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Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen
An uproarious debut that lays bare the complicated generational relationships of Chinese American women.
Raucous twin sisters Moonie and Mei Ling Wong are known as the “double happiness” Chinese food delivery girls. Each day they load up a “crappy donkey-van” and deliver Americanized (“bad”) Chinese food to homes throughout their southern California neighborhood. United in their desire to blossom into somebodies, the Wong girls fearlessly assert their intellect and sexuality, even as they come of age under the care of their dominating, cleaver-wielding grandmother from Hong Kong. They transform themselves from food delivery girls into accomplished women, but along the way they wrestle with the influence and continuity of their Chinese heritage.
Marilyn Chin’s prose waxes and wanes between satire and metaphorical lyric, referencing classical Chinese tales and ghost stories that are at turns sensual, lurid, hilarious, shocking, and surreal. .
Raucous twin sisters Moonie and Mei Ling Wong are known as the “double happiness” Chinese food delivery girls. Each day they load up a “crappy donkey-van” and deliver Americanized (“bad”) Chinese food to homes throughout their southern California neighborhood. United in their desire to blossom into somebodies, the Wong girls fearlessly assert their intellect and sexuality, even as they come of age under the care of their dominating, cleaver-wielding grandmother from Hong Kong. They transform themselves from food delivery girls into accomplished women, but along the way they wrestle with the influence and continuity of their Chinese heritage.
Marilyn Chin’s prose waxes and wanes between satire and metaphorical lyric, referencing classical Chinese tales and ghost stories that are at turns sensual, lurid, hilarious, shocking, and surreal. .
214 pages, Paperback
First published July 20, 2009
46 people are currently reading
1756 people want to read
About the author
Marilyn Chin
27 books93 followersMarilyn Chin is an award-winning poet and the author of Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, Rhapsody in Plain Yellow, The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty and Dwarf Bamboo. Her writing has appeared in The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry.
She was born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon. Her books have become Asian American classics and are taught in classrooms internationally. Marilyn Chin has read her poetry at the Library of Congress. She was interviewed by Bill Moyers’ and featured in his PBS series The Language of Life and in PBS Poetry Everywhere.
She was born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon. Her books have become Asian American classics and are taught in classrooms internationally. Marilyn Chin has read her poetry at the Library of Congress. She was interviewed by Bill Moyers’ and featured in his PBS series The Language of Life and in PBS Poetry Everywhere.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews
January 28, 2010
Forget fairytales and fables that threaten rape and violence to women who go off the beaten path, deny their parents, or refuse to marry. Marilyn Chin's novel, Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, doesn't lock away its female protagonists into a tower so a prince can climb up their hair and doesn't ask the women to honor and obey their parents. Instead, Chin's twin protagonists are riot grrrls of the immigrant set: they take on everything from gender and sexuality to Chinese mythology and the immigrant experience.
Duality is a central component to the book: the sisters at the heart of the stories are like night and day. It's no coincidence that the sisters – Moonie and Mei Ling – are known as "double happiness." There is the hypersexualized sister, and there is the asexual sister: each is as wild as they are rebellious. Mei Lin throws herself into fling after fling as she makes deliveries for her family’s restaurant while her sister rips her away from too-willing American men again and again. Here, the contradictions of stereotypes are thrown into the face of the reader. The Madonna/Whore dichotomy was never so smartly articulated.
Chin is not unaware of what is at stake for her protagonists. Their boldness is spoken of when Chin writes of Mei Lin's reckless promiscuity: "It could ultimately mean the death of your tribe and your people." The children of immigrants often have high expectations to fulfill. They must honor their cultures and succeed in a new world. The tongue-in-cheek statement certainly has some levity behind it: Failure is not an option for the first generation child.
Chin drives the stake through the heart of the matter when describing the twins' reaction to a fellow first generation immigrant, Donny Romero: "Now he's on the East Coast studying art at Yale. How spoiled is that? First-generation immigrant and he gets to study art." While the girls rage and rebel against this expectation, they do indeed fall into it. They become the Ivy League successes predicted by their family and by the world around them.
The collection's only misstep is that the narrators, and consequently Chin, sometimes seem too pleased with themselves. Chin knows what she's doing, and like the adventurous Mei Ling, she seemingly has so much pushing the envelope that the message of the pieces is sometimes drowned out by the volume of the sexual escapades and wink-wink criticism of assimilation. For example, "Wiping One's ass with the Sutras" would be more than fine, but when coupled again and again with sexually explicit language, the rebellion at the heart of the collection is dulled because the nail is hit one too many times. The profanity is meant to jolt the reader, but without some relief from the jolting, the risk is desensitization.
The growing pains of the Chinese immigrant experience are bursting at the seams. These twins do not reject their heritage; they simply poke holes through its hypocrisies. These sisters do not blindly accept American culture, and mock its excesses. These are the new stories of the immigrant nation. It's no accident that the restaurant owned by the twins' family is called Double Happiness. Here, making one's way means working hard, sacrificing, and forging a path to the Ivy League schools, something the twins expect as much as the mooncakes they deliver. These vixens rebel and buck and crow against expectations: this "double happiness" of living in a new land with old world expectations. The twins make their own path without rejecting the history, expectations, and hopes of their family.
Chin does not offer a happily-ever-after-type ending nor does she offer a tragedy. Instead, the twins play in murky water and shed new light on old struggles.
Review by Lisa Bower
Duality is a central component to the book: the sisters at the heart of the stories are like night and day. It's no coincidence that the sisters – Moonie and Mei Ling – are known as "double happiness." There is the hypersexualized sister, and there is the asexual sister: each is as wild as they are rebellious. Mei Lin throws herself into fling after fling as she makes deliveries for her family’s restaurant while her sister rips her away from too-willing American men again and again. Here, the contradictions of stereotypes are thrown into the face of the reader. The Madonna/Whore dichotomy was never so smartly articulated.
Chin is not unaware of what is at stake for her protagonists. Their boldness is spoken of when Chin writes of Mei Lin's reckless promiscuity: "It could ultimately mean the death of your tribe and your people." The children of immigrants often have high expectations to fulfill. They must honor their cultures and succeed in a new world. The tongue-in-cheek statement certainly has some levity behind it: Failure is not an option for the first generation child.
Chin drives the stake through the heart of the matter when describing the twins' reaction to a fellow first generation immigrant, Donny Romero: "Now he's on the East Coast studying art at Yale. How spoiled is that? First-generation immigrant and he gets to study art." While the girls rage and rebel against this expectation, they do indeed fall into it. They become the Ivy League successes predicted by their family and by the world around them.
The collection's only misstep is that the narrators, and consequently Chin, sometimes seem too pleased with themselves. Chin knows what she's doing, and like the adventurous Mei Ling, she seemingly has so much pushing the envelope that the message of the pieces is sometimes drowned out by the volume of the sexual escapades and wink-wink criticism of assimilation. For example, "Wiping One's ass with the Sutras" would be more than fine, but when coupled again and again with sexually explicit language, the rebellion at the heart of the collection is dulled because the nail is hit one too many times. The profanity is meant to jolt the reader, but without some relief from the jolting, the risk is desensitization.
The growing pains of the Chinese immigrant experience are bursting at the seams. These twins do not reject their heritage; they simply poke holes through its hypocrisies. These sisters do not blindly accept American culture, and mock its excesses. These are the new stories of the immigrant nation. It's no accident that the restaurant owned by the twins' family is called Double Happiness. Here, making one's way means working hard, sacrificing, and forging a path to the Ivy League schools, something the twins expect as much as the mooncakes they deliver. These vixens rebel and buck and crow against expectations: this "double happiness" of living in a new land with old world expectations. The twins make their own path without rejecting the history, expectations, and hopes of their family.
Chin does not offer a happily-ever-after-type ending nor does she offer a tragedy. Instead, the twins play in murky water and shed new light on old struggles.
Review by Lisa Bower
September 21, 2009
"The structure of this book is based on ancient Buddhist beliefs in reincarnation and the eternal cycles of suffering.... The characters are all trapped in a vicious cycle of reincarnation. The cycle of suffering is continuous. The oppression of women is continuous. Fleshly desire, which leads to suffering, is continuous.... Moonie and Mei Ling appear to be well-adjusted adolescents: narcissistic, hardworking, high-achievers on their way to acquiring the American Dream. When they will reach enlightenment or self-realization, though, is unclear. They are, as all human creatures are, on a picaresque quest toward happiness." - Marilyn Chin on the structure of "Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen"
Don't let Chin fool you: this isn't a nice little novel with deep, underlying meanings or spirituality. One of the stand out pieces in this novel was "A Portrait of My Sister Sexing Tofu", if that tells you anything.
More a series of interlocked stories all dealing with the many lives of Moonie and Mei Ling (but mostly written from Moonie's perspective, which is amusing considering the author IS Mei Ling, the "poet/professor in southern California who is well-known for her research on immigrant erotica"), one section is devoted to modern re-tellings of ancient Buddhist tales, another section devoted to animal tales which feature prominently in many culture's folktales, and yet another section entitled "Ten Views of the Flying Matriarch" that deals with the community's view of Moonie and Mei Ling's cleaver-wielding grandmother.
Chin is a poet, and you can expect her language to be succinct and the general playfulness that exudes from this book I would credit to her being trained in poetry. The story "Fox Girl" is a critique on academic poetry while mashing it up with an ancient Chinese story about a fox demon who disguises herself as a beautiful woman.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and feel that under the right kind of professor, so much more could unfold from this book. Chin knows her stuff and this work is pulled off masterfully. It's one of those books people will really enjoy if they are pulled into it by something, which is probably why I felt the need to summarize so much of this book. (I'm the first review of this book on goodreads too!)
There are a few minor problems with the editing, such as someone saying that someone died in 1989 and yet, a few pages later, it being 1985 and said person is already dead... but I'm willing to overlook that. It bothers the crap out of me, but I can imagine the editor not really knowing what to do with this piece of work, as cool as it is.
I wish Marilyn Chin was stopping in southwest Ohio on her book tour...
Don't let Chin fool you: this isn't a nice little novel with deep, underlying meanings or spirituality. One of the stand out pieces in this novel was "A Portrait of My Sister Sexing Tofu", if that tells you anything.
More a series of interlocked stories all dealing with the many lives of Moonie and Mei Ling (but mostly written from Moonie's perspective, which is amusing considering the author IS Mei Ling, the "poet/professor in southern California who is well-known for her research on immigrant erotica"), one section is devoted to modern re-tellings of ancient Buddhist tales, another section devoted to animal tales which feature prominently in many culture's folktales, and yet another section entitled "Ten Views of the Flying Matriarch" that deals with the community's view of Moonie and Mei Ling's cleaver-wielding grandmother.
Chin is a poet, and you can expect her language to be succinct and the general playfulness that exudes from this book I would credit to her being trained in poetry. The story "Fox Girl" is a critique on academic poetry while mashing it up with an ancient Chinese story about a fox demon who disguises herself as a beautiful woman.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and feel that under the right kind of professor, so much more could unfold from this book. Chin knows her stuff and this work is pulled off masterfully. It's one of those books people will really enjoy if they are pulled into it by something, which is probably why I felt the need to summarize so much of this book. (I'm the first review of this book on goodreads too!)
There are a few minor problems with the editing, such as someone saying that someone died in 1989 and yet, a few pages later, it being 1985 and said person is already dead... but I'm willing to overlook that. It bothers the crap out of me, but I can imagine the editor not really knowing what to do with this piece of work, as cool as it is.
I wish Marilyn Chin was stopping in southwest Ohio on her book tour...
January 24, 2011
Highly original and inventive "manifesto in 41 tales" with a heavily feminist bent. The tales are drawn from Buddhist texts and a platter of Chinese folklore, updated for a modern audience (i.e. fellatio and naughty bits).
Tone-wise the stories present a gritty or whimsical look at first-generation Chinese immigrant life, a stylised satire of over-sexed second-generation teenage life, and a fantastical world of vaginas with teeth, fox metamorphoses and ninja grandmas.
Very funny and refreshing.
Tone-wise the stories present a gritty or whimsical look at first-generation Chinese immigrant life, a stylised satire of over-sexed second-generation teenage life, and a fantastical world of vaginas with teeth, fox metamorphoses and ninja grandmas.
Very funny and refreshing.
July 3, 2013
I don't usually review on this site, because there's already such a plethora of smart, involved reviewers.
But the showing for this particular book is SHAMEFUL, and it's one of my favorites. So here's what I wrote about it once upon a time.
(Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen: A Manifesto in 41 Tales)
Marilyn Chin was born Chin Mei-ling in Hong Kong, only to later immigrate with her family to the US. (And renamed for Marilyn Monroe.) She is an acclaimed poet with four Pushcart Prizes to her name, but Revenge is her first novel.
And it is awesome.
Revenge has many voices and many stories (forty-one, naturally), but its beating heart is the Double Happiness twins, Mei Ling and Moon, and their Grandma Wong. Their father dead of a heart attack, their mother escaped back to Hong Kong, the twins gained their neighborhood nickname from the restaurant their grandmother runs in Rose River, Oregon, a city so industrialized the very rain is toxic.
Moon is reserved, deconstructive, dry-humored, and a "latent homo." Mei Ling is defiant, hedonistic, irreverent, and rapaciously heterosexual. ("A yin and a yang!" declares the delivery doctor, to which the newborn Moon replies: "Thanks for showing your Oriental knowledge, asshole," before peeing on him.)
Granny is everything you would want your Great Matriarch to be: cleaver-wielding and fly-kicking, full of ancient fables and family stories. With Moon and Mei Ling, Chin perhaps strives to present differing ways to deal with assimilation and immigrant lifestyle. On the other hand, Granny is pure wish fulfillment, the righteous embodiment of filial obligation and general badassery. She kills gangsters and tends to neighborhood unfortunates, even haunting her granddaughters' dreams from beyond the grave. She reminds her charges of the past they have inherited, but knows the cultural entropy of their lives. When Mei Ling wakes up with Caucasoid eyes, Granny laments the loss of beauty but soothes her distress. "Deep in her heart," Chin writes, "she knew that each step backward would only mean regret -- the vector only goes in one direction, the homing geese must find their new nest, the ten thousand diasporas will never coagulate -- there was no way back to the Middle Kingdom."
I'm quoting freely from the text because, honestly, that's the only real way to get a taste of the book as a whole. There is no overarching narrative thread -- in 200 pages the twins are born, grow older, and become successful women (though not necessarily in that order). Sometimes the stories are written from Mei Ling's perspective, sometimes Moon's, sometimes Granny's, sometimes from the viewpoint of minor characters. Chin regurgitates fairy tales, Buddhist koans, Daoist stories, Zhuangzi, Confucius, ghost lore -- clothing them anew in the philosophy and experiences of the Wongs. (She includes a handy notes section for many of the allusions, but I read that last and loved the stories as standalones as well.)
As if that weren't enough to compel you, Chin's language is amazing. Let me say that again: Ah. May. ZING. Beguiling and abrasive by turns, her characters fuck and fight and feel with graphic, attention-grabbing imagery. Sometimes lyrical and sometimes crude -- and sometimes downright bizarre -- Chin exercises the poet's prerogative to make her sense out of nonsense, writing in cheerful contradictions and open ended (if not triple-ended) anecdotes.
A lot, if not all, of the reviews I've read for Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen have used the term "immigrant literature." I dislike this attempt at pigeonholing. Thoroughly. My own review is long enough without detailing exactly why, but suffice to say I think it downplays a book's appeal in a misguided attempt to find its "market."
And I say: fuck market. The Wongs are immigrants, yeah, and their lives deal with those conundrums and complications which inevitably arise from growing up immersed in the dominant white, Western culture when your family, your history, and you are something else. But while the questions plaguing the Double Happiness twins -- Where are my people? How can I be happy? What should I love? How should I love? -- are often brought sharply into focus when one is caught between two (or three or four or sixteen) sets of answers, no one lives entirely free of them.
No one should.
Brave, snarky, troubling, serene, conflicted, and uncompromising: this is a beautiful book.
But the showing for this particular book is SHAMEFUL, and it's one of my favorites. So here's what I wrote about it once upon a time.
Moon grew up, lost weight and became a famous singer, which proves that there is no justice in the universe, or that indeed, there is justice. Your interpretation of the denouement mostly depends on your race, creed, hair color, social and economic class and political proclivities -- whether or not you are a revisionist feminist and have a habit of cheering for the underdog. What is the moral of the story? Well, it's a tale of revenge, obviously written from the Chinese American girl's perspective. My intentions are to veer you away from teasing and humiliating little chubby Chinese girls like myself. And that one wanton act of humiliation you perpetrated on the fore or aft of that boat on my arrival may be one humiliating act too many.
For although we are friendly neighbors, you don't really know me. You don't know the depth of my humiliation. And you don't know what I can do. You don't know what is beneath my doing.
(Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen: A Manifesto in 41 Tales)
Marilyn Chin was born Chin Mei-ling in Hong Kong, only to later immigrate with her family to the US. (And renamed for Marilyn Monroe.) She is an acclaimed poet with four Pushcart Prizes to her name, but Revenge is her first novel.
And it is awesome.
Revenge has many voices and many stories (forty-one, naturally), but its beating heart is the Double Happiness twins, Mei Ling and Moon, and their Grandma Wong. Their father dead of a heart attack, their mother escaped back to Hong Kong, the twins gained their neighborhood nickname from the restaurant their grandmother runs in Rose River, Oregon, a city so industrialized the very rain is toxic.
Moon is reserved, deconstructive, dry-humored, and a "latent homo." Mei Ling is defiant, hedonistic, irreverent, and rapaciously heterosexual. ("A yin and a yang!" declares the delivery doctor, to which the newborn Moon replies: "Thanks for showing your Oriental knowledge, asshole," before peeing on him.)
Granny is everything you would want your Great Matriarch to be: cleaver-wielding and fly-kicking, full of ancient fables and family stories. With Moon and Mei Ling, Chin perhaps strives to present differing ways to deal with assimilation and immigrant lifestyle. On the other hand, Granny is pure wish fulfillment, the righteous embodiment of filial obligation and general badassery. She kills gangsters and tends to neighborhood unfortunates, even haunting her granddaughters' dreams from beyond the grave. She reminds her charges of the past they have inherited, but knows the cultural entropy of their lives. When Mei Ling wakes up with Caucasoid eyes, Granny laments the loss of beauty but soothes her distress. "Deep in her heart," Chin writes, "she knew that each step backward would only mean regret -- the vector only goes in one direction, the homing geese must find their new nest, the ten thousand diasporas will never coagulate -- there was no way back to the Middle Kingdom."
I'm quoting freely from the text because, honestly, that's the only real way to get a taste of the book as a whole. There is no overarching narrative thread -- in 200 pages the twins are born, grow older, and become successful women (though not necessarily in that order). Sometimes the stories are written from Mei Ling's perspective, sometimes Moon's, sometimes Granny's, sometimes from the viewpoint of minor characters. Chin regurgitates fairy tales, Buddhist koans, Daoist stories, Zhuangzi, Confucius, ghost lore -- clothing them anew in the philosophy and experiences of the Wongs. (She includes a handy notes section for many of the allusions, but I read that last and loved the stories as standalones as well.)
As if that weren't enough to compel you, Chin's language is amazing. Let me say that again: Ah. May. ZING. Beguiling and abrasive by turns, her characters fuck and fight and feel with graphic, attention-grabbing imagery. Sometimes lyrical and sometimes crude -- and sometimes downright bizarre -- Chin exercises the poet's prerogative to make her sense out of nonsense, writing in cheerful contradictions and open ended (if not triple-ended) anecdotes.
A lot, if not all, of the reviews I've read for Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen have used the term "immigrant literature." I dislike this attempt at pigeonholing. Thoroughly. My own review is long enough without detailing exactly why, but suffice to say I think it downplays a book's appeal in a misguided attempt to find its "market."
And I say: fuck market. The Wongs are immigrants, yeah, and their lives deal with those conundrums and complications which inevitably arise from growing up immersed in the dominant white, Western culture when your family, your history, and you are something else. But while the questions plaguing the Double Happiness twins -- Where are my people? How can I be happy? What should I love? How should I love? -- are often brought sharply into focus when one is caught between two (or three or four or sixteen) sets of answers, no one lives entirely free of them.
No one should.
Brave, snarky, troubling, serene, conflicted, and uncompromising: this is a beautiful book.
May 10, 2017
This is the most awesome Asian American Immigrant Magical Realism Extravaganza complete with occasional soft-core porn EVER!
February 27, 2013
Got tired to the crude humor at the expense of plot.
March 4, 2019
Near perfect. Irreverent and fun, wordplay without the annoying postmodern garbage (well mostly), light yet rooted, still, in ancient folklore, Buddhist scriptures, or simply Chinese beliefs, and in the Great American Dream. Sometimes the narrative is jumbled up which, instead of being a clever parody, only feels like "I'm-too-tired-to-research-this" or "there-isn't-enough-material-on-this." Still, I wish I read this before I read all the other contemporary Asian American works.
January 4, 2016
I began reading this book in 2014 and couldn't make sense of the plot. I was forcing a continuous timeline when one didn't actually exist. I contacted the author (prior professor at SDSU) to get more insight about the book and her style of writing. She asked me to finish the book and contact her again once I had read it completely.
I couldn't wrap my head around the crude writing and in a way I felt slightly insulted every time I read it. I set the book down for over a year and finished the last portion just now.
Realizations:
1. The book is made up of a compilation of short stories.
2. The main characters aren't necessarily the twins, but rather the grandmother and the lessons that they learn from her.
3. The anecdotal stories are not to be taken literally. They are cleverly written representations that express the growth of the characters throughout the book.
4. The story is not linear and when you find yourself asking questions about the past- maybe something you missed, you'll find that the questions are answered in the future readings.
5. Don't take the readings personal and try to read the book without judgement.
It's certainly rough around the edges, but it's an honest and heartfelt read full of feminist qualities.
I couldn't wrap my head around the crude writing and in a way I felt slightly insulted every time I read it. I set the book down for over a year and finished the last portion just now.
Realizations:
1. The book is made up of a compilation of short stories.
2. The main characters aren't necessarily the twins, but rather the grandmother and the lessons that they learn from her.
3. The anecdotal stories are not to be taken literally. They are cleverly written representations that express the growth of the characters throughout the book.
4. The story is not linear and when you find yourself asking questions about the past- maybe something you missed, you'll find that the questions are answered in the future readings.
5. Don't take the readings personal and try to read the book without judgement.
It's certainly rough around the edges, but it's an honest and heartfelt read full of feminist qualities.
July 26, 2023
unspeakably weird, whimsical, and at times impossible to categorize through content alone, given that the content of the mooncake vixen is as expansive as it is hard to follow. i’m still not entirely sure how i feel about this collection of shorts set within the same world, but it was definitely an experience.
February 11, 2010
Marilyn Chin is coming to campus in a few weeks, so I'm teaching this book in my fiction-writing class.
February 23, 2022
Second half of the book–particularly the section that centers around Grandma Wong's restaurant in Oregon is extremely, extremely strong. Miles ahead of most present-day Asian American literature: self-aware, ambitious, satirical, provocative. My only critique would be that the first half of the book is noticeably weaker and sometimes a little too scattered/centered on shock value.
edit: JUST realized this book was published in 2009—I am DEEPLY impressed.
edit: JUST realized this book was published in 2009—I am DEEPLY impressed.
April 25, 2021
I recommend reading this book like any short story collection: a few stories at a time and don’t try to read it straight through. Also, though the book description says it’s about two sisters and their grandmother, I approached each story fresh, like these were different characters who sometimes shared the same name. It saved me the headache of figuring out who was narrating each story.
Here are the standouts for me and their page in my Kindle copy:
Round Eyes (18) – heartwarming, sweet
Fox Girl (132) – sarcastic, playful
Happiness: A Manifesto (195) – raunchy, playful
Moon (13) - first story in collection, direct
Ax Handle (48) – ha, unexpected
Parable of Squab (34) – sweet, something about pigeons
After Enlightenment, There is Yam Gruel (109) – ha, realistic
I pretty much read the stories in the order that they were mentioned in the Acknowledgements (first the ones which were anthologized, then the ones previously published in literary magazines) and then the order they appeared in the Postscript. In that way, it feels like I got to read the “best” stories first. I recommend reading the Postscript as an introduction since it contains several notes that give context to some of the stories and are worth knowing going in.
Structurally, this book reminds me of One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak (which contains 64 stories). I was talking to a friend about short stories that happen to be humorous vs humor pieces that happen to qualify as short stories. This is the former. I enjoyed this book, but I also didn’t try to read all the stories, some of which are flash fiction.
This is one of several short story collections that C Pam Zhang mentioned on her recent book tour for How Much of These Hills Is Gold, and that I’m now making my way through.
Here are the standouts for me and their page in my Kindle copy:
Round Eyes (18) – heartwarming, sweet
Fox Girl (132) – sarcastic, playful
Happiness: A Manifesto (195) – raunchy, playful
Moon (13) - first story in collection, direct
Ax Handle (48) – ha, unexpected
Parable of Squab (34) – sweet, something about pigeons
After Enlightenment, There is Yam Gruel (109) – ha, realistic
I pretty much read the stories in the order that they were mentioned in the Acknowledgements (first the ones which were anthologized, then the ones previously published in literary magazines) and then the order they appeared in the Postscript. In that way, it feels like I got to read the “best” stories first. I recommend reading the Postscript as an introduction since it contains several notes that give context to some of the stories and are worth knowing going in.
Structurally, this book reminds me of One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak (which contains 64 stories). I was talking to a friend about short stories that happen to be humorous vs humor pieces that happen to qualify as short stories. This is the former. I enjoyed this book, but I also didn’t try to read all the stories, some of which are flash fiction.
This is one of several short story collections that C Pam Zhang mentioned on her recent book tour for How Much of These Hills Is Gold, and that I’m now making my way through.
May 20, 2011
Don't let the cover fool you—The Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen is more manifesto than novel. There is no linear plot, but rather a series of 41 loosely interconnected stories about two Chinese American twins Moonie and Mei Ling, their dominating grandmother, and the family "Double Happiness" restaurant. Poet and novelist Marilyn Chin is a master wordsmith blending Chinese words and legends with rich colorful language in fantastical tales that span the girls' coming of age. There's a lot of symbolism of intergenerational tension, cultural legacy, the pursuit of the American dream, and asserting one's own identity and sexuality given this complex backdrop. Don't expect Amy Tan-like immigrant literature; however, The Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen will jolt, engage, and entertain the reader.
April 29, 2021
My immediate reaction upon reading this: There is power in this book. Strength. Defiance. Chin takes everything that people have sneered at, poked fun at, or looked at with disdain, about the Chinese and brandishes them like weapons. Here are women undoubtedly, obstinately, almost aggressively Chinese - yellow skinned, round face, slanted eyes. Here is broken english, sharp tongues, even sharper wit.
The stories are rather absurd and surreal, and reminded me of Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston - the constant dipping in and out of reality, the Chinese myths and symbolism blended in with the more "concrete", everyday happenings in the sisters' lives. I absolutely loved it - the seamless transitions, the humour, the whiplash - ALL of it. I never knew where this book was going to take me, but I fully enjoyed the ride.
The stories are rather absurd and surreal, and reminded me of Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston - the constant dipping in and out of reality, the Chinese myths and symbolism blended in with the more "concrete", everyday happenings in the sisters' lives. I absolutely loved it - the seamless transitions, the humour, the whiplash - ALL of it. I never knew where this book was going to take me, but I fully enjoyed the ride.
April 19, 2017
Raucous, bawdy, political without apologies. This book is a mosaic of a novel about twin Chinese-American sisters and their cleaver-wielding grandmother with pointed updates of classical Chinese writings. I haven't found a book which so deftly pushed my buttons in a while — vengeful female ghosts, folklore adaptations, surprise martial arts moves, and a cheerful disregard for men's feelings and thoughts. My one small critique is that some of the politics/references read as a tiny bit dated; albeit, in our new political era, they might not be so dated anymore. I highly, highly recommend it. (I also met Marilyn Chin last week, and she is quite possibly the coolest person I've ever met. At her reading, she made all the undergrads blush!)
August 11, 2015
This is not your grandmother's Asian American immigrant story. This is (as another reviewer put it) sexy, witty, poetic, and profane. It's not a straightforward narrative and there's a quite a bit retelling of Buddhist and zen stories. You might especially enjoy it if you're a Chinese American academic swimming in bullshit, a rebellious former or current immigrant girlchild, or a lover of the profane.
November 13, 2017
I loved this. It was hilarious, and it managed to reveal important truths amongst its dry witticisms.
January 3, 2019
I fail to appreciate the merits of the book. It just did not speak to me. The story was disjointed, I did not enjoy the style, and I could not relate at all to any of the characters.
March 20, 2021
fucking awesome. will be rereading for the rest of my life
January 18, 2023
This book is weird but a good what am I reading weird. I really related at moments to this book. Is it for everyone? Noooooo. But for the right people this hits that spot that no other book can hit.
But seriously… wtf was some of this book!!
But seriously… wtf was some of this book!!
September 26, 2010
I really wanted to like this more. There were some stories that were very, very funny, and a couple that were very sad, but the majority of them didn't really affect me one way or the other. I don't know why I expected this to be a novel rather than a collection of stories and fables, but I can't hold my misinformed disappointment against it.
Marilyn Chin can write, and she did make me think, again, about a Chinese immigrant's experience in America; I've had a couple boyfriends who were first-generation Chinese American, and we talked some about their families; I had a friend in college who was Hmong, and luckily she was very patient and polite about discussing her family's Coming to America story, which I think now was quite rude of me to just ask of her. It's one thing to talk about family stories with a boyfriend, but asking someone in the middle of work, like, "So what is your name in Hmong?" god I would've wanted to slap me.
The point being, while I didn't enjoy all the stories so much, I did like the conversations Marilyn Chin seemed to be having with her characters, and trying to have with the reader. Anytime a book lets you relate to parts of it--the second-to-last story, "Happiness: A Manifesto" is one of the funniest things I've ever read--while constantly slapping you out of the comfortable "reading" place, it's probably a book that deserves more consideration.
Marilyn Chin can write, and she did make me think, again, about a Chinese immigrant's experience in America; I've had a couple boyfriends who were first-generation Chinese American, and we talked some about their families; I had a friend in college who was Hmong, and luckily she was very patient and polite about discussing her family's Coming to America story, which I think now was quite rude of me to just ask of her. It's one thing to talk about family stories with a boyfriend, but asking someone in the middle of work, like, "So what is your name in Hmong?" god I would've wanted to slap me.
The point being, while I didn't enjoy all the stories so much, I did like the conversations Marilyn Chin seemed to be having with her characters, and trying to have with the reader. Anytime a book lets you relate to parts of it--the second-to-last story, "Happiness: A Manifesto" is one of the funniest things I've ever read--while constantly slapping you out of the comfortable "reading" place, it's probably a book that deserves more consideration.
September 13, 2014
I put this on the LBGT shelf (which I mean to change to the LGBTQIA shelf just as soon as I figure out how) because one of the two protagonists seems asexual for much of the story, but has an affair with another woman toward the end. The other protagonist (twin sister to the first) is aggressively heterosexual, and I wouldn't say that queer sexuality is a major theme here. It's nice to see one character happen to be queer, though.
The big theme is the second-generation immigrant experience in America, specifically the Chinese American experience. I have never, however, seen this theme dealt with so poetically, wittily, sexily and profanely. This is a novel-in-stories in which some of the stories are more like prose poems. It's magical realist from the get-go and hysterically funny. By that I mean not only is it very, very funny, but the hilarity has a slightly hysterical edge to it, as if the laughter were partly a way to stave off bitter tears.
I absolutely loved this book. It made me want to read Marilyn Chin's poetry. If she has written or writes any more fiction, I'll be all over it.
The big theme is the second-generation immigrant experience in America, specifically the Chinese American experience. I have never, however, seen this theme dealt with so poetically, wittily, sexily and profanely. This is a novel-in-stories in which some of the stories are more like prose poems. It's magical realist from the get-go and hysterically funny. By that I mean not only is it very, very funny, but the hilarity has a slightly hysterical edge to it, as if the laughter were partly a way to stave off bitter tears.
I absolutely loved this book. It made me want to read Marilyn Chin's poetry. If she has written or writes any more fiction, I'll be all over it.
February 2, 2015
Not quite what I expected, but this was a fun and easy read. I don't usually enjoy short stories, but this collection felt rather less disjointed than most as the stories all featured recurring characters (primarily the twins: Moonie and Mei Ling; and their grandmother: The Great Matriarch). Very sexual at times and always funny, my copy includes a "Postscript/Some Notes" by the author at the back which help with understanding some of the cultural references in the 41 tales. Despite (or, perhaps, with the help of) its surrealism, the book makes interesting comments about being an immigrant in America, about traditions, and about cultural pressures and expectations from within and without one's 'people', which I'm sure other non-asian minorities can relate to on some level as I did, and which non-minorities may find insightful.
I love the imagery and 'magic' (literal and figurative) these stories possessed and, though I don't tend to re-read books, I can imagine re-reading whole passages of this one (if not re-reading it in its entirety!).
I love the imagery and 'magic' (literal and figurative) these stories possessed and, though I don't tend to re-read books, I can imagine re-reading whole passages of this one (if not re-reading it in its entirety!).
July 7, 2014
Brilliant and hilarious, the story of two take-no-shit Wing-Chun fighting matriarchal-familied twins, Mei Ling and Moonie. The twins are Chinese-American; they are roughly portrayed as the naughty sister and industrious sister, but not really. They are more like parts of the same whole.
Moonie is sexually assaulted in Chapter 1, brutally and painfully assaulted and devalued. But this incident does not define her; in fact, it is easy to forget that this even took place in the aftermath of the story. She and her sexy sister exact revenge by being a double success story. The women manage to uphold family traditions while simultaneously conquering, consuming, and spitting out those in our culture who bleed racism and sexism.
The novel is brilliant. So brilliant there is no way I can do it justice in a short review. Stay tuned for more in a full article (to come...)
February 3, 2017
Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen is an exuberant read. The book is billed as a "novel," though it also self-identifies as a manifesto. The "story," if we can really call it that (read this book for its poetic qualities--not for story), follow twins Moon and Mei Ling, born in San Francisco as a "yin and yang" duo. They are primarily raised by their grandmother and help her run a Chinese restaurant. The story is non-linear and comprised of short vignettes interspersed with satiric retellings of Chinese, Buddhist, and Confucian folklore. I am woefully uneducated in such matters, but enjoyed that Chin provides a short guide to the novel's folkloric roots at the book's end to offer context. Extremely well-researched, beautiful writing. Would teach at the college level but am wondering if it's too mature for high schoolers.
September 3, 2010
Moonie and Mei Ling Wong are the modern day heroines of Chin's riffs on ancient Chinese folklore and (to a subtler extent) immigrant coming-of-age novels. They're overachievers who chafe under their cleaver-wielding grandmother's rule, but Moonie has a few cleaver-esque revenge fantasies of her own, and Mei Ling never met a boy she didn't want to sleep with, even as she teaches post-colonial feminist lit by day. They're both tricksters and tricked; their personalities and timelines morph to fit Chin's wide range of irreverent, sometimes violent, sometimes simultaneously hilarious tales. As a novel-lover, I often craved more narrative and had a hard time finishing the book, but I loved the language (as sharp and clever and weird as Chin's poetry) at every step of the way.
November 10, 2014
Marilyn Chin is a formidable bad-ass. The first chapter of this book is flawless. I could read it over, and over and over, and never tire of it. It's like a shot of pure adrenaline. The rest of the novel is excellent, but the first chapter really sealed the deal for me. A heady blend of fairytale, folktale and modern life as a Chinese-American teenage girl. Chin ranges from experimental to straightforward narrative. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Mostly, it's brilliant, and darkly funny.
September 14, 2018
Very interesting. The narrative was nonlinear and uncohesive. I feel like the author went out of her way to make her audience uncomfortable. However, she says early in the book that how you take this will depend on your "race, creed, hair color, social and economic class and political prolclivities" (16). I certainly had a different perspective on this book than an Asian-American would. Even as someone who was born male, I had a different perspective than a born female would. Overall I enjoyed it.
March 25, 2012
This was kind of all over the place, the authors style was very unique to be sure and even sort of refreshing in a way because it was so different. But I worry most of this "differentness" was defined too much by its outright tawdriness to be enjoyable. It wasn't even sexy tawdry it was just sort of raunchyily indigestible and random. Some of it felt like a Chinese dream, it made me want to drink tea and eat moogoogaipan.
August 12, 2012
Poetic and fanciful and beautiful and hilarious. Follows the experience of daughters of a hardworking immigrant family, and interweaves it with Chinese folk tales, Buddhist teachings, and history. Raunchy and feminist and confused and strong, it reminds me of the confusion we all carry when marrying our family and personal histories to our assertion of our own beliefs and values in the world! Easy to read, fun, nonsequiter. Pick it up!
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