Concubine's Children by Denise Chong
"Concubine's Children" by Denise Chong is a memoir that explores the complex family dynamics stemming from her grandfather, Chan Sam, a Chinese immigrant who maintained two families—one in Canada and one in China. The narrative begins in the early 20th century when Chan Sam brings his concubine, May-ying, to Vancouver, leading to significant cultural and personal upheaval. The memoir highlights the lives of May-ying and her daughters, including Winnie, who navigates feelings of loneliness and identity in a divided family structure.
Through interwoven stories, the book reflects on themes of immigration, cultural displacement, and the search for belonging. The historical backdrop includes significant events in China, such as the Japanese invasion and the Cultural Revolution, which impact the family in profound ways. Winnie’s eventual return to China reveals the resilience of her family and provides insights into their shared history, contrasting her experiences with those of her siblings in China. Ultimately, Denise Chong’s exploration serves as both a personal journey and a broader commentary on the complexities of identity and heritage within immigrant families.
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Subject Terms
Concubine's Children by Denise Chong
First published: 1994
The Work
Denise Chong begins her memoir with her grandparents. Her grandfather, Chan Sam, was one of the many Chinese who left their homeland to seek their fortune in the Americas. After many years alone in Vancouver, Canada, Chan decided to have a second wife, a concubine, sent over from China. May-ying arrived in Vancouver in 1924, using a false Canadian birth certificate procured for the occasion. Thus began the family history detailed in The Concubine’s Children: Portrait of a Family Divided.
Throughout his life Chan Sam maintained two families—his Chinese family with Huangbo, and his Canadian family with May-ying, by whom he had three daughters. Two of May-ying’s daughters, Ping and Nan, remained in China after a visit; Chan returned to Canada for the birth of their third child, foretold to be the son Chan longed for. They were disappointed with a third daughter, Hing, who later took the American name Winnie. May-ying’s disappointment was so great that for a time she dressed Hing as a boy, and later “adopted” a son, Leonard. On one of his visits home Chan conceived a son with Huangbo, but the boy, Yuen, had horribly deformed feet that “looked to be on backwards.”
The Canadian branch of the family provided for much of the Chinese family’s needs. As commanded by her husband, May-ying worked as a waitress in Chinatown tea houses, but she grew to enjoy the waitressing life and its freedom. She drank and gambled at mah-jongg and, after separating from Chan, followed her lover Guen from place to place, often leaving her daughter Winnie alone or in the care of strangers. Winnie reared herself in loneliness, married John Chong, and had several children, Denise among them. Denise’s mother told her, “You’re Canadian, not Chinese,” but Denise’s two years in Peking with her future husband, Roger Smith, stimulated her curiosity about her Chinese roots. She traveled the past with her mother, visiting her grandfather’s village and Winnie’s sisters and brother, with whom they shared the same Chinese dialect. They stayed in the large house built with May-ying’s waitress earnings. The sweeping history of China serves as background for the personal traumas and tragedies of the divided family, whose Chinese branch survived the Japanese invasion of World War II, the Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong, and the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Denise Chong is the author of this memoir, but it is her mother, Winnie, who finds her identity. Winnie’s visits to China reveal that, despite the difficulties of her childhood, her life was in many ways more secure and less tragic than that of her siblings in China. For Denise, her recovered history imbues the past with new meaning, “perhaps enough to be a compass” for her own children.
Bibliography
Chiu, Monica. Review of The Concubine’s Children, by Denise Chong. Amerasia Journal 21, no. 3 (Winter, 1995): 215.
Guterson, David. Review of The Concubine’s Children, by Denise Chong. The New York Times Book Review, January 15, 1995, 24.