Well recognized contemporary American playwright David Henry Hwang examines the fabric of lineage. In 1988 Hwang was given a Tony Award for his screenplay M. Butterfly which was nominated the following year for a Pulitzer Prize. In his short dramatic play Trying to Find Chinatown a rhetorical question is posed on the issue of identity. The play takes place in present day New York City on a street corner on the Lower East Side and focuses on two characters thrust into conversation. The viewer is asked which of the two characters to agree with. The informal colloquy that happens between Benjamin and Ronnie offers a deconstruction on the words race and heritage lending to a new historical criticism with its digressive educational dialog. Once calling Chinese American culture “a minor detail, like having red hair,” he enlightens audiences in this play on the problem with stereotyping (David Henry Hwang qtd. Literature: The Human Experience p. 1229).
Benjamin is a Caucasian male somewhere in his early twenties. He speaks with a certain level genuineness and takes an active role in charting his own course in life. In this short interaction it would be reasonable to consider him the protagonist as he’s the first and last person with a speaking role with whom the story is generally about. His major hurdle is persuading Ronnie that the reasons for him going to Chinatown, NY are both legitimate and sound.
RONNIE. And don’t call it a “fiddle,” OK?
BENJAMIN: Oh. Well, I didn’t mean to—
RONNIE: You sound like a wuss. A hick. A dipshit.
Ronnie, an Asian American male also in his twenties does not believe Benjamin’s explanations for finding Chinatown. Ronnie’s skepticism sets in immediately as he rejects Benjamin’s attempt at giving him a compliment. He digs in on the tourist with some name calling, amplifying the rhetoric, to promulgate an altercation. Ronnie wants it known that while he is a busker in New York he is also of certain class by choosing to play the violin and not a fiddle.
RONNIE. So why is that you picked me, of all the street musicians in the city….
RONNIE. What are you going to ask me next? Where you can find the best dim sum in the city? Whether I can direct you to a genuine opium den? Or do I happen to know how you can meet Miss Saigon for a night of nookie-nookie…
Clearly Ronnie takes offense to Benjamin’s effort to have a civil conversation. Perhaps Hwang created these opposite personality types to draw comparisons to how far apart everyone is on the issue of race and heritage. Ronnie is downright rude to this Midwesterner trying to find their way to Chinatown. That impoliteness occurs even before he discovers Benjamin is interested in going there. Benjamin does not understand the social norms of big city life which becomes increasingly clear as the motive of his pursuit is revealed.
BENJAMIN. I took Asian American studies. In college.
RONNIE: Where did you go to college?
Ronnie is growing impatient and upset. Perhaps he has had too many experiences with white tourists targeting him, not because of he’s a virtuoso at playing the violin, but because racially he is identifiably Asian. The racist as well as classist implication is that he has information for those seeking illicit activity. The irony is that Benjamin does in fact understand Ronnie’s disposition and when he says, “brother I can relate to your anger” (Hwang Trying To Find Chinatown) he goes to explain why he can empathize with him, short of revealing that he too identifies as a person with Asian heritage. Impressed by this new explanation, a little curious but still unconvinced Ronnie wonders where all of Benjamin’s information came from.
BENJAMIN. University of Wisconsin Madison.
RONNIE: They have Asian American studies in Madison, Wisconsin? Since when?
In the final act of this short play each character delivers a bit of a soliloquy. Their paths part ways, and yet they are more connected by the end. Ronnie continues to play music, and as a stage direction, the music takes on a more authentic Asian sound (one imagines the sounds of the Erhu[1]).
BENJAMIN. When my father left the ghetto, he swore he would never return. But he had, this day, in the thoughts and memories of his son.
Benjamin finds the childhood home of his adoptive father; for him, his family, andhis roots are how he defines heritage. Conversely, Ronnie knows he is Asian racially, but he struggles with displaying his own identity. He expresses pains and possibly regret for abandoning his own heritage.
Works Cited
- Abcarian, Richard, Marvin Koltz, and Samuel S. Cohen. Literature: The Human Experience. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2019. Print.
- Hwang, David Henry. “Trying to Find Chinatown,” Literature: The Human Experience. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2019. Print.
[1] A two stringed, wooden instrument played with a bow, with origins from China.