Bulletproof Buddhists and Other Essays

by Frank Chin

Book Overview

"America doesn't want us as a visible native minority. They want us to keep our place as Americanized foreigners ruled by immigrant loyalty. But never having been anything else but born here, I've never been foreign and resent having foreigners telling me my place in America and America telling me I'm foreign. There's no denial or rejection of Chinese culture going on here, just the recognition of the fact that Americanized Chinese are not Chinese...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0824819594
• ISBN13: 9780824819590
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Length: 438 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Bullet-Proof Buddhists: The Real Deal

Frank Chin's collection of essays is magnificent. The book is a course in itself on the authenticity of the Chinese-American experience in American culture. Chin's ideas are well researched, even scholarly in origin, but they are presented in ways that are eminently accessible. Each of the essays is provocative of the reader's thinking. I loved the essay on "Lowe Hoy & the 3 Legged Toad", for its exposition of strategy in Chinese social experience, and for its use of authentic Cantonese colloquialisms in his interviewees' speech.

A book I can personally relate too

Excellent book! Some events bring me back to my childhood years growing up in the Bay area.

A Pleasure To Read

I love the essays of Frank Chin. I just wished that the editor would put in "Racist Love" in this anthology. Anyway, this book is a treat because you'll have a commentary of Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR. Over and over again I've heard Chin mention how well ART OF WAR reflects Asian thinking. Well, it's now available to you guys, written by Frank Chin himself!

Yes

This book is a work of art. I loved every page of it. Thank you Mr. Chin

Frank Chin combs the landscape of Chinese American culture

There is no question that when it comes to specific, focused cultural criticism, Frank Chin has the task nailed down. I don't know the time frame spanned by these essays, but in terms of content they cover all the bases. Any student of Asian-American history and culture can profit from Chin's sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes frightfully serious analysis of several aspects of the Asian-American experience. Chin deals with immigration/migration; gang subcultures; folk history and mythology; and others. But the thing that makes this book so impressive, beyond its coverage, is Chin's writing style -- fast and loose, comfortable and razor-sharp. The jacket describes him as a "literary gangster" -- never have I heard a more apt description of an author. He wrangles words from the oral histories he obtains and makes them work for him. But he is a respectful gangster -- the subjects of his interviews seem open, warm to him and to his neverending questions. The text can get heavy at times, but this is a function of the content it taps. A very, very powerful book.