53 pages • 1 hour read
Lan Samantha ChangThe Family Chao
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Prologue-Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “They See Themselves”
Part 1, Prologue Summary
Leo Chao’s restaurant, Fine Chao, has served real Chinese food in Haven, Wisconsin, for 35 years. The narrator speaks of how hard the shrewd Leo and his resourceful wife, Winnie, worked to sustain the business. The community enjoyed their food and ignored any troubles between the two, instead praising their three accomplished sons. Now, a year after “intemperate and scandalous events,” residents of Haven can’t believe “that such good food was cooked by a bad person” (2).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “December 21”
James Chao, a first-year college student, hears an older Chinese man calling to him as he walks through Union Station in California. The man carries a blue carpetbag. He asks James for help, but James doesn’t speak Mandarin. The man shows him a picture of his family, a couple with a young girl holding a dog, and a letter with a return address in Illinois. Since he is headed to his hometown in Wisconsin, James tells the man to follow him, but as they climb the stairs, the man falls. James administers CPR without success. When the EMTs come, James gives them the jia li jiao he was bringing to his mother, “as if a gift of food would make up for a human life” (10). James realizes the man’s bag has been left behind so resolves to find the man’s family and return it.
The middle Chao son, Ming, picks James up from the station. Ming works a successful job in Manhattan and hates coming back to Wisconsin. Dagou, the eldest brother, texts them both to ask that they be on his side at the luncheon he has organized at the Spiritual House where their mother, Winnie, lives as a nun in a Buddhist community. Dagou was previously engaged to Katherine Corcoran for several years but fell in love with Brenda Wozicek, a white woman Leo hired to work at the restaurant, on whom Dagou had a crush in high school. Ming drops James off at the family restaurant, where James puts his things in the trunk of his father’s car.
James notes the restaurant hasn’t changed since he left, including the bulletin board where his mother and father leave notes for one another. On one, a list of things customers frequently order, Leo wrote, “What is chop suey?” and Winnie answered, “I don’t know” (15). Two of the employees are gone for the holiday break, leaving only O-Lan, a woman from Guangzhou. Leo greets his son. James reminds his father that the freezer room is not up to code. Leo scoffs at Dagou, whom he calls a worthless American-born Chinese (ABC), for using his college degree to cook for Americans, and placing himself at the beck and call of a white woman. James admits that he is not ambitious either. Leo shouts that he was a pioneer, breaking his back, sacrificing himself, “so my sons could be magnificent!” (19). Still, he calls James a good boy.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “December 22”
James brings the family dog, a French bulldog named Alf, to the luncheon. The Spiritual House, a community of Buddhist nuns housed in an old elementary school, is run by Gu Ling Zhu Chi. James hugs Winnie, who has grown small and frail. Though she raised the boys as Christians, Winnie was always devoted to Guan Yin, a Bodhisattva representing compassion. James thinks Winnie is the heart of the family and wonders why she left them for this secluded life.
They are joined by Mary Wa, who runs the Oriental Food Mart, her son Fang, and her daughter, Alice. Fang tells James that in a town of 40,000 there are only about 600 of Chinese descent. James has been in love with Alice Wa since they were children and remains attracted to her now, thinking of her as a caged exotic bird. Aroused by the scent of Alice’s shampoo, James hides in the bathroom to masturbate, which amuses his father.
Dagou asks the abbess to adjudicate over his dispute with his father and has invited family friends to the lunch as witnesses. The abbess tells fortunes for the attendees including Mr. and Mrs. Chin, whose daughter, Lynn Chin, has distressed her parents because she changed her major from data science to journalism. Ming, who paid a dowry for his mother to enter the house despite his disinterest in faith, understands Mandarin and thinks Dagou is “an unreconstructed sinner, stupid with the burden of having grasped neither Eastern nor Western moral teachings” (29). The abbess reads James’s fortune, but James cannot understand her Mandarin. To Ming, she says he is about to become very ill. He should seek tranquility and return to his family. Ming thinks this is ironic because he has separated from his family for his own survival.
Dagou enters, He has gotten heavier since the brothers last saw him. He calls James by his nickname, Snaggle, and announces that he and Katherine broke up. Dagou explains to the abbess that, six years ago, he returned to Haven from New York to help his father at the restaurant because his mother was sick with pneumonia. Leo said at the time he would either pay to help Dagou resettle in New York or would make him a partner in the restaurant. Dagou wants half of the restaurant. Gu Ling Zhu Chi tells Dagou to go to his apartment and stay there until after the holidays, or something very bad might happen.
Lunch is served. Ming doesn’t eat Chinese food. Leo, whom his Chinese neighbors call “Big Chao,” mocks the nuns for being vegetarian and says he doesn’t intend to give up his desires; he wants his desires “to flourish and multiply” (37). Leo mocks Winnie for joining the community. Ming wonders how Winnie could have been loyal to their father for 36 years. Ming has vowed not to marry a woman like his mother and for that reason does not date Asian women.
In front of everyone, Dagou asks his father to make him a partner in the restaurant. He accuses Leo of hiding cash. The Chinese community support having a young person stay in Haven. Leo claims Dagou is a failure, and he owes Leo for supporting him all this time. Ming, who hates their father’s greed and aggression, retreats into his mind while the others argue. Leo calls Dagou a dog and says this fuss is all about a woman. Dagou calls his father an asshole, and Leo shouts at him to apologize. Gu Ling Zhu Chi tells Leo to look behind him; he is in danger of a bad death. Before he leaves, Leo throws a bag of meat on the floor, and all the dogs fight over it. Alf runs away.
Later, James visits Dagou in his apartment above the restaurant, where the family lived before they found a bigger house. Dagou shows James invitations for the Christmas dinner he is planning along with an illegal radio transmitter he found. They discuss Dagou’s relationship with Katherine, and Dagou admits he wants to retrieve the jade ring he gave Katherine—the only thing of value that Leo ever gave Winnie—so that he can give it to Brenda. Katherine won’t give back the ring or even admit they’re broken up; she believes Dagou really loves her and Brenda is just something he needs to get out of his system.
Dagou asked Katherine to loan him money because Brenda wants to marry a rich man. Dagou has signed a lease on a penthouse across town so he and Brenda can move in together. Dagou translates the fortune Gu Ling Zhu Chi pronounced for James: He will be wealthy and have adventures, but the love of his life will be unrequited. Dagou gives James a list of items to pick up from the Food Mart. James visits Alice, feeling an intense attraction to her which he blames on having Big Chao blood. Alice tells James that Dagou has used up all his credit at the store. Moved by the drawing Alice shows him, James asks Alice to meet him at his house the next day.
As James walks to Brenda’s house to collect Alf, two middle school boys throw a snowball at him and make fun of him for being Chinese. The boys are part of the Skaer family, a white family who owns the family diner in town—the Fine Chao’s biggest competition. James recalls how Ming, especially, was tormented in school by the Skaers. James recalls walking through this neighborhood years ago with Leo, who was, James now suspects, visiting a lover.
Brenda invites James into her house. James thinks Brenda is beautiful and her house is pleasant. Alf is there, and so is Katherine. Katherine is trying to encourage Brenda to give up Dagou. Katherine knows Dagou wants to give the jade ring to Brenda. James thinks there is something cruel in the way Brenda taunts Katherine.
Late at night, in his room at his father’s house, James tunes his radio to Dagou’s station and listens to his pirated broadcast. Dagou invites listeners to his Christmas party at the Fine Chao. He calls his station the Doghouse, as Dagou means “big dog” in Mandarin. Ming’s nickname is “second dog” and James’s is “third dog.”
In his hotel room, Ming also listens to the broadcast. He thinks Dagou is indiscreet, self-absorbed, and self-destructive. Dagou tells a story from his childhood about going with his father to mail a package to China. The postal worker refused to send the package, as it smelled of food, and there was a confrontation between Leo and the manager. Dagou saw that another man from the community, Ken Fan, was embarrassed, and Dagou was embarrassed, too. Leo yelled at Dagou, telling him if he’s ashamed of his father, he’s ashamed of himself; he called Dagou a coward and demanded he apologize to Leo. On the radio, Dagou admits he has imagined ways his father might die. One scenario is that he would be shut inside the freezer room and the key, which they keep on a shelf inside, would be missing. Dagou says it would be amazing “[t]o wake up every day and know my life is my own” (73). Ming, who always hated the pain that their father’s infidelity caused Winnie, wonders who the package was for.
Part 1, Prologue-Chapter 2 Analysis
Structurally, Chang organizes the chapters in this section chronologically, with each chapter’s title indicating the date on which the action takes place. The prologue introduces the omniscient narrator who begins with describing the Chao family in the context of the Chinese American community in Haven, Wisconsin. This prepares the reader to view events not only as a family drama unfolding among members of the Chao family, but also as a tale of an immigrant family that has established a town institution in the form of a long-running, well-recognized restaurant. Fine Chao plays on the English slang for food, “chow” being a homonym for the family name. Following the Prologue, Chang divides each chapter into sections that alternate between the points of view of the Chao sons—in this section, James and Ming—labeling each section with a phrase capturing a conflict or key image from that section.
The early chapters outline the broader tensions that inform the individual-level action of the story, in particular the tension of Being Both Insider and Outsider. The white Americans, Haven’s racial majority, position the Chinese residents as outsiders. Though the Chaos have lived in town for decades and all three of their sons were born in the United States and are full legal citizens, the racist insults that the Skaer children fling at James along with a snowball highlight the discrimination and anti-Asian bias imbedded in the Chaos’ community.
Chang uses the language of both the omniscient narrator and the characters to reinforce this racial divide. Leo uses “American” to describe anybody who is not of Chinese descent, treating it as an ethnic or cultural designation rather than a nationality. Legally, all three Chao sons are Americans, but when the narrator refers to “community,” they mean the Chinese American community. Those inside of this community consider those not part of it outsiders (17). Ming goes a step further, thinking of the white Americans in Haven as villagers—products of a rural culture, ignorant and unsophisticated, an attempt to push back against the discrimination and abuse inflicted on him. The Chao sons consistently wrestle with their dual identity as Chinese Americans, simultaneously insiders and outsiders in the United States.
Through Haven’s Chinese families, Chang highlights the value the Chinese community places on Loyalty, Filial Piety, and Sacrifice for Family. Parents in the novel who emigrated from China expect that the sacrifices they made so their children will have a better life will be repaid with obedience, respect, and success. Lynn Chin upsets this expectation when she switches from a scientific degree to a field in communications, as does Fang Wa, who chooses not to attend college. Leo codifies this community value by declaring that Dagou is worthless because, instead of law, he earned a musical degree, and returned to Haven to live off Leo’s generosity rather than build a successful career. Despite his cruel treatment of his children, Leo believes love and respect from them are his due, demanding that his children repay the sacrifices he’s made for them. Leo scoffs that Chinese children born in America (ABCs) have been weakened by their exposure to white culture and its ideals of individualism and the pursuit of happiness.
Chang’s frequent references to dogs become a recurring motif in the novel. Leo, whom the community refers to as “Big Chao,” is the big dog or alpha of the pack— a role emphasized by Leo’s imposing physicality and his crude behavior, which includes overt discussions of sex and a rudeness of manner toward others. Leo identifies with the dog both because he works hard and because he recognizes that he too is motivated by animal desires: the hunger for food, desire for comfort, and the drive to reproduce. The domineering elements of Leo’s personality conflict with stereotypes of Asian men as meek, docile, quiet, or obedient—stereotypes perpetuated by white men in an attempt to define white masculinity as superior. Leo’s aggression also catalyzes conflict with each member of his family, including his wife and, in different ways, all three of his sons.
In The Family Chao, Chang frames the rebellion of the son against the father, a classic conflict in world literature, as a fight for dominance between two men who both want to be big dogs. Leo and Dagou are foils for one another, similar in their physical stature and self-focus, but different in ways Leo does not respect. Dagou loves food and cooking, while Leo regards it as a chore. Leo is thrifty, even miserly with money, while Dagou spends lavishly, leaving him broke. Dagou is in love with and committed to Brenda, a white woman, which Leo sees as a betrayal of his culture and community—positioning their fight not simply as a personality conflict or family disagreement, but as a conflict between Chinese and American identities. Ming and James, the other two brothers, echo this conflict in their own ways.
Chang begins James’s character arc with an encounter with the old man in the train station whose death establishes James’s helplessness as a character and his sense of disconnect from the Chinese community. As the novel opens, James struggles with his “Chineseness”—he has forgotten how to speak Mandarin, the native language of his parents and his life in California has distanced him from his community. Chang establishes The Power of Food in this early scene by suggesting that James’s primary connection to his family and community is through food—he gifts the jia li jiao (a gift for his mother) to the EMTs who try to save the life of the Chinese man. By uniting James and the unknown Chinese man through a common journey—returning home to reunite with family—Chang establishes the central theme of James’s character arc. Over the course of the novel, James’s arc sees him moving from a place of helplessness and disconnect to one of action, resolve and connection with his community, working in his family’s restaurant.
The novel continues to explore The Power of Food in the many scenes of meals—including the tension-laden communal meal at the Spiritual House, which Leo disrupts with his noise, his taunts, and his introduction of meat, which induces a thematically resonant dog fight. The Chao sons’ reactions to their father’s behavior establish important elements of their character. James’s reaction to his father’s behavior is to feel guilty or apologize; Ming’s is to withdraw. In fact Ming—the brother who was most tormented by peers for his Asian descent—is the brother who proves the most ambivalent about his heritage. He’s proud that he can speak Mandarin but refuses to identify with Chinese culture in other ways; he refuses to eat Chinese food or date Asian women. All three of the sons’ relationships to their Chinese heritage and community play out in ways that demonstrate the complexities of growing up an outsider to a majority culture and insider to a minority one.
Through Katherine’s character, Chang provides another perspective on this tension of Being Both Insider and Outsider. Katherine was born Chinese but raised white and now explores access to and acceptance within the Chinese community through her relationship with the Chaos. The strength with which she clings to her relationship with Dagou, as well as her refusal to part with the jade ring, a symbol within the Chao family of devotion, emphasize the degree to which she’s tied her connection with the Chaos to her desire to connect to her Chinese heritage.
Chang utilizes heavy foreshadowing in these early sections, creating suspense around the mystery of Leo’s eventual murder and the various characters with motive to commit it. In examining what each of the Chao sons resents or dislikes in Leo, Chang plants seeds for the guilt and culpability his sons will feel later around his death. Chang also selectively withholds information to underscore the suspense of the novel’s premise. The Prologue, for instance, leaves open the identity of the bad person cooking the food at Fine Chao. The fortunes the abbess of the Spiritual House predicts for each of the Chao men establish their fates in the novel, leaving the path they travel to arrive at them a mystery to be unraveled.
Throughout the book, Chang’s prose is taut and supple, rhythmic and balanced, her images very precise and their impact clear and cutting. She chooses images that are multivalent and her narrator keeps a detached tone despite the cruelty, fear, guilt, and other turbulent emotions the characters experience. Chang weaves the inspiration she draws from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov with conflicts that resonate on several levels: personal, communal, cultural, and mythic.
