Eating Asian America

Download Eating Asian America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 147981203X
Total Pages : 455 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eating Asian America by : Robert Ji-Song Ku

Download or read book Eating Asian America written by Robert Ji-Song Ku and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the ways our conceptions of Asian American food have been shaped Chop suey. Sushi. Curry. Adobo. Kimchi. The deep associations Asians in the United States have with food have become ingrained in the American popular imagination. So much so that contentious notions of ethnic authenticity and authority are marked by and argued around images and ideas of food. Eating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader collects burgeoning new scholarship in Asian American Studies that centers the study of foodways and culinary practices in our understanding of the racialized underpinnings of Asian Americanness. It does so by bringing together twenty scholars from across the disciplinary spectrum to inaugurate a new turn in food studies: the refusal to yield to a superficial multiculturalism that naively celebrates difference and reconciliation through the pleasures of food and eating. By focusing on multi-sited struggles across various spaces and times, the contributors to this anthology bring into focus the potent forces of class, racial, ethnic, sexual and gender inequalities that pervade and persist in the production of Asian American culinary and alimentary practices, ideas, and images. This is the first collection to consider the fraught itineraries of Asian American immigrant histories and how they are inscribed in the production and dissemination of ideas about Asian American foodways.

Eating Asian America

Download Eating Asian America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479869252
Total Pages : 454 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eating Asian America by : Robert Ji-Song Ku

Download or read book Eating Asian America written by Robert Ji-Song Ku and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the ways our conceptions of Asian American food have been shaped Chop suey. Sushi. Curry. Adobo. Kimchi. The deep associations Asians in the United States have with food have become ingrained in the American popular imagination. So much so that contentious notions of ethnic authenticity and authority are marked by and argued around images and ideas of food. Eating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader collects burgeoning new scholarship in Asian American Studies that centers the study of foodways and culinary practices in our understanding of the racialized underpinnings of Asian Americanness. It does so by bringing together twenty scholars from across the disciplinary spectrum to inaugurate a new turn in food studies: the refusal to yield to a superficial multiculturalism that naively celebrates difference and reconciliation through the pleasures of food and eating. By focusing on multi-sited struggles across various spaces and times, the contributors to this anthology bring into focus the potent forces of class, racial, ethnic, sexual and gender inequalities that pervade and persist in the production of Asian American culinary and alimentary practices, ideas, and images. This is the first collection to consider the fraught itineraries of Asian American immigrant histories and how they are inscribed in the production and dissemination of ideas about Asian American foodways.

Eating Asian America

Download Eating Asian America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781784024901
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (249 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eating Asian America by : Robert Ji-Song Ku

Download or read book Eating Asian America written by Robert Ji-Song Ku and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader collects burgeoning new scholarship in Asian American Studies that centers the study of foodways and culinary practices in our understanding of the racialized underpinnings of Asian Americanness.

Dubious Gastronomy

Download Dubious Gastronomy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 082483920X
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Dubious Gastronomy by : Robert Ji-Song Ku

Download or read book Dubious Gastronomy written by Robert Ji-Song Ku and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: California roll, Chinese take-out, American-made kimchi, dogmeat, monosodium glutamate, SPAM—all are examples of what Robert Ji-Song Ku calls “dubious” foods. Strongly associated with Asian and Asian American gastronomy, they are commonly understood as ersatz, depraved, or simply bad. In Dubious Gastronomy, Ku contends that these foods share a spiritual fellowship with Asians in the United States in that the Asian presence, be it culinary or corporeal, is often considered watered-down, counterfeit, or debased manifestations of the “real thing.” The American expression of Asianness is defined as doubly inauthentic—as insufficiently Asian and unreliably American when measured against a largely ideological if not entirely political standard of authentic Asia and America. By exploring the other side of what is prescriptively understood as proper Asian gastronomy, Ku suggests that Asian cultural expressions occurring in places such as Los Angeles, Honolulu, New York City, and even Baton Rouge are no less critical to understanding the meaning of Asian food—and, by extension, Asian people—than culinary expressions that took place in Tokyo, Seoul, and Shanghai centuries ago. In critically considering the impure and hybridized with serious and often whimsical intent, Dubious Gastronomy argues that while the notion of cultural authenticity is troubled, troubling, and troublesome, the apocryphal is not necessarily a bad thing: The dubious can be and is often quite delicious. Dubious Gastronomy overlaps a number of disciplines, including American and Asian American studies, Asian diasporic studies, literary and cultural studies, and the burgeoning field of food studies. More importantly, however, the book fulfills the critical task of amalgamating these areas and putting them in conversation with one another. Written in an engaging and fluid style, it promises to appeal a wide audience of readers who seriously enjoys eating—and reading and thinking about—food.

Eating Identities

Download Eating Identities PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824878434
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eating Identities by : Wenying Xu

Download or read book Eating Identities written by Wenying Xu and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2018-03-31 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The French epicure and gastronome Brillat-Savarin declared, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are." Wenying Xu infuses this notion with cultural-political energy by extending it to an ethnic group known for its cuisines: Asian Americans. She begins with the general argument that eating is a means of becoming—not simply in the sense of nourishment but more importantly of what we choose to eat, what we can afford to eat, what we secretly crave but are ashamed to eat in front of others, and how we eat. Food, as the most significant medium of traffic between the inside and outside of our bodies, organizes, signifies, and legitimates our sense of self and distinguishes us from others, who practice different foodways. Narrowing her scope, Xu reveals how cooking, eating, and food fashion Asian American identities in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, class, diaspora, and sexuality. She provides lucid and informed interpretations of seven Asian American writers (John Okada, Joy Kogawa, Frank Chin, Li-Young Lee, David Wong Louie, Mei Ng, and Monique Truong) and places these identity issues in the fascinating spaces of food, hunger, consumption, appetite, desire, and orality. Asian American literature abounds in culinary metaphors and references, but few scholars have made sense of them in a meaningful way. Most literary critics perceive alimentary references as narrative strategies or part of the background; Xu takes food as the central site of cultural and political struggles waged in the seemingly private domain of desire in the lives of Asian Americans. Eating Identities is the first book to link food to a wide range of Asian American concerns such as race and sexuality. Unlike most sociological studies, which center on empirical analyses of the relationship between food and society, it focuses on how food practices influence psychological and ontological formations and thus contributes significantly to the growing field of food studies. For students of literature, this tantalizing work offers an illuminating lesson on how to read the multivalent meanings of food and eating in literary texts. An electronic version of this book is freely available thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched, a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. The open-access version of this book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means that the work may be freely downloaded and shared for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. Derivative works and commercial uses require permission from the publisher.

Global Asian American Popular Cultures

Download Global Asian American Popular Cultures PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479867098
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Global Asian American Popular Cultures by : Shilpa Dave

Download or read book Global Asian American Popular Cultures written by Shilpa Dave and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 6. David Choe's "KOREANS GONE BAD": The LA Riots, Comparative Racialization, and Branding a Politics of Deviance -- Part II. Making Community -- 7. From the Mekong to the Merrimack and Back: The Transnational Terrains of Cambodian American Rap -- 8. "You'll Learn Much about Pakistanis from Listening to Radio": Pakistani Radio Programming in Houston, Texas -- 9. Online Asian American Popular Culture, Digitization, and Museums -- 10. Asian American Food Blogging as Racial Branding: Rewriting the Search for Authenticity

The Racial Mundane

Download The Racial Mundane PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479844322
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (798 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Racial Mundane by : Ju Yon Kim

Download or read book The Racial Mundane written by Ju Yon Kim and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-05 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A beautifully written and original discussion of Asian American performance and the politics of the everyday. The Racial Mundane illustrates how Asian Americans, whether historically marginalized or celebrated as model minorities, have come into the public eye, and will surely open up important new dialogues on Asian American culture and racial representation."--Josephine Lee, author of Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage

Eating Korean in America

Download Eating Korean in America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824854918
Total Pages : 154 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eating Korean in America by : Sonia Ryang

Download or read book Eating Korean in America written by Sonia Ryang and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can food be both national and global at the same time? What happens when a food with a national identity travels beyond the boundaries of a nation? What makes a food authentically national and yet American or broader global? With these questions in mind, Sonia Ryang explores the world of Korean food in four American locations, Iowa City, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Hawaii (Kona and Honolulu). Ryang visits restaurants and grocery stores in each location and observes Korean food as it is prepared and served to customers. She analyzes the history and evolution of each dish, how it arrived and what it became, but above all, she tastes and experiences her food—four items to be specific—naengmyeon cold noodle soup; jeon pancakes; galbi barbecued beef; and bibimbap, rice with mixed vegetable. In her ethnographic journey, Ryang discovers how the chewy noodles from Pyongyang continue to retain their texture and yet are served differently in different locales. Jeon pancakes become completely decontextualized in the United States and metamorphosed into a portable and packable carry-out food. American consumers are unaware of the pancake's sacred origin. In Hawaii, Ryang finds that it is the Vietnamese restaurant that serves unexpectedly delicious galbi barbecued meat. Intertwined in the complex colonial and postcolonial contexts, Korean galbi and Japanese yakiniku can be found side by side on the streets of Honolulu frequented by both the locals and tourists. In writing Eating Korean in America: Gastronomic Ethnography of Authenticity, Sonia Ryang is as much an eater as a researcher. Her accounts of the cities and their distinctive take on Korean food are at once entertaining and insightful, yet deeply moving. Ryang challenges the reader to stop and think about the food we eat every day in close connection to colonial histories, ethnic displacements, and global capitalism.

Asian American Food Culture

Download Asian American Food Culture PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 223 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (16 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Asian American Food Culture by : Alice L. McLean

Download or read book Asian American Food Culture written by Alice L. McLean and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering topics ranging from the establishment of the Gulf Coast shrimping industry in 1800s to the Korean taco truck craze in the present day, this book explores the widespread contributions of Asian Americans to U.S. food culture. Since the late 18th century, Asian immigrants to the United States have brought their influences to bear on American culture, yielding a rich, varied, and nuanced culinary landscape. The past 50 years have seen these contributions significantly amplified, with the rise of globalization considerably blurring the boundaries between East and West, giving rise to fusion foods and transnational ingredients and cooking techniques. The Asian American population grew from under 1 million in 1960 to an estimated 19.4 million in 2013. Three-quarters of the Asian American population in 2012 was foreign-born, a trend that ensures that Asian cuisines will continue to invigorate and enrich the United States food culture. This work focuses on the historical trajectory that led to this remarkable point in Asian American food culture. In particular, it charts the rise of Asian American food culture in the United States, beginning with the nation's first Chinese "chow chows" and ending with the successful campaign of Indochina war refugees to overturn the Texas legislation that banned the cultivation of water spinach—a staple vegetable in their traditional diet. The book focuses in particular on the five largest immigrant groups from East and Southeast Asia—those of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese descent. Students and food enthusiasts alike now have a substantial resource to turn to besides ethnic cookbooks to learn how the cooking and food culture of these groups have altered and been integrated into the United States foodscape. The work begins with a chronology that highlights Asian immigration patterns and government legislation as well as major culinary developments. The book's seven chapters provide an historical overview of Asian immigration and the development of Asian American food culture; detail the major ingredients of the traditional Asian diet that are now found in the United States; introduce Asian cooking philosophies, techniques, and equipment as well as trace the history of Asian American cookbooks; and outline the basic structure and content of traditional Asian American meals. Author Alice L. McLean's book also details the rise of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese restaurants in the United States and discusses the contemporary dining options found in ethnic enclaves; introduces celebratory dining, providing an overview of typical festive foods eaten on key occasions; and explores the use of food as medicine among Asian Americans.

A Revolution in Eating

Download A Revolution in Eating PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780231129923
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (299 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Revolution in Eating by : James E. McWilliams

Download or read book A Revolution in Eating written by James E. McWilliams and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History of food in the United States.

Eating Apes

Download Eating Apes PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520243323
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eating Apes by : Dale Peterson

Download or read book Eating Apes written by Dale Peterson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-09-06 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation As Jane Goodall never fails to mention, "bush meat is the greatest conservation crisis in my lifetime." This book documents in text and photographs how wild animals in the Congo Basin, particularly the Great Apes but also chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas, are slaughtered and used for human consumption.

The American Way of Eating

Download The American Way of Eating PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439171955
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (391 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The American Way of Eating by : Tracie McMillan

Download or read book The American Way of Eating written by Tracie McMillan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journalist traces her 2009 immersion into the national food system to explore how working-class Americans can afford to eat as they should, describing how she worked as a farm laborer, Wal-Mart grocery clerk, and Applebee's expediter while living within the means of each job.

What the Chinese Don't Eat

Download What the Chinese Don't Eat PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 140706570X
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (7 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis What the Chinese Don't Eat by : Xinran

Download or read book What the Chinese Don't Eat written by Xinran and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since June 2003 Xinran has been writing about China in her weekly column in the Guardian. She has covered a vast range of topics from food to sex education, and from the experiences of British mothers who have adopted Chinese daughters, to whether Chinese people do Christmas shopping or have swimming pools. Each of her columns inspired letters and questions and more opportunities for Xinran to shed light on the culture of her native land. What the Chinese Don't Eat collects these pieces together for the first time to give one unique Chinese woman's perspective on the connections and differences between the lives of British and Chinese people today.

The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen

Download The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Celestial Arts
ISBN 13 : 1587613670
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (876 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen by : Laura B. Russell

Download or read book The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen written by Laura B. Russell and published by Celestial Arts. This book was released on 2011-08-23 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the estimated three million Americans suffering from Celiac disease, wheat allergies, and severe gluten sensitivities, Asian food is usually off-limits because its signature ingredients—noodles, soy sauce, and oyster sauce—typically contain wheat. In the Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen, food writer Laura B. Russell shows home cooks how to convert the vibrant cuisines of China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam into gluten-free favorites. Authentically flavored dishes such as Crispy Spring Rolls, Gingery Pork Pot Stickers, Korean Green Onion Pancakes, Soba Noodles with Stir-Fried Shiitake Mushrooms, Salt and Pepper Squid, and Pork Tonkatsu will be delicious additions to any gluten-free repertoire. Along with sharing approachable and delicious recipes, Russell demystifies Asian ingredients and helps readers navigate the grocery store. Beautifully photographed and designed for easy weeknight eating, this unique cookbook’s wide range of dishes from a variety of Asian cuisines will appeal to the discriminating tastes of today’s gluten-free cooks.

We Are What We Eat

Download We Are What We Eat PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674037448
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis We Are What We Eat by : Donna R. Gabaccia

Download or read book We Are What We Eat written by Donna R. Gabaccia and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghulam Bombaywala sells bagels in Houston. Demetrios dishes up pizza in Connecticut. The Wangs serve tacos in Los Angeles. How ethnicity has influenced American eating habits—and thus, the make-up and direction of the American cultural mainstream—is the story told in We Are What We Eat. It is a complex tale of ethnic mingling and borrowing, of entrepreneurship and connoisseurship, of food as a social and political symbol and weapon—and a thoroughly entertaining history of our culinary tradition of multiculturalism. The story of successive generations of Americans experimenting with their new neighbors’ foods highlights the marketplace as an important arena for defining and expressing ethnic identities and relationships. We Are What We Eat follows the fortunes of dozens of enterprising immigrant cooks and grocers, street hawkers and restaurateurs who have cultivated and changed the tastes of native-born Americans from the seventeenth century to the present. It also tells of the mass corporate production of foods like spaghetti, bagels, corn chips, and salsa, obliterating their ethnic identities. The book draws a surprisingly peaceful picture of American ethnic relations, in which “Americanized” foods like Spaghetti-Os happily coexist with painstakingly pure ethnic dishes and creative hybrids. Donna Gabaccia invites us to consider: If we are what we eat, who are we? Americans’ multi-ethnic eating is a constant reminder of how widespread, and mutually enjoyable, ethnic interaction has sometimes been in the United States. Amid our wrangling over immigration and tribal differences, it reveals that on a basic level, in the way we sustain life and seek pleasure, we are all multicultural.

Chop Suey, USA

Download Chop Suey, USA PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231538162
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Chop Suey, USA by : Yong Chen

Download or read book Chop Suey, USA written by Yong Chen and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American diners began to flock to Chinese restaurants more than a century ago, making Chinese food the first mass-consumed cuisine in the United States. By 1980, it had become the country's most popular ethnic cuisine. Chop Suey, USA offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the rise of Chinese food, revealing the forces that made it ubiquitous in the American gastronomic landscape and turned the country into an empire of consumption. Engineered by a politically disenfranchised, numerically small, and economically exploited group, Chinese food's tour de America is an epic story of global cultural encounter. It reflects not only changes in taste but also a growing appetite for a more leisurely lifestyle. Americans fell in love with Chinese food not because of its gastronomic excellence but because of its affordability and convenience, which is why they preferred the quick and simple dishes of China while shunning its haute cuisine. Epitomized by chop suey, American Chinese food was a forerunner of McDonald's, democratizing the once-exclusive dining-out experience for such groups as marginalized Anglos, African Americans, and Jews. The rise of Chinese food is also a classic American story of immigrant entrepreneurship and perseverance. Barred from many occupations, Chinese Americans successfully turned Chinese food from a despised cuisine into a dominant force in the restaurant market, creating a critical lifeline for their community. Chinese American restaurant workers developed the concept of the open kitchen and popularized the practice of home delivery. They streamlined certain Chinese dishes, such as chop suey and egg foo young, turning them into nationally recognized brand names.

Eat a Bowl of Tea

Download Eat a Bowl of Tea PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 0295747064
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (957 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eat a Bowl of Tea by : Louis Chu

Download or read book Eat a Bowl of Tea written by Louis Chu and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the close of the Second World War, racist immigration laws trapped enclaves of old men in Chinatowns across the United States, preventing their wives or families from joining them. They took refuge from loneliness in the repartee and rivalries exchanged over games of mahjong in the backrooms of barbershops or at the local tong. These bachelors found hope in the nascent marriages and future children who would someday grow roots in American soil, made possible at last by the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. Louis Chu tells the story of a newlywed couple that inherits the burden of this tightly bonded community’s expectations. Returning soldier Ben Loy travels to China to marry Mei Oi, a beautiful, intelligent woman who then emigrates to New York. After their honeymoon, Ben Loy becomes impotent, and his inability to father a child frustrates both Mei Oi and the Chinatown bachelors. This discontent boils over when Mei Oi has an affair and the community learns of Ben Loy’s humiliation. Eat a Bowl of Tea remains a groundbreaking and influential work. The first novel to capture the tone and sensibility of everyday life in an American Chinatown, it is an incisive portrayal of Chinese America on the brink of change. A new foreword by Fae Myenne Ng explores the depth and meaning of Mei Oi’s lust and elucidates the power of Chu’s uncompromising writing.