constructed nature of language. As in the overly
faithful dictation on the first page, where all the
directions and punctuation marks are spelled out
in words, readers become aware of the narrator’s
resistance to cultural colonization implicit in the
language acquisition process for an immigrant.
Language and memory seem to be the most
poignant themes of the book. While language can
be used as a tool of colonization, it can also restore
buried and unspoken memories. Playing with
the sound, Cha asks Diseuse to restore the dead
tongue from “disuse.” “Terpsichore: Choral Dance”
shows the patient and slow process of voices ris-
ing from under a heavy stone in the depth of the
earth. The hue-less stone emits moisture on the
surface, colors appear, the stain darkens to become
crimson blood, and then voices become liberated
from the stone of oblivion. The last part of Dictée
shows Cha’s belief in the power of voices in our
fight against the power of time and distance.
Bibliography
Kim, Elaine H., and Norman Alarcón, eds. Writing
Self, Writing Nation: A Collection of Essays on Dic-
tée by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Berkeley, Calif.:
Third Woman Press, 1994.
Lewallen, Constance M., ed. The Dream of the Audi-
ence: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951–1982). Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 2001.
Gui-woo Lee
Chai, May-lee (1967– )
Born in Redlands, California, to Winberg and Car-
olyn Chai, May-lee Chai took her B.A. in French
and Chinese Studies from Grinnell College in
1989 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In the
next five years, she received an M.A. in East Asian
Studies from Yale University and a second M.A. in
English–Creative Writing from the University of
Colorado–Boulder. Chai has taught at several uni-
versities and also worked as a journalist and editor.
May-lee Chai’s short fiction has been published
in North American Review, Missouri Review, and
Grinnell Review among others. Two of her short
stories have been anthologized in The Compact
Bedford Introduction to Literature (2005) and in At
Our Core: Women Writing on Power (1998).
Chai’s work has gained her a solid reputation
as a first-rate literary stylist as well as a careful,
sensitive historian. Her first novel, My Lucky Face
(1997), is a tightly drawn first-person narrative
about cultural and personal alienation. By por-
traying a deteriorating marriage, Chai examines
the psychological and emotional restraints in late
20th-century China. On the surface, the narrator
Lin Jun’s life should be pleasant. She has a good job
teaching English, a husband who is an intellectual,
an intelligent son away at a boarding school, and a
mother-in-law with political connections. Beneath
the surface, though, her introverted husband is
distraught by Lin Jun’s working relationship with
an American woman who teaches English, and Lin
Jun herself has begun to confront the early con-
straints on her life that led her into her marriage
and career. When her husband blows up at her dur-
ing dinner one day, Lin Jun decides to divorce him
and pursue her individual happiness. The novel is
praised for the authenticity of its background set-
ting, its carefully developed plot and themes, the
maturity and precision of its characterizations, a
sardonically witty style and ingenious metaphors,
and a sensitive feminist rejection of fatuous Chi-
nese versions of Victorian gender biases.
Another of Chai’s successful literary produc-
tions is a collection of short stories and essays,
Glamorous Asians (2004). Chai uses myths, per-
sonal experiences, and a species of magical real-
ism to lay out her perspectives on Asian-American
life. “The Dancing Girl’s Story,” in particular, is an
exquisite phantasmagorical narration that directly
challenges the notion of the “melting pot.” In it,
Chai relates the tale of an immortalized Cambo-
dian woman who flees westward from her rav-
aged native land just ahead of the arrival of the
Khmer Rouge genocide. After falling into the sea,
this lovely Cambodian phantasm is picked up by a
passing vessel, and she eventually faces an Ameri-
can immigration agent who has no grasp of the
cultural traditions of Southeast Asia.
The Girl from Purple Mountain (2004), coau-
thored with her father, Winberg Chai, is a care-
fully researched family epic depicting the hazards,34 Chai, May-lee