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        The book me and my group is reading is the jade peony, we chose the book because we all are chinese and we had a strong feeling for the things in the book. The jade peony follows a Chinese Canadian family in Vancouver around the time of World War II, through the eyes of the three youngest children of the family. The story draws on the history of Chinese labourers on the railway, the perpetual navigations of and tensions caused by cultural difference, perceptions of Japanese Canadians, and other national and cultural identifications dominant at the time. When i started reading the book i had a question in my head forming, how was the immigrants treated like at the time? were they treated unfairly? how are immigrants treated differently from others now? It came in my mind since I strongly hate racism, either its white bullying yellow or black, or yellow colored people geting in groups to isolate other colored people. I dislike it very much and people are trying to stop it, we see signs everywhere about it, its gotten better from before and people don't say racist things out loud now. but its still happening , we see it sometimes in the eyes of people, maybe how the person talked and we see it allot now in games. when people have their identity hidden their personalty might change a bit or more, some turn nicer to others, some selfish and some speak and do things they would not do in realty. racism is one of that actions, whites killing asian country players for fun or making fun of them and isolating them, then the asians gang up as a very large group and just wipe out the white people in servers and places just because the asians have more people and some have more skills they dislike all the other races. it happens everyday, i see it everyday, and when we think of racism in canada we usually think about immigrants treated unfairly. In the book we find out that the chinese families that came from china to get jobs in canada, thinking that they would have a better opportunity to get money and send the money back to their families in china that are poor or starving don't even get enough money to move back to china and people are starving in canada. The immigrants got less money then the people that where originally here and they where often tricked from words, government saying to give large amounts of money for a job and then when you do the job they take large amounts of the pay for certain reasons like food fee and shelter fee and if you don't want the food or shelter they give, then you starve to death leaving no choice to get the money left from all the money they toke, which is really just nothing at all. Today we don't have these issues anymore, we see that people are usually treated equally in payment or work amount, but in certain places still theres immigration and race discriminate. Some do very hard work and only get payed very little for certain reasons, but they still do it because its the only income they get. But for the more and more imaginations are getting treated nicely and like others, still we see some signs that people dislike or discriminate other races and immigrants in their eyes or hiding deeply in their hearts. Waiting for a world that theres no more discrimination in anyones heart or soul.

Theme

                                      Theme of the Jade Peony

   Theme of the novel is how Chinese people’s life in Canada between early 1930s and 1940s. They have different culture and lots of conflicts, the life is full of difficulties. That thing conflicting them is making lots of choices between Chinese culture and Canada’s.

In the novel, for the first child, Jook-Liang who hates Chinese culture and wants to be a Canadian is a good example to discuss with the theme. Chinese culture is so unacceptable in some ways, like in the novel when Jook’s little brother had born, everyone paid their attentions to the brother and no one cared about Jook. The reason why they ignored Jook was because she was a girl. Traditional Chinese opinions made Jook argue with her grandma for several times and finally she gave up and wanted to find her own value by joining the Canadian culture.

   In part three, the theme becomes clear and clear. Sek-lung, the third son in the family, he always confused about whether he was a Canadian or Chinese. When he realized he was a Chinese, he tried his best to refuse it, like arguing with his mom and said he won’t speak Chinese anymore. He wanted to be Canadian and everyone around him like his teachers or friends will accept him. The racism from his teachers and classmates would be disappeared. He would live with happiness and wealthy. That’s what Sek believed but the family didn’t allow Sek to abandon the Chinese culture and Sek began to fight in his way to make his dream possible.

   Confusion, angriness, thirst and self-confidence created the characters in the novel and that’s the theme for this novel.

Characterization--by Sara

The novel “The Jade Peony” by Wayson Choy, is a story which took place in Chinatown Vancouver, of the early 1940s, told through the reminiscences of the three young children of an immigrant Chinese family.

Jook-Liang is the “useless girl” of the family, who dreams of becoming Shirley Temple and escaping the rigid, old ways of China. Jung-Sum is the adopted middle son who triumphs over loss and prejudice through boxing, and soon finds himself grappling with a bewildering sexual attraction. Lastly, Sekky, the sickly youngest child, surprises the entire family by teaching them how to mourn, and how to go on living.

Jook-Liang, the only girl, who narrated the first section of the book, has the most distinct characteristics compared to other characters in the novel. Her best friend—Wong Suk, was a deformed elderly man from the old country. As the two of them form an unlikely friendship, Jook-Liang ambitiously dreams of escaping the unyielding old ways while grappling with the old Chinese convention of elevating the life of a boy above that of a girl. When they first met, everyone was scared of Wong-Bak’s face, except for Jook-Liang, because she thought that Wong-Bak was the “Monkey King”, a fictitious character from one of the stories that her grandmother told her. No matter what established this unusual friendship, Jook-Liang put so much emotion in it that when Wong-Bak decided to go back to China, Liang was almost desperate to hope Wong-Bak could stay. It showed that Jook-Liang was a really emotional person.

     Furthermore, the second son Jung-Sum, who was adopted by the Old One, did not feel well when he first came to the Liang’s family. However, he felt he belonged there after starting boxing in the gym. It was surprised that he was so gritty that he could forget about his biological parents and started a new life. It exposed a very strong mind inside of his boney body.

     In conclusion, each of the character in this novel had different characteristics. These unique characteristics helped these three children surviving hardships and heartbreaks with gift and humor, discovering a new land without forgetting their common ground.