Customer Reviews

Midnight at the Dragon Cafe: A Novel (Alex Awards (Awards))

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

How genuine this novel is! Having grown up like Su-Jen in a small Ontario town where we were one of the only Chinese families, I totally related to the girl's experience, even though, unlike her, I was born in Canada. The smell, the taste, the look of a small town Chinese-Canadian greasy spoon certainly rang true to my mother's stories about her own family's operation of several cafés in different Ontario communities. The author evokes the claustrophobic isolation of the family living and working amidst a predominantly white community with such authenticity, it left me breathless, hoping for their emancipation. The story begins with a woman's memory of her childhood, but the story seen through her eyes, is a microcosmic look at a macro-history of these immigrant-run restaurants. This one, with its particular twists and justifications, I found to be especially poignant and on the mark. I've wished for more stories from Chinese-Canadian authors like those from American author Amy Tan. I think I've found finally found one here and now! I'll look forward to the next tale from Judy Fong Bates, a bright new talent.

With a quiet, unassuming elegance, Canadian-Chinese author Judy Fong-Bates sets the scene for her highly applauded debut novel, 'Midnight at the Dragon Cafe'.

Perhaps this story touched me more acutely than most of its readers, as it called to mind what my father and his parents must have experienced during and after their immigration from Hong Kong to a little town in Canada in the mid-1950s. Every word to me was genuine, haunting, compelling...

Little Su-Jen Chou (at the tender age of six), along with her beautiful yet bitter mother, immigrates to Canada from Communist China, to meet the father she has never known. A father who is the proprietor of the local Canadian-Chinese "greasy spoon". With Su-Jen mother constantly haunted with yearnings for her homeland, unpleasant family secrets uncovered, and the trials and challenges they face in a new and often-times unwelcoming land, Fong-Bates weaves a story full of heartbreak, tribulation and acceptance.

Poignant in its simplicity and yet weighty in its inner complexities, 'Midnight at the Dragon Cafe' explores many social issues of the time, along with the disappointments, the pride, the sacrifices, and the triumphs of those who immigrated to Canada in search of something "better". Compelling and well written, Fong-Bates stunning first novel deserves a heaping spoonful of praise.

A good friend told me that this was the best book she had read in years! I am in total agreement and I will be urging fellow readers to savour the delights of Midnight at the Dragon Cafe with the same fervour. Judy Fong Bates's first novel allows one to not only explore the world of the Chinese/Canadian restaurant/greasy spoons that were in every community across Canada, but also discover the loneliness, passions, joys and heartache that were experienced by those who ran the restaurants. The story of young Su-Jen and her family striving for a better life in Canada is a beautifully haunting tale told by a master storyteller. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

I am a fourth generation Chinese American living in California. I loved this well written, lyrical and engaging book, and recommend it to all. I have not read much about the Chinese-Canadian immigrant experience, and this book was very rewarding in terms of telling the story of the Chinese in Canada in the background of the main story line. The characters are extremely vivid in the book, and one really cares about Su-Jen (aka Annie) right away. The author does a very good job of sketching the lonely life of this isolated Chinese family in this small Canadian town. I particularly felt she handled incidents of racial discrimination experienced by the sensitive Annie during elementary school very poignantly. You really feel for this little Chinese girl, stuck between this lovely unhappy mother, a frustrated and good looking half brother, a traditional but kindly father, and her Canadian white classmates. It is a great read.

This is not the sort of book I would normally be drawn to and what a wonderful suprise it was for me. The writing is truely extraordinary and the author has the ability to paint with words so that even a person who has never experienced this young girls experiences is able to feel the feelings and see the places. I was sorry when the book was over and am looking forward to reading her other book.

I recently finished this book and loved the way it was written, the use of language, the lessons of enduring truths of humanity, etc. It was very touching and I loved it. I read it aloud to my 16-year-old son. We have read a lot of books but now I'm stuck and need a recommendation on what to read next.

This coming-of-age novel is a wonderfully written, unique and imaginative, first novel. Set in the 1960s, this is the story of a young girl, the daughter of a small Ontario town's solitary Chinese family, over the course of a summer.

Told through Su-Jen's eyes, the hard life behind the scenes at the Dragon Café unfolds. Su-Jen's elderly father and beautiful young mother are unhappy in their marriage. Su-Jen's mother is miserable in this new small town.

Su-Jen is rapidly adapting to life in Canada and goes through all the ups and downs of a typical 1960s childhood. She develops a friendship with Charlotte, a spirited girl who behaves in a way that is older than her years. There is also tragedy, foreshadowed, yet still a shock when it finally occurs.

The first and last paragraphs of Midnight at the Dragon Café are poignant and are Su-Jen's reflections on a fate she thinks should have been hers.

I have mixed feelings about _Midnight athte Dragon Cafe_. I absolutely loved Bates' command of language and her languid, conversational tone as her character, Su-Jen narrates. The moods and emotions were so clearly expressed, I really felt I was with Su-Jen as she wrestled with the challenges and secrets she discovered through the course of the book.

While I appreciated the gradual maturation of Su-Jen, her growing awareness of the wider world around her, and the secrets her family held, I really felt that the story didn't hit its stride until the final quarter of the book. Even when the book did hit its stride and plot points began to come together, the resolution to the myriad of conflicts were ultimately unstisfying. I had anticipated a stronger finish, given the repeated references to Su-Jen's fate and the constant tension between family members. I also think the underlying message Bates was suggesting - is it possible to forgive ourselves - could have been much more developed. I enjoyed the writing, but the story itself warrants only 3 stars.

Written from the point of view of a young Chinese immigrant Su-Jen or "Annie", Midnight at the Dragon Café provides a window into the private life of the family living above a small diner in 1960s Canada. After leaving their homeland to join her aged father in Irvine, Su-Jen and her beautiful mother enter a sleepy town of "lo-fons" or non-Chinese Whites, which is mysterious and alluring at the same time. While Su-Jen knows her family relocated to Canada to escape the Communists and provide a better life for her, she wonders about her family's secretive past in the mainland.

Learning to speak English, escaping the taunts of bullies, earning straight A's and fitting in with the lo-fons are just some of the challenges Su-Jen has to face in and out of school. She is the center of attention and the source of her parent's pride, but only for a short while. Things begin to change one oppressively hot summer when Lee-Kung, Su-Jen's half brother, suddenly arrives at the Dragon Café. He walks in looking like a "Chinese Elvis" with his greased hair and dark sunglasses. At first, Su-Jen looks up to him, imagining he is the big-brother she has pictured in her imagination, someone to take her swimming, teach her about the world and lead the restaurant to a rich and prosperous future. All her dreams dissolve when she gradually learns the truth about Lee-Kung's birth and the secrets he keeps behind the cramped, cluttered doors above the Dragon Café.

Judy Fong Bates paints an intimate portrait of a struggling immigrant family with her clear, descriptive writing style. The story follows a slow and steady pace, reminiscent of the town of Irvine, often dragging a bit before quickly moving along. Despite my impatience to learn the 'family secrets' and the not-so-easily-digestible love affair, Midnight at the Dragon Café is at times heartwarming and contrasts the desires of young and old, highlighting how deeply a new culture can influence those wanting to escape the one they left behind.

Su-Jen leaves Maoist China in the 1950's and comes to Canada with her mother to be with her father - owner of the Dragon Cafe. She assimilates, but her mother is miserable in the small, quiet town. When the father's son from a previous marriage, Lee Keung, comes, the trouble begins as he starts an affair with his step-mother. He is forced to marry a mail-order bride, but the step-mom is already pregnant from him and Su-Jen has seen this ll happen, causing her to hate them both. In the end, she learns to forgive as she sees her father hold the baby boy - a reincarnation of the two sons lost by her parents before they married.

The joy to read a book that is not about a rich or pregnant narrator! Although the Chinese word interjections were distracting at first, "lo fon" (honky) caught on and I appreciated the new phrases halfway through. I enjoyed the story and was hoping the mother would face harsher consequences for her infidelity, but in the end, the outcome made sense and does justice to the integrity of the characters as a whole. I really wish there was a sequel.