Theme Of Everyone Talked Luncia In Chinatown

Being torn between the Chinese heritage and the Caucasian lifestyle is a struggle that many Chinese born Canadian people feel. Lin, the protagonist of “Everyone Talked Loudly in Chinatown” by Anne Jew, is no different. Being born in Canada, Lin must choose if she wants to stay true to her Chinese heritage, or become like all the Caucasian people around her. While Lin faces this dilemma in her life, we notice two characters that give us a 3D sense of what exactly Lin is facing. Those two characters are Lin’s grandmother and Todd, Lin’s Caucasian boyfriend. The two characters are very different from each other, which help us see exactly how Lin feels towards the Chinese culture and how badly Lin wants to be Caucasian, despite for the fact

dying”(106-107) and represents how Lin’s ties to her Chinese culture are fading. When we see Lin being forced to feed her grandmother dinner, she tells us that she is “disgusted and guilty and [she] doesn’t know why”(108). Lin feels guilty because at one point in her life, Lin was very close with her grandmother. Lin proceeds to reminisce about the past, when she would go to Chinatown with her grandmother. Lin talks about how she thinks the women in Chinatown were “short, chubby.. with unmade faces and hair…. [and how] there were also old stopping men with brown spots on their faces.. and old women with straight grey hair pinned back over their ears” (108). What Lin later adds is that she believes that Chinese people are too “loud [and] uncivilized”(108) showing that Lin does not want to be associated with her Chinese heritage any longer. Lin stereotypes all Chinese people into the category of being uncivilized, though not all Chinese people are like that. Her view is limited to what she remembers, which is very narrow minded. As Lin got older, she “stopped going to Chinatown with [grandmother] where it was too loud, and then [Lin] stopped spending time with [grandmother] altogether. [Lin] started to play with friends who weren’t loud and who weren’t Chinese.” (108-109). It was at this point in Lin’s life when she started to shed her Chinese heritage, and replace it with attempting to be Caucasian. At the end of the story, Lin wakes up

Lin is not supposed to be dating anybody, especially not a Caucasian boy, however, Lin does it anyways. Lin believes that “Todd is very good looking” (106). However, her reasoning behind it is that “all the girls at school think so” (106). The truth is, though never explicitly said, is that Lin does not love Todd. When they talk, instead of having a conversation, Todd talks and Lin listens. Though “[she tries] hard to stay interested in what [Todd] says… [Lin ends] up nodding [her] head and saying ‘uh huh, uh huh’ ” which shows that she is not interested in what Todd has to say, and only likes him for his face. The author implies that the two are not compatible all throughout the story when they are together, such as when the two go watch a movie together. When Todd kisses Lin, she kisses back because she believes that it is what she’s supposed to do, not because she feels inclined to. The way Lin describes the kiss she and Todd shared does not leave the audience hungry for more details, and leaves the audience almost disappointed. Another time where the author hints that Todd and Lin are not a good couple is after the movie because “[Todd’s] strides are twice as long as [Lin’s] so [their] mismatched rhythms make [them] bounce along instead of walk” (110). The two of them are mismatched- they are not soulmates, far from it in fact. They are on different wavelengths, and therefore they do not make a good