The substance of Fifth Chinese Daughter is concerned with the conflicts and subsequent drama of the collision of worlds within the Chinese-American girl. At first, in the excitement of having discovered the new world, she tried to change the old ways of her family, but her efforts were unappreciated. This discovery becomes the turning point in the life of any member of the second generation as he asks, "Am I of my father's race or am I an American?" Since the familiar pattern has been m...
[Fifth Chinese Daughter] is like one of those enticing oriental sets of boxes, one inside the other. There is more to it than its gravely simple and humorous anecdotal story of Mr. Wong's fifth daughter…. Inside its autobiographical form, told in the third person as is the Chinese custom,… it is full of provocative comparisons of cultures, and testimony on changes-in-progress, on conflicts between East and West, men and women, on education, art and industry, and for good measure, cookin...
[Jade Snow's] varied interests stimulate some fascinating insights about people and things Oriental [in No Chinese Stranger]—on the unexpected artistry of hotel tea trays and potted plants, for example, or on the delectable cuisines or impressive old palaces, or on confidence and vigor she found in many Chinese today. Running through the narrative is Jade Snow's growing awareness of her identity as a Chinese-American, achieving a sort of balance within her dual heritage. The lively, for...
Writing an autobiography at the age of 27 is a rather amazing thing to do. Jade Snow Wong's ["Fifth Chinese Daughter"], though, is not so much the story of her life as it is a story about San Francisco's Chinatown. Because she writes about herself in the third person …, she achieves a nice impartiality about her very unusual environment. Miss Wong was raised in strict Oriental tradition, with unquestioning obedience to her father and no individual rights to speak of at all...
[Fifth Chinese Daughter] is a study of the conflict in the lives of Chinatown's younger generation—a conflict between the weight of Chinese tradition and the freedom of American ways. In deference to Chinese literary usages, the story is told in the third person which, in English, unfortunately makes it seem self-conscious. Jade Snow must be a fine and serious young woman, but the imagination which must be present in her pottery is not discernible in her writing. Nor does humor seem to be part...
