Recent Kim Wong Keltner Books Read

Buddha Baby And The Dim Sum of All Things by Kim Wong Keltner

I recently finished Kim Wong Keltner's second novel, Buddha Baby. I earlier read her first, The Dim Sum of All Things. Here are some of my thoughts in no particular order, edited only lightly.


In the first book, her protagonist, Lindsey Owyang, is a classic disassociated ABC or American Born Chinese. Her grandparents immigrated, but she and her parents are fully enveloped in American culture. While Lindsey is occupied with her dull clerical jobs and various boys that she carries on with but does not let get too close, she nurtures her long-time Hello Kitty! obsession and a fractured understanding of where she fits in the cultural scheme of things. On one hand, she is as American as Spaghetti-os, but as Chinese as ... ? okay, Dim Sum.

Her understanding of Chinese culture is missing huge gaps and she recognizes that, but her parents don't seem to have any interest in helping her get a handle on it, they themselves enscounced in the "average" American lifestyle and advise her "better leave it alone." Her grandparents seem both a link back to Chinese culture, and an obstacle in the huge gap between their outlooks. Lindsey is familiar with their Chinese quirks, but not understanding or wholly sympathetic. She seems fully comfortable in neither culture. She goes on errands into China Town for her grandparents, but she cringes away from anyone addressing her in Chinese (Cantonese in this case) since she has only rudimentary understanding of that language. And she hides her full Hello Kitty! obsession for fear of being pegged as a stereotypical Chinese girl. Her brother exhibits no interest in being anything other than Americanized.

At one point in the book, when she is visiting family in China, she gazes with wonderment on a scroll that a distant relative has written her family members' names--recognizing her own name written in Chinese even if the rest is a mystery to her.

The book explores the experience of awakening to ones expanding cultural identity. She seems to track down clues to her Chinese-ness while developing her own theories. It seems to say that no matter how American she may feel, her outer appearance as an Asian and her inner restlessness--not knowing her family's culture--point her towards a more complex reality.


One concept that came up in her first book is the idea of an Asian Horder. According to Lindsey, this is a person, often male but not always, who fetishizes Asian culture, valuing things for what they represent rather than for themselves. This is the person who is relentlessly drawn to collecting Asian items, including people! Hence: The Hoarder of All Things Asian. Gak!

Lindsey has learned to recognize the air of someone drawn to her exotic demeanor and what they imagine she represents (sometimes as a cultural expert), and she performs evasive maneuvers to elude their slimy attention. Must Possess Asian Thing! This really struck home with me (having experienced some of that from a different direction! Can you say sweet, modest, naiive girl?), and made me examine my own tendencies. Do I want to collect the trappings of Asian culture for the kitsch or collectableness of it? Gak! I sure hope not!!

I am relieved that I don't seem to want to adopt from China because I want an exotic baby; I just want a baby, period! But this concept of a Horder is a warning to avoid viewing culture as a fashion statement of any kind, much less as a collectable. Just because you have the trappings does not mean you are living that culture! It also encourages me to consider what aspects of Chinese culture will be the most useful and meaningful for my daughter in her life. What can I respectfully convey? it's a dilemma. .... Lots more to contemplate....


Anyway, back to the books.

Lindsey gets cultural inquiries from both directions, from random white people wanting her to explain the history of Chinese Painting at the drop of a hat, to the cadre of Museum guards who speculate which nationality she is in hopes of scoring another eligible girl for their latest matchmaking efforts. Sometimes Chinese look at her and see either a traitor (dating an apparent white guy or buying into the sweet, stylish Asian girl construct) or a good girl (with a Chinese guy as if Chinese belong together). Other ethnicities place their prejudices on her willy-nilly, "talking all kinds of smack, right to their faces," and other dis-associated Chinese throw Asian concepts around willy-nilly as well.

Kim Kong Keltner writes in a breezy, wittily humorous, culture-name-dropping style that is entertaining if occasionally a little too much "purple" detail. As if naming the brands of either culture gives it enough flavor to substitute for plot! But actually, the plots are not bad. It's the punny analogies that are sometimes funny and sometimes hugely groan-worthy. It's as if Mrs. Keltner spent a little too much time reading Piers Anthony, if you know what I mean. So read with caution! :)

Lindsey's efforts to understand the older Chinese generations (her parents disinterested in talking about family history, her grandparents, remote and odd, and set in their ways) are evocative of any young person's quest to understand their own history, and more so in Lindsey's case since her present is so mostly removed from her distant ancestral past. She is not a full cultural Chinese, but she is also familiar with being the outsider at her mostly white Catholic school.

In Buddha Baby, Linsey has taken a job at her old elementary school, like a full-blown metaphor for revisiting, confronting and reevaluating the demons of ones past. She discovers old secrets, revisits old memories of differentness and pressures to conform to the White World, and is confronted with a number of surprises.

My favorite part here was her slowly developing a new relationship with her grandparents, trying to understand them (as they no doubt are wondering what to do with this clueless American granddaughter), and reconcile what she thought she knew about her own family.

Meanwhile, her sweetheart is culturally American (white American), but as it comes out in the first book, secretly a quarter Chinese! He's even more clueless about Chinese culture than Lindsey is, but more open-hearted, and she seems to benefit from both having to educate Michael and opening herself up in a relationship where she doesn't have to hide the tangled complexities of herself.

It's a drifting yet entertaining story of self-identity exploration. Mostly very enjoyable and a light cultural tour.

Near the end of the book, Lindsey comes across a piece of her grandparents' past. Well, several pieces. This may count as a spoiler so watch out! :)

But the curious thing for me was that this link both remembered the "old" way of thinking of Chinese labors (in which Chinese took all the grunt jobs that nobody else wanted.... the men were all called Johnny and the women were all called Mary), while seemed to have a more modern link in other ways. So was this patronizing? respectful? reality of that time? it's so bizarre.

I half expected this person to apologize for all the old attitudes, all the racism inherent in the system, that contributed to their own life, but they didn't. And THEN (huge spoiler alert!), this person's daughter had adopted a daughter from China!!!! Now that was a twist. Although it did not seem to be a case of a true Hoarder because although the woman who adopted came from a family of collectors of exotic things, she had earlier been seen to seem to pick on young people, especially those of Asian descent. Lindsey herself remembers occasions of acting out against Chinese as the internalized "other" of her primary culture, so maybe there are more conflicted motivations. But still, this person who grew up around Chinese "help" now has a Chinese granddaughter! And apparently was happy with it. Or at least not unhappy. But I couldn't tell if the author approved, disapproved or was just holding it up as another cultural oddity.

So this second book in particular, although it draws heavily on the character groundwork laid by the first book, explores more aspects of self-identity and figuring out where one belongs and how to fit in, how to identify oneself. OR at least acknowledging the difficult of finding unambiguous answers.

So overall, this was a light fluffy cultural read with deeper ideas to contemplate hidden in the mix.

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