzzlement, we can first look at the
family images portrayed in the Chinese American literature.
Family has always held a high place in Chinese culture and consequently, has held an
important place in Chinese American culture. Chinese civilizations, where the majority of the
first Chinese American immigrants originated from, were agriculturally based economies. The
family was the means by which people survived, as running a farm required a significant
number of people to fulfill the variety of daily chores. The family remained an important part
of Chinese culture throughout the centuries and always held prominent place, from the spread
of Confucianism and Taoism, to the importation and distribution of Buddhism.
2.2.1 Chinese Immigrant History
It is necessary to contextualize Chinese American literature and throw a light on the
certain historical periods which witness the miserable life of the Chinese immigrants had
lived in their history in America since 1789, in order to find out the way of family writing in
Chinese America literature.
The first generation of Chinese came to this land, America, that was so distant from their
own, to escape poverty and find their fortunes. This first generation, who were almost
exclusively men, were men of a different sort; they had the will and the courage to leave
insulated and isolated societies to a place of unparalleled diversity and uncertainty—a land
that was fabled to be one of immeasurable wealth and prosperity. But reality was harsh—they
found instead a dangerous life made harder by racism.
In the mid—nineteenth century, the “gold rush” started Chinese migration to the America.

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The America appeared as a promised land to the early Chinese. They traveled to California,
the “Gold Mountain”, from across the Pacific in order to improve their social and economic
status. They came to America with the “American Dream”. But the reality was opposite to
their belief. They found that the America was not a promised land and the “American dream”
was an illusion. It was difficult to earn a livelihood, let alone to make a fortune. What they
confronted with was cruel racial discrimination, the Chinese immigrants suffered severe
exploitation and prejudice, and they were nothing but cheap laborers. They were despised in
terms of pay and forced to work under extreme conditions. White workers regarded them as
economic competitors and racial inferiors; thereby the anti-Chinese sentiments rose and
stimulated the passage of discriminatory laws against the Chinese. In 1882, the Chinese
Exclusion Act was passed; Chinese were prevented from immigrating to US.
Between 1910 and 1940 many Chinese immigrants were detained illegally on the Angel
Island Immigration Station, near San Francisco and suffering shameful physical examinations.
As a result, some Chinese immigrants committed suicide for such humiliation; others began to
carve poems on the barracks walls to express their feelings. Among these poems, family was
one of the main themes. Those poems were translated and published in the collection of
Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island 1910-1940(1980) by Him
Mark Lai, Judy Yung, and Genny Lim.
It can not be denied that today’s prosperity in the America was closely related to first
generation Chinese immigrants: the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, the
plantations of Hawaii, the vineyards of California and so on. But unfortunately, the American
attempted to write the Chinese out of history and cast Chinese away from the mainstream
society.
Still, many of Chinese endured and settled in America, never returning to their homeland.
For lacking of acceptance and hardships served to intensify the overseas Chinese men’s
longing for their homeland. But laws prevented many from bringing over the families they
had left in their native lands and it was illegal to intermarry with other races. The law
confined huge numbers of single men to inner city, ethnic ghettoes. Early Chinese America
was essentially a bachelor society. The 1852 census of the continental United States counted a
ratio of 1700 Chinese men for every 1 Chinese woman.
One of the direct results of discrimination against and neglect of the Chinese minority in
the America was the development of an organizational network that functioned as a substitute
for normal family life. Chinese immigrants began to build their own communities in U.S.—
Chinatowns. It seems reasonable to conclude that they turned to internal community because
they received few benefits, rights, or privileges under American law and social structures.
Bound together by their social status as a despised minority, tied by tradition and common
beliefs and interests, the Chinese immigrants constructed a world based on social solidarity
between families and clans to protect themselves in a cold or hostile environment. This
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community provided them with a sense of belonging that they could derive nowhere else. It is
not difficult to recognize that Chinatown plays the role of a big family for Chinese immigrants
and it provides rich source for Chinese American writers. Therefore, the Chinese American
family life in Chinatown becomes one of the most important topics in Chinese American
literature
2.2.2 Family Writing in Chinese American Literature
Family writing is the main theme in many Chinese American writers’ work, for example,
Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chinese Daughter (1945), Louis Chu’s Eat a Bowl of Tea (1961),
Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior (1976), and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club
(1989) and so on.
Jade Snow Wong’s autobiography Fifth Chinese Daughter tells a story of a hardworking
Chinese American girl. In the book, it describes her struggle to attain individuality apart from
her family and her acceptance of attitudes ascribed to the Chinese American minority.
Although efforts at individual independence from family control are common to young adults,
Wong’s particular situation as an American—born Chinese meant that she is also needed to
conciliate the apparent differences between her own racial identity and the non—Chinese
world. Wong’s solution is to utilize her familiarity as an American—born Chinese with non—
Chinese world to gain status and strength in the eyes of her Chinese family and community
while at the same time using her Chinese background in such a way as to win as much
acceptance as possible from non-Chinese American. Wong explores that her own family life is
frugal, restrained and disciplined, contrasts with the world outside Chinatown, where
affection, creativity, and personal feelings are welcomed and encouraged. Wong’s attitude
towards mainstream society is an expression of her desire to escape from her family and
community. But her freedom from the limitation of her Chinese family is based on her
Chinese identity.
Eat a Bowl of Tea is Louis Chu’s only novel, which presenting a real picture of a
bachelor society in Chinatown during 1940s and 1950s. Chu maintains his interest in the
understanding of the conditions of life in the Chinatown bachelor society throughout his life.
He gives special attention to the effects on the Chinatown brought about by its transformation
from a bachelor society to a family society after 1949. The novel provides us with a
compassionate portrait of daily life, manners, attitudes, and problems in the Chinatown
community told from the viewpoints of the laundrymen and waiters. Chu reveals the flaws in
Chinatown life and identifies with the new Chinese community coming into being. The
novel’s theme is revelation and discovery. Illusions are shattered and old patterns are
challenged. The strength of the Chinatown is found in their human relationships, which have
made their survival among danger, poverty, and hostility. It is in this community that they will
build their new future life in America. The novel was rediscovered in the early 1970s, when

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nine years after Chu’s death. The young Chinese American writers value the book for its
dramatic documentation and uneuphemized portrait of Chinatown life, not from the
perspective of an aristocratic outsider but from the viewpoint of one of those who lived it.
Maxine Hong Kingston’s masterpiece The Woman Warrior tells the family story in old
times and in present time, stressing reestablishing female image and sorting out a Chinese
American identity. The Woman Warrior is a landscape of the consciousness and experience of
the contemporary American—born daughter of Chinese immigrant parents. It is bout women,
but it is mainly about the Chinese American attempt to reconcile to the conditions that shape
her life as a member of a minority group in America. In The Woman Warrior secret among the
Chinese has been made by tough and discriminatory immigration laws. Chinese immigrants
change their names and lie about their ages, even making their lives incomprehensible to their
children who born in America. In many Chinese immigrant families, parents do not explain
their behavior and practices to their children, who find themselves forced to learn about
Chinese practices. Practices become confusing when customs are observed in a new social
environment, so the American—born Chinese children lose their interest in understanding
Chinese traditions. To the author, China is a place her parents call “home”, where the parents
intend to take them finally. But the author doesn’t want to go back to China, where she has
never been.
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club explores the confusions of young daughters’ attempting to
come term with conflicting self—images through the mother—daughter relationship, which is
the crucial relationship in family systems and the central theme in Amy Tan’s novels. The Joy
Luck Club is composed of stories of four pairs of mothers and daughters, of different
nationalities and different historical periods. Tan says she tries to call attention to and put
emphasis on the multiplicity and diversity of mother—daughter bonds within the Chinatown,
instead of focusing on one pair and characterizing the two as representative. In the novel,
there are a variety of families that require a concrete analysis in terms of race, class, and
culture. In American society, its racism and cultural hegemony are strained and severed the
ties between Chinese immigrant mothers and American-born daughters. Unless the
assimilated daughters reconnect with mother, their racial and cultural identity will be
fragmented and incomplete. Furthermore, mother-daughter’s reconnection will empower them
to cope with patriarchal oppression and male dominance. Therefore, in this novel, Tan
succeeds in calling the reader’s attentions to the significance of culture, race, and gender in
shaping the context where the mother-daughter relationship occurs and comes into play.
2.2.3 Family Writing in Bone
In Bone, Fae Myenne Ng takes readers into the hidden heart of San Francisco’s
Chinatown, to a world of family secrets, hidden shames, and the lost bones of a “paper father”.
The novel is a story about a Chinese immigrant family, a story of the family escaping
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Chinatown and going back to Chinatown and a story of losing and reuniting family.
In Bone, the Leong family is more complicated and intricate than any other Chinese
immigrant families. It is generally recognized that a normal family is biologically connected,
that is, the family members ties to each other by blood. But the Leong family is called
“make-do” family, for Grandpa Leong is unrelated to any member of the family biologically
and Leila is not the Leon’s blood daughter. Ng creates the Leong family in order to represent
her concern with racial politics in more general and a broader sense. The formation of the
Leong family is due to the racially discriminatory immigration and naturalization laws of
America. The family history begins with the lives of “paper father” Grandpa Leong and
“paper son” Leon as bachelors in the San Francisco’s Chinatown: “it’s an important place for
us. In this country, the San Fran is our family’s oldest place, our beginning place, our new
China.” That is to say, the Leong family history parallels the change of Chinatown from a
bachelor society to a family society, and thus opens a door to the history of the Chinatown in
the America as a whole.
Based on her own life experience, Ng shows the immigrant family history by tracing the
tragic lives of the Leongs, with the detailed description of the daily life in Chinatown. The
family in a rootless and weightless situation eventually found a way of getting away from the
Chinatown but remaining the link between them. In Bone, Ng depicts a world in which three
generations of the Leong family live in a strained tension, she attempts to break the close
world of the old generation immigrants, connects the past, present and future and recreates a
spiritual family from the margined Chinatown to an open world.

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 3 Family Migrations
Undoubtedly, family is an important image in the novel, for the writer and the characters
are all ethnic minorities, the changes of family in geographical and psychological levels are
the key clues to the different identities of the three generations. Therefore, it can gain a deeper
understanding of the novel by interpreting the family image from postcolonialist perspective.

3.1 Geographical Migration of the Family

On the geographical level, the “family” contains two meanings: “where do I come
from?” and “where do I go?”, that is, the birthplace and the destination. Generally speaking,
we can only have the right to choose the latter. In the novel, it can find that the three
generations choose different family on the geographical level through their answers to the
latter question.
Grandpa Leong like most of the early generation of Chinese immigrants, who has gone
to America, just wants to make money. They have no intention to stay America forever.
Everyone has the dream of returning back to China someday. On the one hand, they are
already family men before they came to America. They hope that they will return home after
earning enough money. On the other hand, Chinese immigrants are discriminated against by
the American society. The exclusionary laws forbid Chinese immigrants get American
citizenship and have a normal family in United States. Early Chinese immigrants don’t hold
America as their home just as a working place. Although working hard all their lives, Chinese
immigrants’ labor is not rewarding. Therefore, most of them cannot return to China, for it is
unable to earn enough money. Although Grandpa Leong and early Chinese immigrants spend
most of their lives in the United States, their only wish is to send their bones back to China
after their death. They think China is their true home, and the remains belong to China. It can
be concluded that Grandpa Leong and the early Chinese immigrants choose China is their
family.
For Leon and Mah, Chinatown could be their umbrella to protect them from the
difficulties and hardship in the outside world. Chinatown is also the cultural root and spiritual
home for Chinese immigrants. This generation of Chinese immigrants does not change their
traditional cultural beliefs in America. On the one hand, they were born and brought up in
China, Chinese traditional beliefs and cultural values have been established firmly in their
minds and become one part of their consciousness. On the other hand, as the ethnic minority,
Chinese immigrants are discriminated against by the mainstream American society. Therefore,
they create their own community and maintain their traditional culture. Leon comes to
America as a “paper son”. Mah comes to America following her ex-husband. No matter what
the original arrangement for their future, Leon and Mah meet and get married in Chinatown,

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then they live there and never change. Compared with the later generation of Chinese
American, this generation of Chinese immigrants is doomed to suffer more; they must try
their best to save themselves from the frustrated circumstance. Some of them choose to stay in
Chinatown and are never able to be separated from it. Mah has never been out of home for
more than twenty—five years, she can’t even image leaving Chinatown. Leon often goes out
for work temporarily, but finally returns back to Chinatown. Even if he moved to the old hotel,
he just left Mah, not Chinatown. Therefore, this generation’s family is Chinatown.
Family, for the new generation who grew up in Chinatown like Leila, Nina, and Ona, has
changed. After a conflict between family members and their inner struggle, the three sisters
make a similar choice—leave Chinatown—with different ways. For the new generation,
Chinatown is a large family towards which they have complex feelings of love and hatred. It
is their whole world in their childhood, but when they grow up, they begin to reassess the
circumstances, and try all means to get away from the depression and frustration and to go out
of the Chinatown. Leila is the eldest girl of this family. As a child grows up in Chinatown, she
understands and loves her patents very much, but as an American—born generation, she is
eager to live an independent life. Facing with this conflict between her family and her life, she
wants to find a balance between her duty for her family and her desire for independence. At
last, she decides to establish a new family with her husband outside Chinatown. Ona is the
middle girl who is Leon’s most favorite daughter. Ona’s tragedy begins with the bankruptcy
of the laundry. She loves her father but she believes that she also has the right to choose her
own boyfriend. Ona decides to break up with the family but isn’t able to accustom heself to
the outside world. Torn between the filial piety and American individualism, she finally
chooses an extreme escape—suicide. Nina is the most Americanized girl of the three
daughters. She dates with non—Chinese men, experiments with sex, and has an abortion. She
looks down upon the traditional Chinese culture and likes to chase her own lifestyle and
happiness. About Ona’s death, she thinks that it is Ona’s choice, it is her own life. In order to
get away from the depression in the family and pursue her own life, Nina decides to exile
herself to New York working as a flight attendant.
From the discussion above, on the geographical level, family means different places for
the three generations: China; Chinatown; outside of Chinatown.

3.2 Psychological Migration of the Family

In postcolonialism, the ethnic minority lives in the host country, not only suffer from the
geographical dislocation, but also tortured by the sense of instability. For the ethnic minority,
the “family” has lost its traditional position as the permanent residence and becomes a symbol
—memory, eagerness, or a spiritual consolation etc. Therefore, the three generations’ different
choices on families’ location reflect their psychological changes.
Chinese American historian Ling—Chi Wang classifies Chinese Americans into five
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categories: (1) luoye guigen: sojourner mentality; (2) zancao chugen: total assimilation; (3)
luodi shenggen: accommodation; (4) xungen wenzu: ethnic pride and consciousness; (5)
shigen qunzu: alienation. This classification can be used to analyze the Leongs. The word gen
(roots) has several meanings. Besides its basic biological meaning, it connotes the genesis and
maintenance of life. At another level, it is used to designate one’s birthplace, native place, and
the source from which one gains one’s personal identity. Among Chinese immigrants or
Chinese Americans, gen takes on the meanings as Chinese traditional culture and a
geographic location—China, one’s motherland. The five categories are embodied by a
Chinese phrase with the word gen in them. Each is referred to its perception of, and relation to,
its Chinese roots or gen.
3.2.1 Grandpa Leong
In Bone, Ng does not show directly the inner world of Grandpa Leong, just describes he
works hard on farm all his life, but when he is too old to work, “he packed his stuff into a
brown shopping bag, walked out onto the road, and flagged down a Greyhound bus heading
south to San Francisco”.(Ng 1993: 78) This brief description shows the tragic life of early
Chinese immigrants, who sacrificed themselves in the construction of America, they still
cannot earn enough money to return China, only receive a lonely and miserable life.
In most cases, the early Chinese immigrants’ motivation in coming to the America was to
secure a financial condition and to return to China when this mission was finished. Therefore,
they came to America with the belief of luoye guigen (falling leaves return to the root), and
they perceived themselves as Chinese sojourning abroad. While the deeply held value of
luoye guigen or the sojourner mentality was reinforced by the discrimination against Chinese
immigrants in America. Most early Chinese immigrants accepted the American perception of
Chinese as aliens and sojourners, because they thought their suffering temporary. The
sojourner mentality is inextricably tied with Cultural root in China and is the basis on which
many Chinese immigrants have constructed their existence and identity. China, both
geographically and psychologically, is their “family” forever.
3.2.2 Mah and Leon
For the second-generation Chinese immigrants, Mah and Leon, who were born and grew
up in China, but after they came to America, they gradually regard Chinatown as their
“family” instead of China. They regard Chinatown as their physical and psychological
dependence and try their best to adopt the new life in America. This phenomenon shows they
hold the belief of Loudi shenggen (falling to the ground, growing roots) or accommodation.
Accommodation calls for a commitment to permanent settlement in America, which
includes accommodating to American lifestyles at least in public without thoroughly changing
private Chinese lifestyles and cultural beliefs, and contributing to the American society. The
term of accommodation, not comes from American society, but from the Chinese, is a survival
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strategy in an alien circumstance one is not able to leave. It also can take place when the
American mainstream society still shows their intolerance and hostility towards Chinese
Americans.
The Chinese immigrants maintain the traditional Chinese culture in their language,
beliefs, lifestyle and values. The American mainstream society regards Chinese as a race that
cannot be assimilated. The differences led to the contradiction and Chinese immigrants’
changes in both personal life and social relationship. The Chinese immigrants created
Chinatown by preserving the Chinese traditional culture, which is a self-saving way. In their
heart, Chinatown is China.
Bone exposes the difficult living condition of the Chinese immigrants in Chinatown.
Mah and Leon come to America with the hope of searching for the chances and establishing
their new life. For Leon and Mah are born and grew up in China, so the traditional Chinese
culture has embedded in their minds. Once coming to the America, they have to face
American culture, it is hard for them to change their own culture and assimilate to the
American culture. In order to survive in American, they have to make some adaptations and
abandon part of their Chinese culture. They have to think how much of the Chinese culture is
to be maintained in the face of the pressure from the American society. They make their
accommodation tactfully. Though pass the interrogation at Angel Island, Leon still keeps his
American name. Though they are not good at English, they will speak English on some
occasions when they have to deal with something in the outside world. At the same time, they
keep the daily ceremony in Chinatown.
The reality is not as good as they thought. They are not only faced with the pressure from
the survival but also that from the white Americans. However, they still want to earn equal
opportunity of achieving fulfillment and belonging through hard work. Leon has to take
low-paid and humble jobs such as washing dishes, keeping gate, sewing, and serving in the
restaurant in order to survive and support the whole family. He cannot find a normal job. He is
“a fry cook at Wa-jin’s, a busboy at the Waterfront Restaurant by the Wharf, a janitor at a print
shop downtown” on the land, “Assistant laundry presser. Prep cook. Busboy. Waiter. Porter”
out at sea.(Ng 1993: 161) It is common for him to do two jobs at the same time and work
overtime. Mah also has to works hard, even works as hard as men. “Mah sat down at her
Singer with the dinner rice still in her mouth. When we pulled down the Murphy bed, she was
still there, sewing”, “The hot lamp made all the stitches blur together; the street noises
stopped long before she did. And in the morning, long before any of us awoke, she was
already there, at work”.(Ng 1993: 34) She does housework, takes good care of children,
works as a seamstress and opens her own store for a living.
Mah and Leon face every difficulty in their lives with perseverance and endurance. They
are no longer immersed in the dream of returning to China one day like the first generation
does. Finally, they plant their roots permanently in America, and become a part of their
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adopted country. They succeed in making more opportunities for the first American—born
generation.
3.2.3 Leila, Ona and Nina
The three sisters have different orientations on “family”, so they have different attitudes
towards Chinatown and choose different ways of leaving Chinatown.
On the one hand, the three sisters grow up in Chinatown, they know clearly traditional
Chinese culture; on the other hand, they are educated by the American culture, they are
influenced by the American way of thinking. They are cultivated by both of them. When they
feel drawn to the traditions and values of the Chinese cultures, they are still modeled by the
American culture. Amy Ling comments this situation of Chinese American in American as
“between world”: “Whether recent immigrants or America—born, Chinese in the United
States find themselves caught between two worlds. Their facial features proclaim one fact—
their Asian ethnicity but by education, choice, or birth they are American.”
The perception of Chinese American identity based on the Chinese American history
with roots in the America is best expressed by the Chinese phrase xungen wenzu (searching
for one’s roots and ancestors). In Wang’s classification, this ethnic pride and consciousness,
started with the Chinese American movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Chinese
Americans attempted to establish a distinct Chinese American identity. This movement has its
aim “the liberation of Chinese Americans from the structure of dual domination—i.e. freedom
from racial oppressions by white society and freedom from extraterritorial rule of the Chinese
government in Taiwan and its representatives in the United States.” Thus the roots are not in
Chinese culture but in Chinese American history.
In Bone, Leila represents the belief of xungen wenzu. As the eldest daughter in the family,
she feels strong responsibility and connection to her family and Chinatown. When she decides
to leave Chinatown, she expresses a desire not to far away from it. Her solution is to leave
Chinatown physically, but keep it in her heart and memory forever. That is to say, she does not
make a decision in a rush. She tries to clear her minds first and adjust her attitude. Finally,
through xungen wenzu, she starts her new life with a strong ethnic pride and consciousness. At
the end of the novel, “The last thing I saw as Mason backed out of the alley was the old blue
sign. #2-4-6 UPDAIRE”,“Like the oldtimer’s photos, Leon’s papers, and Grandpa Leong’s
lost bones, it reminded me to look back, to remember”.(Ng 1993: 193) This narration
indicates that Leila learns the Chinese American history once more before she leaves
Chinatown. She gains power from the past and set up courage of living outside Chinatown.
But not everyone can make the right decision like Leila. As being caught “between two
worlds”, some Chinese American begin to resist the Chinese traditional culture, they think
themselves thoroughly Americanized. Showing a fierce desire to merge into the American
society and assimilate into the mainstream culture, they speed the process of Americanization.
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As a consequence, conflicts and contradictions between them and their parents become
intensive. Such a mentality, which Wang calls zhancao chugen, means to “erase and uproot all
traces of their Chinese cultural heritage and thoroughly conform to the values and behaviors
of Euro—Americans.” They are ashamed of values and behaviors they have been taught by
their parents and reject their parents’ language and culture. If possible, they will dissociate
themselves from their relatives and Chinese friends, and move out of Chinatowns.
Nina is such an assimilationist. She tries her best to get away from Chinatown for she
dislikes living with her depressive family. She hates Chinatown and blames the whole family,
“Everybody. Everything. Salmon Alley. The whole place. That’s why she’s in New York
now…I (Leila) used to think she was ashamed of us: the way Leon has turned into an old-man
bum and how bitter Mah is now”. She accords with American culture and means to cut any
relations with Chinese culture. When eating with Leila, she chooses to eat at a non-Chinese
restaurant. She says, “The food’s good there[Chinatown], but the life’s hard down
there[Chinatown].”(Ng 1993:26) She tells Leila, “I like three-pronged forks. It’s funny, but
you know I hardly ever use chopsticks anymore. At home I eat my rice on a plate, with a fork.
I only use chopstick to hold my hair up”. (Ng 1993: 27)Nina’s words and deeds confirm that
she has almost fully given up her traditional Chinese culture and become a follower of
American culture. Eventually she decides to leave the family—Chinatown and moves to New
York. She works as a flight attendant, exiles herself from the traditional Chinese beliefs and
becomes Americanized in her world outlook and lifestyle.
Different from Leila and Nina, Ona chooses to leave Chinatown by committing suicide
herself. That is the last category, shigen qunzu, alienation. It suggests the mental confusion
and depression of some American—born generation. Some Chinese American are the victim
of the conflicts between the traditional Chinese culture and American culture. Facing with the
cultural choice, they are trapped in confusion, which is about how to place their cultural
identity and how to deal with the relationship between the Chinese culture and the American
culture.
Ona also has to confront with the dilemma—“between two worlds”. She is a good
daughter in the term of traditional Chinese culture. She holds the traditional Chinese culture
and beliefs. She is more Chinese than Leila and Nina. Compared with Nina, who considers
the family as the last thing in her mind, Ona stresses the importance of family and thinks the
family as the first thing in her mind. Ona has a deep love and respect for Mah and Leon,
especially for Leon. This closeness with family gives her a sense of belonging. But as Leila
says, “Ona was the middle girl and she felt stuck in the middle of all the trouble”.(Ng 1993:
139) She has to bear Leon’s blame for laundry’s bankruptcy. Leon forbids her to see Osvaldo,
the oldest son of Luciano who cheats Leon in the business, or he would disown her. Besides
“between two worlds—the Chinese culture and the American culture, she is stuck between
another two worlds: One is her father, the other is her lover. She wants to be an obedient and
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dutiful daughter and meanwhile to be a woman with the freedom of choosing her own love.
She cannot stand the pressure of finding a balance between two men she loves. She chooses to
leave Chinatown, but is unable to accustom herself to the outside world. She “never felt
comfortable, even with the Chinese crowd that Osvaldo hung around with; she never felt like
she fit in”.(Ng 1993: 173) She loses herself and cannot find herself if she leaves her family
and the Chinatown. She cannot assimilate into the mainstream of American society. She finds
no rescue, so she chooses death as an escape.
The three sisters, the American-born generation, all get away from Chinatown finally.
They born and grow up in Chinatown, but they cannot stay in the unchanging world like their
parents, the old generation immigrants, the unchanged living way can’t be appropriate and
practical for the modern time. Therefore, the three sisters choose different ways of pursuing
self and their “families” during the modern times.
All in all, the three generations build different “families” in their minds, so they choose
the different geographical families. But what cause them to make such different choices? In
the next chapter, the author will analyze the reasons for the differences.

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 4 Exploration of the causes of the Family Migration
For the Chinese American, on the one hand, they are far away from their motherland, on
the other hand, they live in the margin of the host country as the ethnic minority, so their
hearts full of uncertainty. They all face such confusion: how to identify themselves? Should
they call themselves as Chinese, American or Chinese American? In the postcolonialism,
identity is not determined by blood, but by the personal, social and cultural interactions. In
society, people have different identities for they are wrapped in a certain customs, traditions
and beliefs, then they carry on one or various culture consciously and unconsciously. In Bone,
the three generations’ attitude toward family are as different as their identities which are
influenced by the society and culture.

4.1 Historical and Social Conditions

Behind the growth, decline, and resurgence of the Chinese population in America lies a
history of periodic opportunities for and restrictions against the Chinese, China’s history and
its changing policies toward overseas Chinese, and unequal diplomatic relations between
China and America.
Chinese immigration can be divided into three periods. The first period was from 1852 to
1882, began with the gold rush in California and ended with the passage of the 1882 Chinese
Exclusion Act. The second period was from 1882 to 1965 continued anti—Chinese prejudice
and political agitation that of exclusion. The historical changes in American immigration law
that occurred in 1965 ushered in the third period, the final period, a period of diversity.
In the mid — 19th century, Chinese immigrated to America for the domestic and
international factors, “The domestic factors included population pressure, continuous peasant
uprisings, a worsening social and political order, disintegration of traditionally self —
sufficient rural economy, and internal decay of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). International
factors arose from the growing impact of Western and Japanese invasion of and domination
over China. Foreign encroachment of China ranged from active recruitment of Chinese
laborers, missionary actives, and commercial activities to open trade and the labor markets,
military interference, unequal treaties, extraterritorial privileges, and foreign settlements.
Chinese emigration to the northern United States in the nineteenth century also closely
connected to domestic U.S. capitalist expansion in Asia.” That is to say, Chinese traveled to
America in order to escape the domestic poverty and wars. At the same time, America was in
the time of the development of capitalism. The Chinese became the low—paid laborers who
were needed by American society. The Chinese participated in the development of American
West where they were employed to extract metals and minerals, to construct a vast railroad
network, to reclaim swamplands, to build irrigation systems, to work as migrant agricultural
laborers, to develop the fishing industry, and to operate highly competitive, labor-intensive
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manufacturing industries.
The “gold rush” lured Chinese migration in the America. They came to America in order
to earn a living and make a fortune. Although they laid the economic foundation of the
American West, they still faced with severe racial discrimination due to their Chinese origin,
instead of making money they expected. In most Americans’ eyes, Chinese immigrants were
nothing but cheap laborers; in white workers’ eyes, Chinese immigrants were economic
competitors and racial inferiors. In the 1870s and 1880s, with the anti-Chinese sentiments
rose, anti-Chinese movement appeared under the slogan “Chinese must go!” thereby urging
the passage of discriminatory laws.
From 1870, American government started to carry out a series of exclusionary laws
against Chinese immigrants. The Page Law of 1875 prohibited the entry of Chinese, Japanese,
and Mongolian contract laborers, prostitutes and felons:

That it shall be unlawful for aliens of the following classes to immigrate into
the United States, namely, persons who are undergoing sentence for
conviction in their own country of felonious crimes other than political or
growing out of or the result of such political offenses, and women “imported
for the purposes of prostitution.” (Takaki 1989)

It enforced not only to exclude prostitutes but also to discourage Chinese wives from
coming to the America.
For nearly one hundred years, the Chinese immigrants were suffered from the
maltreatment of racist laws that limited their participation in the economic and cultural
mainstream of American life, culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States

of America in Congress assembled, that from and after the expiration of ninety
days next after the passage of this act, and until the expiration of ten years next
after the passage of this act, the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States
be, and the same is hereby, suspended; and during such suspension it shall be
not be lawful for any Chinese laborer to come, or, having so come after the
expiration of said ninety day, to remain within the United States.( Kim 1982)

Chinese laborers were prevented from immigrating to America. This was the first time
that a group of people by name as unwelcomed for immigration to the America. Chinese were
the first immigrants to be excluded from entry into America on the basis of race along with
lunatics, idiots, and criminals. Its effects were not changed until the liberalization of the
immigration laws in 1965.
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 In 1894 America reinforced the Exclusion laws: no China—born person can immigrate
to America unless he could prove that his family already lived in America. No matter how
long they live in America, they were announced ineligible for naturalization or get the
American citizenship. At the same time, intermarriage between Chinese or Mongolians and
whites was not permitted, any white women who married a Chinese would lose her American
citizenship. If they divorced with their Chinese husbands, they could regain their citizenship.
Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited Chinese immigrants from bringing their China-born
wives to join them and anti-miscegenation law prevented Chinese immigrants from finding
wives in America. All these anti—Chinese laws resulted in the shortage of women which
limited the growth of the Chinese population as well as the establishment of a normal family
life in America.
The direct products of all these exclusionary legislations were “bachelor societies”, for
the Chinese male immigrants became bachelors or “married bachelors” who had wives in
China. Ng once said in an interview, “explore the effects of the exclusionary legislation was
inspired by the Chinese bachelor society—the generation of laborers who came to America to
work the gold mines, to build the transcontinental railroad, and to help develop California
agriculture; and who, because of many factors—the Chinese exclusion laws, the anti—
miscegenation laws, the revolution in China—lived out their lives in this country, many dying
without the comfort of family”.
Another product of all these exclusionary legislations was the “paper son” practice. In
1906, a big earthquake in San Francisco destroyed the Chinese official birth records. In 1924,
a new American Immigration Act was passed, Chinese who had established their American
citizenship before 1924 can ask their sons or sell their right to sponsor sons to other non—
citizenship or unacceptable Chinese. Many Chinese took this chance to declare American
citizenship. These kinds of immigrants were called “paper fathers” and “paper sons”.
The exclusionary legislation leaves a permanent mark on the formation of the Leong
family. The Leongs’ history begins with Grandpa Leong adopted Leon as his a “paper son”.
Grandpa Leong belongs to the early generations of Chinese labor who is a victim of Chinese
Exclusion Act in1882, which made him never returned to China and reunited with his family
members. Grandpa Leong is a bachelor all his life in America without any descendants. Just
like other Chinese bachelors live poor and miserable lives after they are too old to work,
Grandpa Leong returns to the San Fran Hotel, an old-man hotel, a symbol of Chinese
bachelors’ life in America, then he lingers around every day, waiting for his death in America.
Under such conditions, Grandpa Leong sponsors Leon enter into America as his son. Leon
also has no other choice to get into America, so he costs 5,000 dollars to buy “paper son”
identity with the promise to send Grandpa Leong’s bones back to China after he died. That is
to say, Grandpa Leong is Leon’s father but only on paper, they are biologically unrelated to

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each other, they come together just by monetary transaction and verbal commitment.
The lack of acceptance and hardships served to intensify the Chinese immigrants’
longing for their homeland –China. They are more dependent on their identity as a Chinese.
American attitudes and policies toward the Chinese in the America did not change until
China became an ally of the America in the fight against Japan during World WarⅡ. In 1943,
new legislation in America permitted the entry of a limited number of China—born wives and
children. Unfortunately, these positive but limited wartime gestures yielded few measurable
gains for Chinese in America: they actually had no influence on removing the discriminatory
laws and practices that still existed. However, several remarkable changes did occur. Chinese
American family life can be said to have begun after 1949.
The cold war and hostile relations between China and the America suddenly ended all
ties and communications between Chinese immigrants and their families in China, as a result,
forced Chinese in the America to permanently plant their roots in American soil. The racism
against Chinese forced them to live in the Chinatown, Chinese immigrants in America
managed to survive. They ceaselessly struggled to define a position for themselves in the
America. When they determined to settle in America, they were clearly knew that there was a
long and hard way for them to go.
Leon is tempted by the American dream so he buys his way to America as Grandpa
Leong’s “paper son”. However, since he enters into America, before he married Mah, he is
living in the “old-man hotel” in San Francisco’s Chinatown, just like other bachelors live in a
wifeless and penniless life for about 30 years. Thanks to the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion
Act in1943 and the temporary establishment of favorable immigration and citizenship policies
as I mentioned above, Mah can be the legal arrival of Chinese women with her ex-husband in
America. But for a long time, women are still few in Chinatown. To some extent, the
formation of the Leong family is compelled by the discriminatory immigration and
naturalization laws. On the one hand, Leon wants to leave San Fran and enjoys a regular
family life. On the other hand, Mah abandoned by Lyman Fu, in order to stay in the America,
she must marry someone with a green card. That is, Mah remarries Leon because she needs to
gain the legal status to stay in America. In addition, Mah needs someone help her and Leila to
survive in Chinatown. Thus their marriage is not for love but for survive.
Mah and Leon lived in the transition of Chinatown from a bachelor society to a family
society through the 1940s, and thus opened a door to the history of the Chinese community in
the America. Under such contexts, plus with the importance of marriage and family for
Chinese, there is no other choice for Mah and Leon but tries their best to live in America. In
Bone, Ng puts emphasis on the struggles that Mah and Leon have to go through in order to get
where they are. They try to do the jobs that no one else will work for provide their children
with more opportunities. Mah works as a seamstress day and night in sweatshops and home;
Leon works as a seaman at sea for most of his time. Even though they work hard, they are still
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live in poverty and hardship.
The immigration law of 1965 substituted the discriminatory, race—based quota system
with a new system preference that allowed thousands of Chinese Americans to be reunited
with relatives long separated by the exclusion laws. With the enactment of the 1965
Immigrant and Naturalization Act which removed the national origin of immigration, Chinese
immigrants and immigrants of ethnic from other countries started to pour in and were soon to
exceed the native born in the constitution of Chinese American population. The 1960s has
witnessed many social movements in American society. There was a landmark event in
American history — the Civil Rights Movement. This movement increased the ethnic
awareness and cultural identity built on the need to clarify and establish the uniquely
American identity. Encouraged by the Civil Rights Movement, Asian Americans started Asian
American Movement, whose goal is to improve the social political conditions of Asian
Americans. With the development of multiculturalism in the 1980s, one’s ethnic heritage
became a valuable asset in the pluralist discourse which legitimizes and necessitates the
construction of equal and separate ethnic minority status, for “multiculturalism” accepts the
diversity of cultures and supports mutual understanding of cultural differences.
The new generation，the three sisters—Leila, Ona, and Nina, just born and grew up under
such social background, the Chinatown has gradually formed a family society. Compared with
the early generation, the three sisters are very lucky: they have the chance to receive
education, have more work opportunities, no longer discriminated by the exclusionary laws
and so on. In a word, they can live outside Chinatown and melt into the mainstream society.

4.2 Cultural Influence

One of the main themes of Bone is the conflicts and contradictions between the two
generations. Grandpa Leong, Mah, and Leon maintain traditional Chinese cultures, while the
three sisters tend to accept the American culture. Therefore, the conflict between the two
generations is the differences between the Chinese culture and the American culture. The
Chinese culture and the American culture are different in source and essence. They have their
own values in many aspects, such as, religion, family, ethnic and so on. Thus when the two
cultures confront with each other, the differences between them will be appeared.
4.2.1 Comparison between Chinese Culture and American Culture
What is a culture? Is it characterized by art or literature? Does it include actions, feelings,
or thoughts? How about ideas, objectives, or ways? What about beliefs or values, or customs
or tradition? Is it something as simple as a field of activity or as complex as an endless
experiment? There are different views on culture, so what exactly is culture? Culture is what it
means and what it represents. A culture defines and sets something apart from everything else.
It makes something unique and therefore meaningful, not only to itself but also to the
diversity of the world. A culture brings awe and inspiration as well as interest and curiosity.
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 American culture has been marked by a tension between two strong sources of
inspiration: European ideals, especially British; and domestic originality. That is to say,
American culture encompasses traditions, ideals, customs, beliefs, values, arts, folklore and
innovations developed both domestically and imported via colonization and immigration from
the Britain. Prevalent ideas and ideals which evolved domestically give a strong sense of
national pride among the population as a whole. It includes both conservative and liberal
elements, military and scientific competitiveness, political structures, risk taking and free
expression, materialist and moral elements. American culture consistent ideological principles
such as individualism, egalitarianism, and faith in freedom and democracy, it has a variety of
expressions due to its geographical scale and demographic diversity.
Chinese culture is one of the world’s oldest and most complex cultures. Most social
values are derived from Confucianism which has played an important role in forming Chinese
character. Confucian doctrines advocate humanity that demand people should love, respect
and help each other. It is highly stressed on filial piety which means forming obedience to
authority and bring honor to ancestors. The family and society are more important than the
individual. The Chinese culture has evolved for thousands and thousands of years, contains
rare beauty and enchantment with history.
The different cultures determine the personal relationship and the link between
individual and family. Family values are political and social beliefs that hold the family to be
the essential ethical and moral unit of society. Familialism is the ideology that promotes the
family and its value as an institution.
In Confucian thought, family values, familial relationships, ancestor worship, and filial
piety are the primary basis of the philosophical system, and these concepts are seen as virtues
to be cultivated. Filial piety is thought the first virtue in Chinese culture. While China has
always had a diversity of religious beliefs, filial piety has been common to almost all of
Chinese. The term “filial”, meaning “of a child”, denotes the respect and obedience that a
child, originally a son, should show to his parents, especially to his father. Family life has
always been extremely important to Chinese culture. The ideal is “five generations under one
roof”. Relationships within families are extremely formal in traditional China. Family honor
is emphasized greatly as members of the family, especially of the younger generation, are
expected to “know their place” in society and to give the family name a good reputation.
Parents also expect their children to show unquestioning obedience.
American culture worships freedom, equality and individualism. Americans make
children place importance to personal freedom. Children have the right to do everything they
like and direct their lifestyle without interference from others. Each person promote the
exercise of one’s goals and desires and so independence and self-reliance while opposing
external interference upon one’s own interests, whether by society, family or any other group
or institution.
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4.2.2 Cultural Conflicts
In Bone, Ng describes the differences between Chinese culture and American culture
through the conflicts between the parents and the three daughters. With the burden of the
family history and duty, the three generations are struggling to get away from the dilemma of
the different family they choose for themselves in America.
For most of the early Chinese immigrants, Chinese culture have been imprinted into their
minds and become a part of consciousness. Because they born and brought up in China, and
they usually do not leave China until they are grown up. On the one hand, it is the deep—
rooted influence from Chinese culture. It is difficult for them to change even when they live in
the American culture. For Chinese, family is the most typical and most fundamental unit of a
group. In traditional meaning, family can only be built by blood. In the novel, Grandpa Leong
has no blood relationship with any member in the family, so Grandpa Leong has no family in
America according to the traditional sense of family, his family and relatives may all in China.
That’s why most early Chinese immigrants consider them as sojourners and always hope that
they could return home when they earn enough money. When returning home is impossible,
they still hope their remains can back to China after their death. Therefore the first generation
maintains their identities as Chinese even after many years they immigrated to America. On
the other hand, the Chinese immigrants were regarded as a race that cannot be assimilated by
Americans. It is not easy for Chinese immigrants live in a country with different language and
strange culture. In addition, they confronted with all kinds of racism in America. So China
always is their real family in the hearts of the early Chinese immigrants. They keep a close
connection with China and Chinese culture which support them in their struggle against
racism.
Stuart Hall, a cultural theorist and sociologist, says that the immigrants have to be
accustomed to the new cultures they reside without being assimilated or giving up their
originality for they still have connection with their country and culture. They still carry the
original culture, tradition, language and history with them.
Mah and Leon just keep the Chinese traditions in Chinatown even after they have lived
in America for many years. They realize that they can neither return to China nor become
American, but have to stay in America forever. Chinatown is not a completely closed space. It
is affected by the American culture more or less. In the novel, it can find that the American
culture permeate in Chinatown’s daily life. A typical example is the social status of women in
Chinatown have promoted, compared with the women live in China. Such as Mah, she can go
out to work and make money to support family. This is not allowed in China at that time.
Another example is the influence of “American Dream”. Fascinated by the success of the
American dream, Leon is absorbed in the American spirit, hoping that one day he would make
fortune through his hard work. That’s why Leon continuously makes up new ideas and plans
though he always faces with failure. To some extent, for such influence of American culture,
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Mah and Leon are no longer the traditional Chinese or they have split with Chinese culture
more or less. They have to re—identify themselves in order to adapt to their changes.
Therefore, under Chinatown’s culture and social backgrounds, living in America for Mah and
Leon means to become Chinese with American citizenship.
Influenced by the traditional Chinese culture, Mah and Leon have a strong sense of
responsibility. They work hard in order to provide better educational opportunity for the three
daughters. Thanks to the parents, the three sisters have more chances to connect with the
world outside of Chinatown, and incline to accept the influence of American culture, such as
individualism. But on the other hand, for they born and grew up in Chinatown, the influence
of Chinese culture is inevitable to them. So the conflicts between the parents and the three
daughters run through the whole novel. The conflicts are whether to be obedient daughters or
to be themselves, whether to live in Chinatown or to leave it for their own life and so on.
Facing the conflicts of the two cultures, the three sisters have their own choices, and then
form their different lives.
Leon and Mah still maintain the Chinese traditional culture and customs. So they affect
the three daughters in many ways consciously or unconsciously, even impose their ideas on
the three daughters and make the three sisters behave like them. However, the three sisters are
American—born, English—speaking citizens, so America is their home. They don’t want to
back to China even try to distance themselves from Chinatown, though they cannot deny their
ancestry and ethnic identity. China is far away from them and strange to them. Just like Leila
has said in the novel: “We know so little of the old country. We repeat the names of
grandfathers and uncles, but they have always been strangers to us. Family exists only
because somebody has a story, and knowing the story connects us to a history”. (Ng 1993: 36)
To the American—born generation, everything about China is just a remote and mysterious
story. They know more about America than China. But they are unavoidably affected by their
parents’ Chinese culture. Although this influence is feeble, it will go with them forever. This is
the embarrassment and dilemma for the American—born generation.
In a word, the three generations caught in the dilemma, they fall into the identity crisis.
They must make choice in order to get away from the dilemma. The different choices build
their different identities. From the analysis in this chapter, on the account of the changes of
social environment and the interaction between the Chinese culture and the American culture,
the three generations choose different identities. Therefore, they have different lives and
different families on both geographical and psychological levels.

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5 Conclusion
This thesis analyses the novel based on the postcolonial theory. It gives us a new
perspective to the family image and the main characters’ destiny in the novel from the
postcolonial points of view.
The 20th century is the most turbulent and most frequent migration in history. With the
globalization of economy and technology, there is an irresistible trend that immigrant from the
third world to the first world. America, nation of immigrants, becomes the center of this
immigration trend. In 1960s, with the influence of Civil Rights Movement, Anti—Vietnam
War Movement, Feminism, and Asian American Movement, multiculturalism emerge in
America, which became the widely accepted cultural thought in American society. Under this
historical background, Chinese American literature, which mainly describes how the Chinese
immigrants across the national and cultural boundaries, has made great development in the
past 30 years. In the Chinese American literature, the definition of family and the relationship
of family members are more complex and changeable than the traditional Chinese family. The
family is always regarded as the center of Chinese culture. For the Chinese immigrants and
their descendants, family and homeland are far away in space and time changes, their real or
imagined family has become one of the East—West connections. Therefore, it can be said that
the Chinese American immigration history is the turbulent history of the Chinese American
immigrant families.
In postcolonialism, the ethnic minority living in host country, though separate from the
homeland, still maintain the inextricable links with the language, customs, and tradition of
mother land consciously or unconsciously. Therefore, the ethnic minority, not only experience
geographical dislocation, but also suffers from the psychological torture. For the Chinese—
born immigrants, the “family” is China or Chinatown; for the American—born generation,
China and Chinatown may just be a mysterious legend, imagined homeland. The “family” has
a whole new meaning for the new generation.
In Bone, the “family” has two—level meaning, geographically and psychologically. The
three generations choose the different locations of family cause the family migration on
psychological level. Such migration and changes reflect their social and cultural background.
The different endings of the three sisters suggest that the correct identity for the ethnic
minority especially for those born in the host country is very important. Through the
psychological journey of Leila, it can be concluded that the construction of the harmonious
relationship between Chinese culture and American culture is an ideal choice for the Chinese
Americans.

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 Acknowledgements

During these postgraduate years’ study, many people have given me great help. I would
like to take this chance to express my gratitude to them.
First and foremost, I will take this opportunity to express the most sincere thanks to my
supervisor, Associate Professor Cai Dianmei. With her careful and patient guidance and the
inspiring lectures she has given, I have found my interest in the field of American literature.
Without her patient revising, valuable advice and constant encouragement, this thesis cannot
have been completed on time. I am really grateful to her. Her deep love for literature, passion
for literary studies and devotion to the students all benefit me a lot.
Secondly, my gratitude should go to all the other faculty members of English language and
literature in Liaoning Normal University. Their enlightening and insightful instructions
provoke my thoughts and their kind assistance warms my heart during my postgraduate study.
At last, my sincere thanks should also go to my dear parents for their encouragement,
support and love. They have always supported me when I face with all kinds of difficulties
and are ready to help me whenever I need.
I will never fully express my thanks to all the people who have helped me, and this thesis is
dedicated to them.

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