TEA THAT BURNS: A Family Memoir of Chinatown [Hardcover]

Bruce Hall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2, 1998

For Bruce Edward Hall, whose family name was once Hor, and whose grandfather was a much-loved bookie operating out of a florist shop off Mott Street, Chinatown is filled with ghosts. Behind every teeming basket of raw chicken feet and dried sheep's lungs, every redolent platter of square fried turnip cakes and lotus-seed pastries, and every pot of "tea that burns" (a teapot full of scotch), there is a tidbit of tradition. Behind the whispered schemes and blistering gunfire of feuding tongs and behind every celebration of the birth of the honored First Son, there is an empire of symbolism. At the Port Arthur, "The Best Restaurant That Ever Was", with its tank of goldfish warding off demons, there is the uproarious sound of generations coming together to celebrate a shared and proud heritage.

A loving portrait of a family whose superstitions about the old world are eclipsed by the possibilities of the new, Tea That Burns brings to life the spirit of Chinatown that even modern-day residents may never before have perceived.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Freelance writer Hall, a fourth-generation Chinese American, has two wonderful stories to tell here: the history of New York City's Chinatown and the intertwined lives of his own family going back to their days in the Chinese village of Hor Lup Chui. Incidents such as his grandfather's wedding come vividly to life with feasting, firecrackers and suckling pigs, but this book suffers from overcrowding. There are just too many friends of friends and cousins back in China for the reader to connect with any one story. The overall feeling is one of frustration at characters who are never quite realized and a unique culture just beyond reach, depriving the narrative of the dynamism it deserves. Nevertheless, the history of the early Chinese immigrants emerges from the crowded pages: the widespread discrimination against these people who were denied the right to obtain citizenship and persecuted by the indigenous population. Chinese communities like New York City's Chinatown became culturally and geographically isolated, lacking language skills and being almost without women. No wonder the men turned to "the tea that burns," orAless poeticallyA"a teapot full of bootleg Scotch." Hall shows that only in their own community could Chinese find some security, and that turning inward gave rise to gang wars and turf battles, further isolating Chinatown from the rest of Manhattan. Sadly, in the end, Hall's lack of narrative skill and his irritating use of the running present tense that ends up merging all eras deprives us of what should have been a wonderful and exotic tale.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Part history, part family chronicle, part personal reminiscence, this saga by fourth-generation Chinese American Hall (Diamond Street, Black Dome, 1994) follows the Hall family (whose surname was once transliterated "Hor") from the 19th-century in Hor Lup Chui, a village outside Canton, to late-20th-century America. While the extensive bibliography lists only one set of documents pertaining to the Hor family, Hall consulted hundreds of publications and papers on Chinese Americans and Chinatown in New York City, a sizable research effort for a family memoir. The Hor family history is full of colorful characters, including grandfather "Hock Shop," the bookie and bon vivant, whose scotch ("tea that burns") was served by the pot. Highly entertaining and quite informative, this excellent mix of Chinese tradition and Asian American history reads somewhat like Maxine Hong Kingston with footnotes. Recommended for all public libraries.?D.E. Perushek, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (August 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068483989X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684839899
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,508,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More descendents of Chinese immigrants should share stories., June 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: TEA THAT BURNS: A Family Memoir of Chinatown (Hardcover)

My mother grew up in the mining camps at the turn of the century, (1900) - it would be wonderful if more of the Chinese descendents would write their stories - it was surely a life of great hardship, and a history that needs to be shared. This is a wonderful story of family and life, societal views, prejudice and pain. Many expressions I heard throughout my childhood referred to the Chinese..."...didn't have a Chinaman's chance."..."...the rule was that the sun was not to set on any Chinese in town..." - what torment these people had to endure - yet we have very little literature on this subject. Mr. Hall has provided us with a wonderful, informative read and some true-life views that U.S.History certainly needs.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tea That Refreshes, December 24, 2002

By 

John Jung "jrjung" (Cypress, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tea That Burns: A Family Memoir of Chinatown (Paperback)

Tea That Burns was an unexpected pleasure to read. Not only is the writing fresh and engrossing, but the overall account of his family history back several generations is fascinating and rings of authencity. I have read numerous interesting Chinese-American memoirs, and what makes this one especially unique, is the ability of the author to connect the events occurring in U. S. History with concurrent events in China's history. This interweaving informs the reader in ways that are absent when the China context is not provided.
As a second generation Chinese whose father was a paper son, and whose parents had an arranged marriage, I already knew many of the factual aspects of the book. However, I never could entirely understand the 'process' underlying the facts until I read Tea That Burns. The author filled in many of these gaps with his eye for detail. The documentation at the back of the book reveals that the author knows his Chinese immigration history thoroughly, but fortunately he does not bog the reader down by inserting an abundance of citations within the body of the text.
I felt invigorated and refreshed after reading this excellent book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chinatown, Then and Now, August 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: TEA THAT BURNS: A Family Memoir of Chinatown (Hardcover)

In these waning days of "Midnight in the Garden," along comes another extraordinary tour of a place that is both strange and familiar, mystical and as near - in the case of "Tea That Burns" - as a stop or two on the subway.

Bruce Hall uses the story of his family, early emigrants from a tiny village in southern China, to trace the changing fortunes of New York's Chinatown. From its founding in the worst slum of the city (the only place open to the exotic and often reviled newcomers in the mid-nineteenth century), through its rise as a refuge for a people consistently persecuted by American officialdom, to its status today as the largest Chinese community outside China, Chinatown has a unique place in the fabric of New York, both of and outside the larger city.

Hall uses his status as both the descendant of some of Chinatown's most prominent figures and as a half-anglo outsider to extraordinary advantage, contrasting the community as seen by its residents and as viewed by sometimes scornful, often condescending white journalists, writers, and reformers. "Tea that Burns" weaves a colorful story of poverty and sudden wealth, of hard work and days of banqueting, and of the conflicting desire to retain the old world while assimilating the new. The book is filled with wonderful characters: tong fighters battling for territory, "power aunties" fighting over mah jong tiles, unscrupulous white tour guides taking rubes to opium dens and chop-suey parlors, and the men and women of Hall's own family, generations whose voices echo still in the frantic, narrow streets.

"Tea That Burns" works on many levels: as a meditation on the immigrant experience, as a history of a few square blocks too often taken for granted as little more than a tourist destination, and as a very personal memory-book. Its thoughtful, even moving, writing bring the joys and sorrows of the past vividly to life.