May is Asian Pacific American History Month — an umbrella that encompasses way too many people, cultures and amazing books for a one-to-three-books-a-month book club to adequately cover.
This month, I chose three books that deal with the relationship between the East and the West. These books deal with cultures clashing, adjusting and changing. They offer insight into how many of us perceive Asian cultures and the problems with those perceptions.
As always, you’re required to read every book. I’ll know if you haven’t.
M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang
This one is a play, but honestly, I know you read Shakespeare in high school. Set up a Zoom call and act this one out if you have to, but we should all read more plays anyway.
French officer Rene Gallimard is stationed in China and falls in love with an opera singer. Fast forward twenty years and he’s in prison for treason. Throughout the course of this play Gallimard tells what led to this, how he should’ve seen it coming and why he didn’t.
It’s hard to talk about “M. Butterfly” without giving away spoilers. This play has a lot to say about the relationship between the West and Asia but again, it’s very hard to be specific without giving away the plot. I’ll just say that the relationship between Gallimard and Song Liling (the singer) has much more to it than you’d expect. Trust me.