The Dim Sum of All Things......

Hey this is Ryan, finally remember to post something up so here's my book review for this book.

Book Review for Dim Sum of All Things.

When I first saw the title of the book we are suppose to read, I gave it a long pause and just sigh getting a bad feeling what this book is going to be about. Obviously it’s going to be about Chinese-Americans, and me being a Chinese-American, I ether going to like it or hate the story. And to tell the truth the story annoyed me to no end, mainly the main character, but I do admit that there are some good parts to the story.
Now, “the Dim Sum of All Things”, by Kim Wong Keltner, is about a very typical second generation ABC(American-Born Chinese) girl named, Lindsey Owyang. A typical ABC, is basically a American-Born Chinese who know nothing or barley anything about their own culture. They are unable to read or speak their native tongue, it being Cantonese or Mandarin and so on. She lives in San Francisco with her grandmother, which she calls Pau Pau. I don’t know why the author spelled it with a “u” when spelling it with a “w” makes it sounds lot closer to the correct pronunciation. Lindsey’s Paw Paw is her door way to her Chinese culture, but she tries to avoid and look down at her culture. She is highly influence in the American culture and tries to adapt that in the Chinese Community. She works for a Vegan Warrior magazine as a receptionist. She looks down on White guys who have an Asian fetish, which she calls “hoarders of all things Asian”, but at the end she falls for a White guy name Michael Cartier, a travel editor for the magazine. This is very stereotypical, White guys goes for Asian women and Asian women goes for White guys. By the end of the story, Lindsey eventually became slightly more cultured and knowledgeable about their Chinese culture and about her own family and their traditions.
The book had some good part, mainly parts with show how typical Chinese Lindsey’s Paw Paw is, because it’s true. If you’re in Chinatown you can’t wait patiently in line, you really have to push and shove or it’ll never be your turn. Those are usually the most entertaining part of the story. I also enjoyed the part where Paw Paw takes Lindsey to China. Also enjoyed parts of the story where she Lindsey is slowly learning her roots, because I can relate. Going to China is an very important experience for Chinese-Americans, or just visiting your main land is an important experience for everyone.
I said before that the book annoyed me, but I’ll save that for another post as it will go off subject. So overall, this book was easy to read and very simple, but at the same time hard and annoying to read. It shows and tell the typical identities problems that Asian-Americans goes through and as usual it takes them along time to figure out how important it is to know your roots. The problem of this story is that it is full of stereotypes, from the beginning to the end. I might enjoyed it more if the author trimmed it down a bit, because that what annoyed me the most and will explain on my next post.