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Sui Sin Far: the Pioneer of Asian American Tricksters

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Sui Sin Far: the Pioneer of Asian American Tricksters 2016 HAWAII UNIVERSITY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES ARTS, HUMANITIES, SOCIAL SCIENCES & EDUCATION JANUARY 8 - 11, 2016 ALA MOANA HOTEL, HONOLULU, HAWAII SUI SIN FAR: THE PIONEER OF ASIAN AMERICAN TRICKSTERS YIMWILAI, SUPAPORN SRINAKHARINWIROT UNIVERSITY, THAILAND FACULTY OF HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF WESTERN LANGUAGES Dr. Supaporn Yimwilai Department of Western Languages Faculty of Humanities Srinakharinwirot University Thailand. Sui Sin Far: the Pioneer of Asian American Tricksters Synopsis: Like trickster, the purpose of this paper is to disrupt because it discusses trickster strategies Sui Sin Far, the pioneer of Asian American authors, employed in "The Smuggling of Tie Co" and in "An Autumn Fan." By engaging in tricksterism, Sui Sin Far not only to get her writings published but also to counter the Anglo-American discourse on race and gender. 1 Sui Sin Far: the Pioneer of Asian American Tricksters Asst. Prof. Dr. Supaporn Yimwilai Faculty of Humanities, Srinakharinwirot University, 114 Soi Sukhumvit 23, Wattana District, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Abstract Like trickster, the purpose of this paper is to disrupt because it considers many the trickster strategies Sui Sin Far, the pioneer of Asian American authors, employed not only to get her writing published but also to counter the Anglo-American discourse on race and gender. In "The Smuggling of Tie Co," Sui Sin Far created a woman who disguises as a man to resist the state of victimization of the Chinese female immigrants. In "An Autumn Fan," Sui Sin Far employs a trickster aesthetic to reverse the concept of "Otherness" and to break away from racial and gender stereotypes. The earliest American fiction about the Asians was written in the 1860s and 1870s and set in the California frontier; this fiction represents the conflict between the Chinese and white Californians. The sources of this conflict are complex. In addition to racial differences, the religious, cultural, and linguistic differences were much greater than those among Europeans of different backgrounds. In this way, the prevailing image of the Chinese immigrants at this time was that of a coolie,” or unskilled laborer. Coolies were considered physically small, dirty, and diseased. In manner, they were allegedly humble and passive, but also sneaky and treacherous. They supposedly looked alike and were depraved morally, given to theft, violence, gambling, and opium. The early American fiction about the Chinese immigrants was written with an awareness of these images. For example, one of the earliest authors to write about Chinese characters was Bret Harte. His works often included Chinese characters. One of his poems, “The Heathen Chinee,” is a portrayal of a card game between Ah Sin and William Nye. The poem dramatizes how Nye is outwitted by Ah Sin. Although Ah Sin has a “childlike” smile, the readers learn that he is a wicked man. As Nye catches Ah Sin cheating, he shouts, “We are destroyed by cheap Chinese labor.” Similarly, Francis J. Dickie’s short story “The Creed of Ah Sing” presents the bad images of the Chinese immigrants. The narrator remarks, “All Chinks are great gamblers, and as a game keeper Ah Sing was a wonder” (498). While the Anglo-American literature presents the negative images of the Chinese, employing a Chinese pen name and writing in defense of Chinese immigrants made it difficult for Sui Sin Far to sell her writings to a general American audience, especially on the West Coast. How could Sui Sin Far publish her writings? Like trickster, the purpose of this paper is to disrupt because it considers many the trickster strategies Sui Sin Far employed such as characters in the text and linguistic and stylistic principles. I argue that Sui Sin Far used many trickster strategies not only to get her writing published but also to counter the Anglo-American discourse on race and gender.Sui Sin Far’s two short stories, “The Smuggling of Tie Co” and “An Autumn Fan” are good examples to show her trickster strategies. Tricksters: Survival Strategies In The Practice of Everyday Life (1984), Michael de Certeau offers a powerfully suggestive model to explain “the procedures of everyday creativity” by which the weak “continually turn to their own ends forces alien to them” (xiv; xix). He calls these popular procedures “tactics,” which take form of “victories of the ‘weak’ over the ‘strong’, clever tricks, knowing how to get away with things, ‘hunter’s cunning,’ maneuvers, polymorphic situations . .” (xix). 2 The best known literary scholar of the origins of the African American trickster is Henry Louis Gates. Gates explains that the African American signifying monkey represents a radical undermining of the language and power structures of white America. Gates’ analysis of the signifying monkey shows how the African American trickster becomes both figure and a linguistic means for one culture’s “guerrilla action” against its oppressing culture’s language and ideology (52). As to the Native American Indian trickster, Andrew Wiget points out that the trickster “lives best in the ephemeral world of words.” According to Wignet, Native American Indian stories typically use word-formula to set the scene for what the audience knows will come. The Native American Indian trickster follows a basic pattern: trickster fixes himself on a particular goal, but to get it he will have to transform himself on a particular goal. He tries several times but fails, and though he may be punished or killed, he survives to try again and again. Recent theorists of the trickster build upon these past studies and advance the field particularly along two lines: the social impulse behind the “multicultural” context(s) of trickster, and the crucial role he plays in art. For example, Elizabeth Ammon in her introduction to Tricksterism in Turn-of-the-Century American Literature: A Multicultural Perspective, argues that for many writers of color, tricksters and trickster strategies represented the most viable way of negotiating the Anglo-American male dominated American publishing industry. Inspired by Ammon, Jeanne Rosier Smith puts more emphasis on the multicultural role of trickster in Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethnic Literature. She argues that the narrative forms of writers of color share distinctive features: breaks, disruptions, loose ends, and multiple voices or perspectives. From the above discussion, it can be concluded that tricksters can become “a survival strategy” through which oppressed groups or individuals may attain a certain degree of personal and political autonomy within the restrictions or the dangerous situations. It can be characterized as disguise, deceit, ambiguity, change, disruption, surprise, and adaptation. One of writers who employ this survival strategy is Sui Sin Far. Trickster "Tie Co" Sui Sin Far's "The Smuggling of Tie Co" first appeared in Land of Sunshine in July 19101 and was later reprinted in Mrs. Spring Fragrance. Set in eastern Canada near the United States border, during the early years of Chinese exclusion, "The Smuggling of Tie Co" involves a Chinese's girl's unrequited love for a white American. Disguised as a man, Tie Co emigrates from China and works in a laundry in Canada. She secretly falls in love with Jack Fabian, and American smuggler. When she finds that Jack is unemployed because when some American lawyers devise a scheme in which Chinese young men purchase birth certificates from American-born "fathers," thereby establishing their right to enter the country, his business drastically spoiled. Restless and desperate, Fabian complains about his troubles to Tie Co. Tie Co offers to be smuggled to New York even though he has already established himself as one of the partners in a local laundry business. Unfortunately, they are found by the police after crossing the border. In order to spare Jack from being caught with evidence, Tie Co jumps off a bridge and drowns herself. When the Tie Co's body is brought out of the river, it turns out that "the body found with Tie Co's face and dressed in Tie Co's clothes [is] the body of a girl--a woman" (191). Released from jail in less than a week 1 A major Western magazine based in Southern California, Land of Sunshine was edited by Charles Lummis, whose goal was to present "the best Western literature" and make the West "match the East in the excellence of its literary product" (qtd. in White-Parks, Sui Sin Far. 85-86). 3 because there is no evidence against him, Fabian soon resumes his smuggling business, and now and then he finds himself "pondering long and earnestly over the mystery of Tie Co's life--and death" (192). The story of trickster Tie Co is complicated because of multiple border crossings. First, disguise as a man, trickster Tie Co has come to Canada with other men. Next, she attempts to cross over from Canada to the United States. In this way, she crosses both geography and gender boundaries. Although there is no explanation for Tie Co's behavior, I suggest that the disguise as a man is Tie Co's trickster to overcome their state of victimization of the Chinese women. One of the most noticeable characteristics of the Chinese population residing in the United States before World War II was pronounced shortage of women. According to the United States censuses of population taken during the second half of the nineteenth century, the number of Chinese females fluctuated between 3.6 percent (in 1890) and 7.2 percent (in 1870) of the total Chinese population (Chan "Exclusion" 94). The percentage rose slowly during the twentieth century, but most of the increase was due to the birth of girls on American soil, not to immigration. Various explanations have been given for why so few Chinese women immigrated to the United States. Some historians, such as Ronald Takaki, have claimed that because Chinese society was patriarchal.
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