Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen: A Manifesto in 41 Tales by Marilyn Chin (Norton, 2009)
Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo
If the title of this review seems a bit cumbersome, it reflects the number of labels that Marilyn Chin and her work have acquired during the poet’s career.1 A genuine revolutionary, Chin examines through her writings relationships between the powerful dominant culture and the have-nots. Born in Hong Kong in the 1950s, Chin was raised in Portland, Oregon. As an assimilated Asian American, Chin never strays far from the immigrant’s vision of the American Dream and its glaring pitfalls: In America there might be room for all, but space is a hot commodity accorded only to those who buy into a hierarchy fixed by (mostly) white, wealthy, male hands. Of course, those outside the spectrum can gain access to the upper echelons with a formidable title and money, money, money.
Like Chin herself, the Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, her debut “novel,” defies description but has pulled a wide range of labels from reviewers. Readers are advised to skip consideration of format, except to marvel at Chin’s reversals and revisions of classic Chinese literature, history, ancient eastern philosophies, Zen and Buddhist scripture, folklore and legend, ghost stories and fables. Chin’s devotion to contemporary adaptations of historical sources (manga, comics, kung fu-style superheroes) is obvious. One might even add yet another label to her resume: ninja poet. Chin’s means of war against the machine are, indeed, unorthodox. Few could read Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen and not experience an epiphany, however modest; a shift in the spaces of the heart.
Separated into seven sections, Chin’s 41 tales, variously set in (fictional) Piss River, Oregon, Southern California and Hong Kong, center on Double Happiness twins Moon and Mei Ling Wong. Daughter No. 1 Moon’s stoic indifference connects her to countless poor Chinese who have journeyed to America to slave day and night in restaurants, laundries and markets. No. 2, Mei Ling, sits at the opposite end of the scale, determined to squeeze as much out of the system as possible. Mei Ling delights in the spoils she wins by using the dominant culture’s weapons. Guarding these two fiercely intelligent but lost members of the assimilated generation is legendary matriarch Grandmother Wong, reputed to be able to fly and wielding a cleaver with abandon. Moon owes her kung fu skills to Grandmother Wong. Although the girls do not share their grandmother’s unspecified, superstition-based moral code, it is nearly impossible not to respect it. For hyphenated Americans and those born here after the bomb sure bets are off, but Grandmother Wong acts with bullet-proof decision.
Bullies and beasts of burden (animal and human) figure prominently in Chin’s tales. The shocking scenario of Chin’s opening story (”Moon” in the volume’s first section, Mooncakes and Matriarchs) shows a “little fat Chinese girl” brutalized on a West Coast beach by blond teenage twins. It is a chilling lesson in the politics of modern life. Moon and Mei Ling witness another kind of brutality on their parents, owners of the Double Happiness Chinese restaurant. While the girls earn top grades and slots in the educational conveyor belt that will catapult them into their futures (Moon as a professor of immunology, Mei Ling as a professor of literature and a poet), they help their parents by delivering Chinese food to customers living in the ethnically technicolor Southern California landscape. Bitter beyond repair from unrelenting economic and cultural pressures, their father dies of a massive heart attack. Surrendering to despair, their mother returns to Hong Kong.
Chin’s Chinese name, Mei Ling, signals autobiography in her portrait of daughter No.2, a girls-just-wanna-have-fun type. As Chin explains in her endnotes, the fox girl archetype echoes through centuries of Asian literature. Here, Mei Ling plays fox girl, luring unsuspecting men of all races and income levels to their doom. Mei Ling’s sexual appetite astounds, perhaps more so considering the risks she takes in drawing Grandmother Wong’s fire. Chin introduces Mei Ling in “Round Eyes,” the second story in Mooncakes and Matriarchs. The shock here comes from a violation sanctioned by assimilated Chinese parents, who send their children to Japan to achieve “Madonna Eyes.”
Chin the poet brings to each set piece her gift for emotionally laden imagery. The short chapters beg for multiple readings. Her prose is provocative, requiring readers to face a choice, take a stand and question typical viewpoints. For example, Chin asks:
“Don’t you know that every immigrant’s tale is a comic romance? Once upon a time, a couple of absolute nobody girls named Wong are born. They load up a crappy donkey-van with bad Chinese food and drive in circles for 10 hours. They smooch a few silly boys on the way….Then it never fails—by the end of the tale, those certain Wong-named-nobodies finally blossom into somebodies.
Or, do they?”
Readers well-versed in Buddhist koans and parables and Asian animal fables will find familiar ground in Chin’s stories. Hidden in each, like the golden yoke center of a mooncake, a deeper meaning waits for discovery. For those who do not know the originals, Chin provides insight in her endnotes.
In the concluding section of her book, Chin offers three endings that mirror the ambiguity of the twins’ fate. But considering Grandmother Wong’s deep compassion to the fatherless and the widow, unwavering self-confidence, willingness to choose the hard road, make the tough decision and cut off the wound to save the soul (including hacking a Barbie doll down the middle), there seems no doubt which ending she would choose. Clearly, Grandmother Wong’s ancient wisdom has weight even in post-colonial America.
1 Wong’s poetry collections include Rhapsody in Plain Yellow (2002), The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty (1994) and Dwarf Bamboo (1987).
