Two Chinese Versions of the American Dream: The Golden Mountain in Lin Yutang and Maxine Hong Kingston

Abstract

rives, of course, from historical moment of Chinese immigration: worldwide gold rush to California. Three Chinese immigrated to California in 1848; by 1851, there were 25,000; and in 1884, half of California's farm workers were Chinese.1 The phrase Mountain, therefore, summarizes dream of first Chinese who came to America in pursuit of frankly materialistic goals-to get rich quickly and to retire to their native villages. However, once on land, and despite their homing instincts and exclusionary laws erected by United States against them, many Chinese settled in America, and original dream of materialistic fulfillment underwent changes, taking on nuances and different ideals. Two Chinese-American authors, sojourner Lin Yutang and native-born Maxine Hong Kingston, illustrate how original dream has been nuanced and broadened as successive generations of Chinese Americans evolved from sojourners to immigrants, from settlers to natives. Lin Yutang's 1948 novel, Chinatown Family,2 deals with assimilation of Fong family in New York during 1930s. Lin depicts conflict between materialistic dream that motivated immigrants and Confucian ideal of family. The novel examines this conflict through perspectives of several ways of thought: Christianity, individualistic materialism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Elsewhere, Lin has described family as the root of Chinese society3 and Chinese person as essentially a member of great stream of family life4 (implying both fixed and Protean identity through this Taoist metaphor5). But to seek wealth on Golden Mountain is to be uprooted from this communitas of family ideal and become