Chinese fashion. The work illustrates Chinatown’s
characters, customs, and celebrations for West-
ern readers, but more important, it chronicles
Jade Snow’s childhood and early adulthood, and
her desire to be recognized as an individual and
to bring honor to her family. At the heart of Fifth
Chinese Daughter is Jade Snow’s relationship with
her father. Not outwardly affectionate, Daddy is
an exacting disciplinarian absorbed in the work of
his factory and community organizations. Accord-
ing to Chinese custom, his children must defer to
elders, and sons are given priority over daughters;
however, his conversion to Christianity leads him
to believe that girls, too, should be educated. Pa-
tiently he tutors Jade Snow in Chinese, as he had
taught her older sisters, and sends her to Chinese
school once she is old enough to enroll.
In addition to Chinese school, Jade Snow at-
tends public school, where she learns that she will
often be forced to choose between American and
Chinese ways. She is insulted by a classmate who
calls her “Chinky, Chinky, Chinaman,” but she
also admires the tenderness and fairness of Ameri-
can families that she observes while working as
a housekeeper. Throughout the book, Jade Snow
tries to forge an identity that includes the best of
both Chinese and American philosophies, and be-
comes a “critical spectator” of both her family and
the outside world.
The memoir continues after her graduation
from Mills College in 1942, when Jade Snow goes
to work in the office of a shipyard to help the war
effort. There, she wins an essay contest and is in-
vited to christen a ship; the respect she gains in the
Western sphere and in Chinatown also glorifies
the Wongs. After leaving the shipyard, Jade Snow
decides to become a writer and to support herself
by making and selling pottery, renting space in the
front window of a Chinatown shop. Although the
Chinese laugh at her, the Westerners are intrigued,
and the business thrives. One last triumph closes
the memoir: Once the business is established,
Daddy tells her that she has achieved just what he
had hoped when he left China—greater freedom
and individuality for his daughters. Jade Snow’s
success has been both public and private, bring-
ing honor to her both in the Western world and
in her family.
In 1950, shortly before the publication of Fifth
Chinese Daughter, Jade Snow married Woodrow
Ong. Together they raised four children, expanded
Jade Snow’s ceramics business, and became travel
agents leading tours of Americans to Asia. Not
long after President Richard Nixon’s historic visit
to Peking in 1972, the couple arranged their own
trip to China, a journey chronicled in detail by No
Chinese Stranger. Wong’s earlier book made her a
cultural ambassador from America to Asia, but in
No Chinese Stranger, she brings Asia to America,
giving Western readers an impartial look behind
the bamboo curtain.Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, ed. Asian-American Women Writers.
Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1997.
Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. “The Tradition of Chinese
American Women’s Life Stories: Thematics of
Race and Gender in Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chi-
nese Daughter and Maxine Hong Kingston’s The
Woman Warrior.” American Women’s Autobiogra-
phy: Fea(s)ts of Memory, edited by Margo Culley,
252–267. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1992.
Trudeau, Lawrence J., ed. Asian American Literature:
Reviews and Criticism of Works by American Writ-
ers of Asian Descent. Detroit: Gale Research, 1999.
Jaime ClelandWong, Nanying Stella (1914–2002)
Known to her friends as “Starla,” Nanying Stella
Wong was born in Oakland, California, the old-
est of five daughters born to Chinese Americans
whose California heritage dates back to the gold-
rush era. Although both parents excelled in busi-
ness, owning a Chinese herb store and a Chinese
restaurant, her mother was a renowned stage
actress who also appeared in many early motion
pictures with her eldest infant daughter. This fam-
ily background in the arts manifested itself in all
of the children through their interest in painting318 Wong, Nanying Stella