Response to "My Father's Chinese Wives" by Sandra Tsing Loh

This story is a perfect example of a great piece of creative nonfiction. Aside from this class, I'm actually taking creative nonfiction right now, so this piece gave me quite a few ideas. Sandra does an excellent job retelling this true story of her father marrying a new woman. What I noticed right away is how well Sandra explains the cultural differences between her Chinese father and a father of another race. These Chinese cultural norms are further highlighted when she describes the way that Zhu Ping acts towards her and her sister, particularly through her broken English.

The description throughout the story also stuck out to me. I loved the way that Sandra describes her father in the first few paragraphs, ranging from details such as "a retired Chinese aerospace engineer, is starting to look more and more like somebody's gardener" to "If he's that old, why does he still do the same vigorous daily exercise regime he's done for the past 10 years? 45 minutes of pull-ups, something that looks like The Twist and much unfocused bellowing. This always performed on the most public beach as possible in his favorite Speedo, one he found in a dumpster." I was able to get a really clear picture of the type of man her father is, despite the fact that he is 70 years old! I also really loved the paragraph where Sandra describes Zhu Ping's laughter, how it was completely unexpected and almost awkward to hear because Sandra and her sister had never laughed that loudly in front of her father. Instead, they laughed in private, which perhaps highlights a Chinese cultural norm, and further explains the type of man that her father is.

In the final few paragraphs, Kaitlin, her sister, asks her father why he was so angry in the past when he was married to her mother, and it is a question that she has wanted to ask for thirty years. Her father simply says that he doesn't know, and that "people get angry." But this response is deemed acceptable because "he is old now" and the anger has seemingly left him.  I like this idea of being too old to be angry.

I think the way that Sandra chose to end the story is very interesting.  She, her father, her sister, and Zhu Pang all long for something they miss and can no longer have - for her and her sister, it is their childhood home, despite that they are in it right now, for her father, it is Shanghai, and for Zhu Pang, it is for her bitter winters. It is particularly interesting that her childhood home no longer feels like her childhood home with her father's new wife taking it over, rather than her mother. I think this is a huge part of what this story is really about.