Orphan Bachelors

by Fae Myenne Ng

From the bestselling and award-winning author of novels Bone and Steer Toward Rock, Fae Myenne Ng’s Orphan Bachelors is an extraordinary memoir of her beloved San Francisco's Chinatown and of a family building a life in a country bent on their exclusion

In pre-Communist China, Fae Myenne Ng’s father memorized a book of lies and gained entry to the United States as a stranger’s son, evading the Exclusion Act, an immigration law which he believed was meant to extinguish the Chinese American family. During the McCarthy era, he entered the Confession Program in a failed attempt to salvage his marriage only to have his citizenship revoked to resident alien. Exclusion and Confession, America’s two slamming doors. As Ng’s father said, “America didn’t have to kill any Chinese, the Exclusion Act ensured none would be born.”

Ng was her parents' precocious first born, the translator, the bossy eldest sister. A child raised by a seafaring father and a seamstress mother, by San Francisco’s Chinatown and its legendary Orphan Bachelors—men without wives or children, Exclusion’s living legacy. She and her siblings were their stand-in descendants, Ng’s family grocery store their haven.

Each Orphan Bachelor bequeathed the children their true American inheritance. Ng absorbed their suspicious, lonely, barren nature; she found storytelling and chosen children in the form of her students. Exclusion’s legacy followed her from the back alleys of Chinatown in the 60s, to Manhattan in the 80s, to the high desert of California in the 90s, until her return home in the 2000s when the untimely deaths of her youngest brother and her father devastated the family. As a child, Ng believed her father’s lies; as an adult, she returned to her childhood home to write his truth.

Orphan Bachelors weaves together the history of one family, lucky to exist and nevertheless doomed; an elegy for brothers estranged and for elders lost; and insights into writing between languages and teaching between generations. It also features Cantonese profanity, snakes that cure fear and opium that conquers sorrow, and a seemingly immortal creep of tortoises. In this powerful remembrance, Fae Myenne Ng gives voice to her valiant ancestors, her bold and ruthless Orphan Bachelors, and her own inner self, howling in Cantonese, impossible to translate but determined to be heard.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Biography, Asian American, China

256 pages, Hardcover

Published May 9, 2023

About the author

Fae Myenne Ng (born December 2, 1956 in San Francisco) is an American novelist, and short story writer.

She is a first-generation Chinese American author whose debut novel Bone told the story of three Chinese American daughters growing up in her real childhood hometown of San Francisco Chinatown. Her work has received support from the American Academy of Arts & Letters' Rome Prize, the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lannan Foundation, and The Radcliffe Institute. She held residencies at Yaddo, McDowell, and the Djerassi Foundation.

She is the daughter of seamstress and a laborer, who immigrated from Guangzhou, China. She attended the University of California-Berkeley, and received her M.F.A. at Columbia University. Ng has supported herself by working as a waitress and at other temporary jobs.
Her short stories have appeared in the American Voice, Calys, City Lights Review, Crescent Review, Harper's. She currently teaches at UC Berkeley.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked how Fae Myenne Ng writes about the United States’ racist immigration policies toward Chinese people and how it affected her family for years to come. She writes with honesty about anti-Asian violence both historically and currently in the United States. The book isn’t just about racism however – she also shares about her family’s journey both in and out of each other’s lives. I appreciated the nuance in which she wrote about her relationship with her family and how she admitted places that she could have done better as well.

Unfortunately I didn’t love this memoir’s writing style. Especially in the first half I felt that Ng did a lot of telling instead of showing, which made me feel like I was reading (important) historical facts as opposed to more vivid real-life stories. I don’t regret reading the book though, for Ng’s vulnerability and her thoughtfulness surrounding Chinese and Asian American history and life.

[Ming · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I saw this book in the new titles section of the bookstore, I just about screamed out in joy. I had been waiting for Ng to write something new and publish it. And as Edwidge Danticat said to authors, write and the readers will find you. I am so glad to have found this title.

The topic is contemporary and at the same time, demonstrates how "history" remains within easy reach. She refers to the Chinese Exclusion Act and its impact on her family and specifically her father. Ng writes about Vincent Chin, Betty Ong. She refers to the completion of the transcontinental railroad tracks, 9/11, and recent COVID-related, anti-Asian violence.

Ng's memoir centers on her parents in San Francisco Chinatown. Through the various chapters, she recounts their struggles... with each other, with themselves, and with the world around them.

"Orphan bachelors" refers to the early Chinese immigrants, all men due to the US's racist immigration policies. Ng uses them to frame how her father could have been one and her mother's role in alleviating him of that possibility. They also feature as significant Chinatown characters.

Ng speaks about balance (yin-yang), structural racism, her experiences teaching writing, etc.

Her writing is gorgeous in so many places (please see the numerous highlights I've invoked). And she crafts each "chapter" beautifully where themes and elements are introduced, then used to move the story and bring some closure. It's done so well. I marvel at both her language and artisanship.

I look forward to reading her future work and will shout out in joy over those as well.

[jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every word from fae is a gold coin <3 it is soft to read the concurrent narratives that were flying through our time together. Everything I’ve ever heard Fae say was thick with the wisdom in this book // her being must have been the writing for a very long time maybe even since the beginning. Fae is a whole bodied keeper of the writer’s life. I will keep this to age alongside :(

As your firstborn, you let me see more. When I was too young to comprehend your feelings, you told me to hold memory aside, to trust time. Like gold, feelings get brighter. That lesson has not only taught me about writing but it has also kept you dearly by my side.

[Minh Ngo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher of Grove/Atlantic Inc, and the author Fae Myenne Ng for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Ng's memoir is illuminating to read. As a fan of her previous work most notably, Bone, readers will be delighted to learn the personal history of the author and her life. Ng writes about how the Chinese Exclusion and the Confession Program affected her family. Ng's memoir manages to accomplish what most memoirs try to do which is humanizing and fleshing out one character within her life. Ng exceeds those expectations by finding a way to characterize the entirety of her whole family within the scope of the memoir. One of my highly anticipated books of the year, and I'm glad I had an ARC of this memoir.

[Esther O. Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't the memoir I expected, and I think I'd enjoy it more on a reread now that I know what it is: "Mom passes before I finish my next book. My youngest brother goes in 2015, and a few weeks later, my father dies. As if sentenced, I write Orphan Bachelors, a chronicle of living memories to hold my dead" (from her essay on LitHub).

That said, there's plenty I'll be thinking about from this book -- particularly the notion that the Chinese Exclusion Act and Confession Program casts a long shadow on the diaspora's sexuality. I'd love to see that explored more. Also, the author's website includes more photos.

[Chalida · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so much about Chinese Exclusion and the lost generations of babies unborn due to isolation, discrimination and racism. A framing I didn't see on my own. A gorgeous and powerful memoir about Chinese immigration, family and the importance of writing stories down and making things permanent. Highly recommend!

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book that shows the history of Chinese-American experience through the telling of her family history. Very angry, bitter and personal. I learned a lot and appreciate that.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Professor Wong for forcing me to read this

[Alle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. There’s nothing inherently bad about this book. The writing is thoughtful and purposeful but the content seems more for just Ng’s family, or minimally, her community. Not bad but not something that will stick with me either.

[minion_luvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

about early chinatown but doused in personal truths only the writing in a diary can carry

[Peichen Wu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall I would give the writing a 3.5/5 because some of the sentences are so beautifully written and thought-provoking. But I don't quite enjoy info-dumping historical facts and dates all around because that did more telling than showing. I know the author trying to blend histories and family stories, but I think straight up spoon feeding historical facts is too stiff of an approach. For instance, the scene in which Orphan Bachelors recites important dates of modern Chinese history while playing Chinese chess is just... really not convincing to me. I don't think anyone would talk like that in real life. I still prefer a writing style that is more natural, more depicting, and less author's introspection. Despite that, most of the time the writing was very engaging and thoughtful at the same time. I think 3.5 was a fair score to give.

I deduct one more point because some of the historical facts this book cued in are not true. I'm quite knowledgeable of Chinese history because I grew up in China, and I noticed several errors when she mentioned ancient Chinese histories. I think this greatly undermines the credibility of all the historical events this work mentioned.

Here are the few errors I've noticed:

... as pitiful as the deformed eunuchs of the Shang Dynasty

This is a minor one. The practice of employing eunuchs in China is believed to have started during the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE), but more substantial records and mentions of them appeared during the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BCE). While it's not implausible that eunuchs could have existed or been employed in some capacity during the Shang Dynasty, it's not a widely recognized or prominent aspect of what is known about Shang society. The Shange are more known for bronze vessels and human sacrifice.

(Tao Tao) It's also the name of the grand chancellor of the Eastern Tang Dynasty, a poet and a warlord whom Dad revered.

First of all, there is no such thing as called Eastern Tang Dynasty; it is simply known as the Tang Dynasty. Tao Tao, better known as Cao Cao in Pinyin, was a prominent figure of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Off topic, I couldn't help but laugh when I read this phrase, as Tao Tao is my favorite Chinese poet. The thought of placing him in a dynasty three hundred years later is quite funny.

... and in the Tang dynasty. 960 - 1279, the "Ballad" was rewritten...

The Tang Dynasty is from (618 - 907 CE). The period shown in the text was The Song Dynasty's, (960 - 1279 CE). The fifty-year gap was a warring state.

[Izzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Orphan bachelor by Fae Ng
Part 1– arriving
Stories were for waking you up, not to put you to sleep! Asking about the ending was disobedient. Be careful be safe stay alive.

Mother a seamstress
Father a sailor

Parental lessons: talk back hit back curse back

Father memorized his Book of Lies.
Had elective appendectomy so he could go to sea….
My father learned to take one fact and clothe it in lore…

Foreign miner’s tax in 1870 is a quarter of CA’s revenue….

Chinese exclusion lasts 1882-1943 keeps Chinese already here from getting spouses..
1924 Immigration law allowed 105 Chinese…

Back to China 1948 for a spouse => mother

English language teacher Miss Schmidt —- gratitude to parents
Chinese teacher Owyang …. inspiration from old country
she writes in both languages

1956 Chinese Confession Program lasting to 1966; offered a chance at naturalization….selling itself, falsely, as an amnesty program….blood name Ng and paper name Toy.
Father did get naturalized and kept both names…

Three spirits: one lived in body, one went onto netherworld, one lived on in ancestral tablets…

Great Grandfather hangs self at 92….

Summer of love and mom is naturalized….

Author as daughter standing behind mother’s sewing chair

Birds nest and shark fin soups

Author moved to NYC in ‘81.
Divorce
Artist friend Moira dies of her cancer despite herbal treatments and a ritual food farewell

Father visits NY and they go see Night Titantic


All 6 Chinese survivors were deported!
Author as teacher; students listened to Betty Ong Flight 11 tape— Fae’s childhood friend…

Part 2– landing
Brother Tim’s last 2 tortoises became true Orphan bachelors…long living and truly adaptable..

Sudden death of Tim from complications of Achalasia; expected death of father

Now living in the parents’ home…and her manuscript as a song of everlasting hope that travels wordlessly back home.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listening to Ng discuss this on NPR's Book of the Day, I eagerly added it to my To Be Read list. The next time I was that eager was less than half way through the book, but the eagerness had morphed into a desire to hurry up and get this finished so I could move on to another book. The Orphan Bachelor bits were interesting, but it was hard to connect with anything else she wrote about, as she neglected to describe how she FELT about any of it. She spends more time describing her dead brother's tortoises than she does describing her relationship with a husband that comes and goes in the length of a page and half. She's a child for the first half of the book, never a teenager, then all of a sudden grown and married, then just as quickly divorced. If one of the themes of the book is the doomed union of your parents, you're not going to spend any time reflecting on how that may have influenced your own approach to marriage??? There was lots that was frustrating about this memoir, but I eventually gave up and told myself to read it like poetry (where the who, what, where, when, why & how don't matter as much), which helped it go faster but did not make it any more enjoyable. Disappointed, as I really wanted to like this (at least more than Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior [which was also told quite confusingly out of order]), but maybe Chinese American Memoir is just not the genre for me.

[Karna Converse · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's no way to fully understand the reasons behind U.S. immigration policies but I believe it prudent to learn about them and the effects they've had on families and the communities in which those families have lived. Ng's memoir does just that.

She was born in the late 1950s to a father who emigrated from China in 1940 and a mother who joined him through the War Brides Act. A father with a paper name who, to appease his wife in the mid-1960s, complied with the government's request to confess his illegal entry.

Ng highlights moments from her life against this backdrop of family secrets that rest quietly within the arms of San Francisco's Chinatown and the generations of families lost to another immigration policy—the Chinese Exclusion Act. That Act, first passed in 1882 and made permanent in 1902, was law until 1943—sixty-one years in which the Chinese, mostly men who had immigrated to work in the gold mines or on the transcontinental railroad, were not eligible for citizenship and could not marry. Bachelors for life.

Her prose paints a vivid picture that is pointed, yet poetic. And offers the reader (this one, anyway) much to ponder.

2023 Des Moines Library Challenge. Recommended by BookChat Librarian.

[Claire Binkley · Rating 3 out of 5]

My experience in Chinatown is primarily with the legal building to get my visa figured out, so this book gave me a better insight into the lives of the people who live there. My sister has also whisked me there before to get boba tea but I didn't understand where we were going very well as much then.

I am trying to better understand Cantonese because it seems like there isn't much help for these people, but it has been like an uphill battle the past 11 years. I own a book but it is confusing since it mostly uses Roman letters and when I started to learn Mandarin I was told to remember everything as mostly the Chinese characters instead. Then I feel guilty whenever I take out a book from the library since I got the impression that a lot of the Chinese people stay in the library and don't take books out but just read them then put them back on the shelves.

I mean, I have done the exact same thing with the science fiction section so here I am being hypocritical and one book is not going to be missed for three weeks, or six weeks, right?
These are my thoughts from this book.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book before it was published. I could not put it down. Fae Myenne Ng is a supreme teller of stories that precede the inadequate distinction between fiction and nonfiction. "Long-ago stories teach me that all writing originates from story," she has written; this is true. When story -- when telling stories -- is stopped, as it was for generations of Chinese immigrants, the stories of their lives must be reimagined and told by their few descendants. The "orphan bachelors" were men prohibited from procreating because of American law: start with that fact and follow this splendid writer's gorgeous English telling, that gives her readers the echos of the Cantonese of her parents and forebears.

I must add a disclaimer: I've known Fae Myenne Ng for 35 years. We have talked about language(s) and stories endlessly; we have read each others' drafts. Without question, I can say that her achievement is to engage our intelligence and wonder in the highest degree: we learn; we savor; we are overjoyed by her sheer artistry.

[Kkraemer · Rating 3 out of 5]

the Orphan Bachelors were cut off from their homes, their loves, their families...destined to toil in the U.S. without chance of re-connecting with their lives in China. They work. They wait. They send money. They will never get to go home again.

and they're emblematic of the people she knows. All of them. Her Dad, who tries to be a good father and husband but it fundamentally lost, cut off from the streams of being that lie at his core. Her mom, who tries to be a good mother but is equally cut off, strengthened only by her firm belief in how to act, how to be...but perhaps not so much on why.

and Ng herself, looking to art, to NY, to SF, to academics, to writing, to family...looking but somehow cut off from the fundamental connections that get severed, somehow, in this land of not-China, not-Chinatown, in an America both wonderful and separate from her roots.

A beautiful book, resonating even for me...of European background. Who/what are we? What do we use as touchstones? What we know is that language, writing, and communication are our only hope

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

just like being back in prof fae’s class again. it’s been too long since i started this but i won’t bother with excuses -
so much wisdom, knowledge, pain, life experience within; touching, bittersweet, reaffirming all at once. barring parts of the first half that were very much history lessons (but very needed historical context), the prose and cadence were almost pure poetry in nature. so deft at weaving together the trials, tales, tribulations, testaments of generations!

on testaments: fae’s writing and message is always one to telling the story only you can tell and that is never more clear than here in Orphan Bachelors. most definitely a story that grounds me back in my appreciation of reading and writing, and reminds of the perpetual importance of sharing our stories. worth many a reread over

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and well-written read about the history of the Chinese in America. First off is the whole concept of orphan bachelors--who they were, how they lived and the author's own interactions with them. But wait, there's more. We learn about the author's own family and how she herself grew up. It's really more than a memoir and more than a history; it's a literary feat.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It's quite a good addition to the genre.

[Marleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faye Ng describes how America's racist immigration policies deeply affected her family. Her mother’s inability to speak English relegated her to sweatshop employment as a seamstress. Her father worked as a merchant marine so his long absences helped keep the family peace. Faye describes the burden of being the oldest and the family translator. The experiences are described as little separate stories.

[James Yoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ng traces her and her family's life, one memory at a time. It's a memoir full of vulnerability, strength, and love, but specifically a love that ferments over time. Like a story, we hold that love in for ourselves, letting it grow fonder until it is ready to be shared. Her writing is full of reverence and grace, for her parents, her siblings, as well as herself. For me, an incredibly therapeutic experience.

[Sami Danielsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this all in one sitting. This memoir was about a family dealing with historical trauma in different ways. Each family member is spoken about with care and they all had such different life journeys. This book explores familial relationships, a family history, history of Chinese exclusion, and the difficulties of living in mid 20th century China.

[Mariam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea if this book more than the book itself. If you're looking for a true memoir (as I should have been), it will be a great read: insightful, poignant, well-written. But there is not much in the way of context. I put this book down with only a little bit more awareness of how orphan bachelors came to be.

[Andie Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Biased because I really enjoy this professor’s class and questions and writing but personally it was really cool to see SF Chinatown, NYC, and Berkeley navigated on the page. And also to see her students and classes inspire her in the book. Everything is so illuminating, from Asian American history to the place in the family.

[BookBrowse · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Orphan Bachelors, nothing is above a joke, but that isn't to say nothing is sacred. Humor is one tool that unlocks a sense of the life that flows through the author's existence and that of her family despite frequent stagnation.
-Elisabeth Cook

Read the full review at: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/review...

[Janilyn Kocher · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story about the author’s family history.
The writing was disjointed in places which made it confusing to read, but I did enjoy all the stories and history.
Thanks to Edelweiss and Grove Press for the early read.

[Suzanne Ondrus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ng generously shares her family's stories. All the objects chronicled that she threw out were great. I loved the window into the family. We got to see the struggles of having a sailor father and a sweatshop seamstress mom and kids that had to translate for parents.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ng’s memoir is a familiar yet not often publicly discussed history of living in America as Asians. The book touches upon strifes without diving too deep, which seems to be intentional so readers can self-reflect on their own experiences.

[Pegeen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I did ; for me the writing style ( repetitive and elliptical) was mismatched with the “ fact finding” mission. I might try this again when I have more time and patience bec I do think the story would’ve been fascinating .

[Alan Wang · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slightly repetitive but interesting interviews and conversations. Read this one morning in a cafe in SF chinatown and walked around the places mentioned in the book, did not see the original Chinese immigrants unfortunately