Readers > Everybody Reads > 2007 > About Midnight at the Dragon Café
About Midnight at the Dragon Café
Judy Fong Bates' fresh and engaging first novel is the story of Su-Jen Chou, a Chinese girl growing up the only daughter of an unhappy and isolated immigrant family in a small Ontario town in the 1950s. Through Su-Jen's eyes we see the hard life behind the scenes at the Dragon Café, the local diner her family runs. Her half-brother, Lee-Kung, smolders under the responsibilities he must carry as the dutiful Chinese son. Her mother, beautiful but bitter, lays her hopes and dreams on Su-Jen's shoulders, until she turns to find solace in the most forbidden of places, while Su-Jen's elderly father strives to “hek fuh,” swallow bitterness, and save face at all costs.