Race and Nation in Louis Chu's Eat a Bowl of Tea and Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman

Race and nation are often portrayed as being quite problematic due to their formation and transformation and complex depiction. In order to come close to fully comprehending the notions of race and nation, there is an intertwining of the histories and overlapping representations of gender and sexuality that play pivotal roles in the overall structure. These issues are broad and interrelated in every aspect, as demonstrated by Louis Chu's Eat a Bowl of Tea and Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman, both of which illustrate the formation and reproduction of social identity, particularly that of race, gender, sexuality, and the variations through time and space to form a single unique sense of nationalism and identity.

The central issue that runs through the plot of Eat a Bowl of Tea is Ben Loy's impotence, from which most of the events of the novel stem. Living in a bachelor society of Chinatown, Ben Loy is torn between the old China and America, as he struggles to reconcile generations of culture and tradition. He is a young man trying to make a life for himself in a society that is constrained by structural racism, and one where he can only pursue a limited amount of opportunities and resources ranging from Chinese restaurants to family connected businesses. He is not allowed to mature on his own and make decisions without the constant critical eye of the community. Ben Loy's sexuality problems can be said to be a representation of his inability to cope with the stress and strain of having to live up to the enormous responsibility placed on him to continue the Chinese traditions and make Chinatown into a family society from the largely male society of New York's Chinatown, a fact due to US national immigration policies. Similarly, Mei Oi faces a sudden transplantation to a strange country where she is expected to live up to the role of the traditional Chinese woman, to represent and embody everything that Old China meant in the memories of the men who had left home so long ago. She lacks the guidance and support of females and ultimately turns to adultery for fulfillment.

It is only when the couple leaves New York's Chinatown to move to San Francisco, where the first Chinese immigrants arrived to pursue their dreams and initially formed notions of America, were they able to become a loving functional family once again for there they could finally merge the past with the present, realize the original dream and apply the current time to establish "…a home, his and Mei Oi's. Not just a place to hang his hat" and achieve all that they have ever wished for while, at the same time, fulfilling the dream of a continuation of tradition and culture in a successful diversity.

Similarly, Okja Keller's Comfort Woman maps race, nation, gender and sexuality onto each other in order to demonstrate the interrelated nature of these issues. Mapping is seen particularly through the violation and abuse of the female body to symbolize the violent destruction and exploitation of a nation. Akiko is taken into the Japanese camps full of "comfort women" and brutally raped repeatedly by the Japanese soldiers until she self proclaims herself to be "dead," reflecting upon how Japan was taking over Korea at the time and murdering its spirit and soul. The numerous women who were killed or forced to have an abortion further illustrates Japan's actions to deplete a Korean past and identity, and the converting them to a Japanese future, as shown by the change of names of the women. Keller uses the metaphor of the female body and nation to show the interrelation of sexuality and nation, and moreover the treatment of the Korean women illustrated the overlapping of race and nation.

When rescued by American missionaries, not much else changes for in the end, the US was just as oppressive in wanting to change Akiko and shape her into what they want her to be, as expressed by her silent cries, "I wanted to shout, No! That is not my name! But I said nothing…" (93). It is through Beccah that Akiko finds some sense of healing by being allowed to nurture and care for her own, to raise a future that she never had and in the end, it is through death that Akiko finally finds freedom to return to life.

In both texts, Eat a Bowl of Tea and Comfort Woman, the intertwining of race and nation with representations of gender and sexuality illustrate the significance of understanding each issue as a layer of another in that each complicates and brings about another facet of the matter. One's identity is who and what one is, and this concept is a preeminent issue of race and nation and their interrelation. Central to the construction of identity, race and nation stand to form a link between culture and territory. Complexity only increases when gender and sexuality are conjoined with race and nation to attempt at a complete representation of identity but only through this near absolute understanding can the perception of self be achieved.

Race and nation, and representations of gender and sexuality are mapped onto each other in Louis Chu's Eat a Bowl of Tea and Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman, to show the effects of one on the other, how they shape each other, and function together in a unique experience. It is race and nation that determines the representation of gender and sexuality and the characters of the novel who knit together the links of race and nation with that of gender and sexuality in order to depict an overall vision of the unique experiences of a male and female Chinese immigrant living in New York's Chinatown in the 1940's and 50's. While both of the literary works focus upon and trace the suffering and misery of historical conflicts of race and nation and their resonating effects, they both end with optimistic hope in the next generation, which has been given the gift of the past to understand the future.