Book review for "The Dim Sum of All things" -Rafael

Where should I start...

The novel by Kim Wong Keltner took me by surprise, I have never read a novel that had charged with frustration. The constant reference to Asian and Chinese stereotypes at times had me put the book down and take a moment to think about why the author continued this derogatory trend the describe the characters and environments.

Lindsey, the main character is a lost, uninformed, confused and overly-dramatic figure. She acts as if she was born yesterday and knew nothing of her own culture. She easily labels others, mainly white men as the predators of all things Asian; "hoarders for short. The destructive criticism of others that continues to be repeated non stop over the book, soured my thoughts "Am I to think that Asian women feel or think this way?" No, its way too general its 2 ethnocentric to accept as a possibility. Nevertheless the book covers many topics that should be brought to our attention:

Stereotypes:
One the main themes that carried over throughout the book, it brought the attention a a fictional mentality young women who is completely confused, completely ethnocentric or racist. Although it was a frustrating experience, I could relate to her sometimes. I too was not born in the USA so some common culture activities or thoughts, that my own culture chased could be polarized by the parallel growth with the common culture of the "Non-Hispanic". But, I did feel that at some points it got too out of hand. and not even I was that subjective to others.

gender:
Lindsey was as submissive as she could be. Loyal to her family. And the most of the characters that were men and Asian did someone pose that advantage over the women. Her family was very traditional, regardless of how she felt she would have to bide. Her dates that took her to karaoke. My culture also shared that traditional custom. I believe this theme was the least spoken of but most understandable. To be in the clear, no I do not agree that this is acceptable as times change.

Culture:
Parallel to Stereotypes, culture was always under fire. I felt it was completely unrealistic that she had such limited knowledge of her own culture. and to become almost hostile towards it, bothered me tremendously.

Interracial Dating:
This is a very touchy subject. although we live in a time that allows such theme to be accepted more openly in reality, the book nearly wants to destroy it at first. And I always was thinking" what is so wrong" why does the Asian family want nothing to do with others. Historically I can understand why, but to my own point of view, that is prejudice, being masked under culture.

the book never really answers why Asian women pick white guys, why people get tattoos of Chinese Characters.

I guess we are lest to be as subjective as Lindsey and make our own conclusions of her, the the rest of the story.

-Rafael de la torre