Here’s another wonderful historical novel. This book is
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter
and Sweet by Jamie Ford, and through it I time-traveled back to
Seattle,
Washington and the internment of the
Japanese population soon after the
United States
entered WWII in the Pacific.
This is a love story, but it illustrates once again how
complex are the influences that shape our destinies. This theme catapults Hotel on the Corner of
Bitter and Sweet from a period piece to a universal exploration of the human
condition and the human heart.
Most of the books I’ve read about this period of our history
were written in a Japanese voice, but Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
is written from the Chinese perspective of Henry Lee as an adult and as a child.
Ultimately, however, the author raises points as universally appropriate to 2013 as
they were to 1942-1986.
In 1942 Seattle,
the Chinese and the Japanese neighborhoods abutted one another, but with Japan
engaged in a war against China,
the feeling from Henry’s father is one of enmity. Most of the people in Chinatown
had relatives in China
and all had an historical tie. Today’s
readers know from history the horrors of Japan’s war on the Chinese, so right
or wrong it is understandable that Henry’s father forbids him even to enter
Japantown, Nihonmachi. He hates the
Japanese and sees no difference between those in Japan
and those in America. This is only one source of the father/son
conflict in the novel. Nihonmachi is home to jazz clubs, unseemly in Mr. Lee's eyes, but even as a boy,
Henry is a fan of Jazz.
Henry’s father makes him wear an “I am Chinese” badge so
Caucasians will not mistake him for Japanese, and he sends him to an all-white
school in another neighborhood rather than to a Chinese school. He insists that America-born Henry speak only
English. Because Henry’s father and
mother speak only Cantonese, this dictum essentially cuts off all communication
between Henry and his parents. Henry is
an outsider in school and an outsider is in his own silent home. Henry is twelve years old.
Mr. Lee is not attempting to make Henry “American.” He still wants Henry to eventually return to Canton
to finish his Chinese education. Henry
is Chinese first.
Also attending the all-white school is Keiko, a Japanese
girl with whom Henry develops far more than a friendship. She, too, is American born, but she and her
parents consider her American. She
speaks no Japanese. With her, despite
the political history, Henry is not an outsider. Indeed, even Keiko’s parents accept and like
him. She, however, remains a secret to
his parents.
Henry and Keiko, scholarship students at the school, are hounded and bullied by the white students. They are totally
ostracized. As part of their scholarships, they help serve lunch to the other
students, and that is where their friendship develops under the watchful eye of
a rather unusual lunch lady, Mrs. Beatty.
Another important character is Sheldon, a Black jazz
saxophonist who, in Henry’s youth, was a street musician looking for a big break.
Sheldon’s work in a jazz club in
Nihonmachi causes Henry to break his father’s rule. Henry introduces Keiko to Sheldon, and this
wise man knows and cares for them both.
I sensed a hint of Huckleberry Finn’s Jim, the surrogate father to a boy
who is adrift.
Culture, ethnicity, friendship, and love are universal
qualities that impact on all our lives no matter how we try to be different
from our parents or from our background.
This story becomes universal.
It is beautiful to me that what binds together Henry, Keiko,
and Sheldon is Jazz. Jazz is a uniquely
American music. Some musicologists say
it began as African-Americans blended spirituals and the field hollers of
plantation slaves and then, as time passed, mixed it with the syncopated beat
of ragtime and the sounds of driving marches and brass bands. In this novel, different as one might see
Henry, Keiko, and Sheldon, they come together harmoniously as Americans just as
diverse elements of music came together harmoniously as Jazz. They are different
but they are the same. As Sheldon tells
Henry, “Fix it.”
Jamie Ford’s narrative begins in 1986 when boxes of Japanese belongings are uncovered in the renovated Panama Hotel. These were things hidden by Japanese being taken to the internment camps during World War II. Most never returned to Japantown. Ford flips back and forth between 1986 and the 1940s as Henry remembers the war years. All loose ends come together neatly in the denouement. This technique works so well because Henry
grows up, his parents grow older, Sheldon ages, old characters leave, and new
characters are introduced. That’s what
happens in life. Some characters, like Mrs. Beatty, are
quite remarkable, but as they are never quite understood through Henry’s eyes,
there are aspects of them that we’d like to know about but which are never
revealed.
Ford’s story is strong and well developed. This is a wonderful read which will have you
shaking your head, sighing, and wishing life were easier for everyone. After
all, aren’t many of our most precious things on the corner of bitter and sweet?
