The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee: Observations on Not Fitting In (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "In Taipei one of the first things I noticed are the white cotton masks strapped to the faces of the women..." (more)
Key Phrases: niy mother, Gung Gung, Meg Ryan, Sharon Stone (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The final essay in this unfocused collection recounts Rekdal's search for evidence of a Chinese community that had settled in Natchez, Miss., in the early 1900s; her great-aunt was a member. At the visitor's center in Natchez, she is told there was no such community. The attendant explains, "There's just us. Just Natchez. EveryoneDblacks, white, Chinese, we're all in here together." Rekdal, the daughter of a Chinese-American mother and an American father of "Norwegian stock," is attracted to the inclusiveness implied in the Natchezian's statement, but finds it difficult to believe. Traveling through America, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China, she continually confronts the difficulty of negotiating her biracial identity and the hard truth that she "cannot choose one identity without losing half of [her]self." A poet (her first collection, A Crash of Rhinos, is forthcoming), Rekdal writes with a sure hand, though she stretches her broad subtitle to encompass travel sketches, childhood memories and meditations on sharks and BB guns. The essays are further diffused by her technique of continuously moving between past and present (her excursion to Taiwan, for example, serves almost entirely as backdrop for thoughts of her boyfriend in America). Perhaps the difficulty of Rekdal's position prevents her from seeing what could have been her focus. When trying to explain to the Japanese family she stays with that she is half-Chinese, she is sternly rebuked with "I am sorry, but you are American": what it means to be American is the insistent, unanswerable question that dogs Rekdal wherever she goes. Agent, Leigh Feldman, Darshanoff & Verrill Literary Agency. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Being biracial is a topic often left out of the Great American Dialogue on Race. Oddly, even the U.S. Census dodges the question: "biracial" was not one of the myriad racial categories on the forms this year. Rekdal, half-Chinese, half-Norwegian, hailing from Washington State, cleverly dissects what it means to be biracial in America and overseas in this artful collection of essays. The essays recall experiences from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood in America and as a student and teacher in Korea, Japan, and China. Rekdal artfully narrates the peculiar situations her dual identity has often placed her in, alternately funny, sad, poignant, or ironic. She probes nearly every possible relationship: lovers, friends, mother and daughter, father and daughter. The narrative structure is inventive and draws from her sharply honed skills as a poet. Some stories are told in a weaving, dreamlike fashion. Others are sharp and blunt. Tapped by the Village Voice as an up-and-coming "writer on the verge," Rekdal has a lot to say. Ted Leventhal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1st edition (October 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375409378
• ISBN-13: 978-0375409370
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,288,744 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book Well-Worth Reading, January 15, 2001

By	Paul Gong "pgong" (Piscataway, NJ) - See all my reviews

Ms. Rekdal's numerous observations are personal and touching. Many Americans have struggled with an identity crisis. I understand fully the crushing power of long and brutal silences mentioned in the text. I am so glad that Ms. Rekdal is not silent at all.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars captivating, January 12, 2001

By A Customer

i am so happy to have stumbled upon this book. This author is so intelligent, observant, witty and creative. This book was charming and relatable. i laughed aloud as some of my own personal experiences were so similar, it was amazing. Rekdal is able to put into words feelings that i hadn't been able to describe. Even if one hasn't had cultural identity questions about him/herself this book is enjoyable and some sentences read almost like poetry. Her stories are very insightful and she captures the essence of how people think and react.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complex issues, disturbing insights, but very readable, May 4, 2001

By	Meremoose (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews

There are always stereotypes to be stripped down, aren't there?

Rekdal's themes (race, how Americans are perceived overseas, how Americans perceive each other) make you think, but her writing won't make you struggle. Her essays, built around episodes of her life, are sad, funny, entertaining and insightful.

An excellent book. Highly recommended. I wish I could teach a course called "Race in America" just so I could get more people to read this book.