Blended People of America

New York Times bestselling author Janice Lee’s novel “The Piano Teacher” is full of racial overtones.  I read this recently for my book club and couldn’t get over the way mixed-race people were viewed.  It seems to me that this book offers some great insights into the now-covert stereo-types of race in America, even though this book is set in Hong Kong at the start of World War II.

Trudy is one of the main characters.  Her mother was Portuguese and her father was Chinese.  She’s described by the other central character, Will Truesdale, as being beautiful, exquisite, and perfect.  The reader quickly comes to realize that not everyone in Hong Kong shares his view.

Hong Kong is comprised of many Chinese people, and a lot of expatriate whites that come from all over.  The matter of money comes into play in terms of how biracial people are viewed.  Here’s a quote from Edwina Storch, a Finnish woman who had lived in Hong Kong for at least thirty years as she is referring to Trudy:  “She was one of the better-known Eurasians in Hong Kong when she was alive.  She was from a very wealthy family and so escaped much of the prejudice that comes from being mixed.” (pg 259)

In the same conversation Edwina comments about a Eurasian girl who is pouring tea for her and her guest, Claire.  Claire says that she finds Eurasians “attractive, with their beautiful skin and golden eyes and hair.  When I was first in Hong Kong, I did find them odd-looking, but now I think they are just splendid.” (pg 258)  Edwina replies that “the children feel dreadful because they are not accepted by either race.”

This sentiment seems to have legs, because months earlier Trudy made this exact point to Will when they were just getting to know each other.  “No one likes me,” she says.  “Chinese don’t because I don’t act Chinese enough, Europeans don’t because I don’t look at all European, and my father doesn’t like me because I’m not very filial…” (pg 31-32)   

Claire is a young white English woman in her mid-twenties who recently moved to Hong Kong with a husband she scarcely knows.  She’s interested in the culture of the place and the people, and because she came of age shortly after WWII, she has a new perspective on the world and the people who have been displaced because of it. 

Edwina has lived in Hong Kong for most of her adult life and has enjoyed a place of privilege in high society that hasn’t seen an influx of biracial people.  Claire asks if Edwina thinks the Eurasian girl serving them tea is attractive; Edwina replies “I do not.  She is unfortunate.  She is lucky to have a respectable job because I am sure that her father left her mother after he had his fun with her.  You know, that’s how most of these situations are.” (pg. 258)

This scene is really interesting because of the historical perspective on mixed-race children.  At this point in history children of mixed parentage usually grew up with one parent (the mother) because the father wasn’t interested in marriage.  Therefore mixed-race kids and their mothers were often scorned.  No one viewed the kids as beautiful because of their mix of genes; they were viewed as unfortunate by-products of people with less-than-honorable intentions.  Trudy was an exception to this rule because she was raised by her father after her mother ran off when she was eight years old.  Her father was extremely wealthy, which automatically gave him a place in high society.  Trudy was raised within that circle despite the fact that she was mixed.

The influx of Europeans into Hong Kong inevitably led to bi-racial children, and those children have gained a sort of acceptance over the generations.  Hong Kong is a tiny little place compared to America though, and it seems as though the three generations of people that have come after WWII may have made some inroads into the matter of tolerance.  I find it really interesting that Trudy had definite racial preferences of her own.  In this scene, Will notes Trudy’s views about other races:  “Trudy, his very opinionated and biased guide to society, finds the English stuffy, the Americans tiresomely earnest, the French boring and self-satisfied, the Japanese quirky.  He wonders aloud how she can stand him.  “Well, you’re a bit of a mongrel,” she says.  “You don’t belong anywhere, just like me.”

America is a land of “mongrels”, a mix of people who have landed in this country from far and wide.  If we’re mongrels like Trudy says, then who’s to say, like Edwina Storch, that bi-racial children are unattractive and unfortunate?  It seems to me that in this society, at this point in time of globalization and advanced cultural thinking and mixing, that bi-racial children are the wave of the future.  We’re creating a new race of people that belong to the global world order and not to the small population of people into which they were born.