The Land of Conjurors

In Gish Jen’s   The Love Wife , Bailey, who is the biological child from Blondie and Carnegie, refracts Blondie and Carnegie’s racial senses of identification. Both Carnegie and Blondie gain their sense of identification as they see the appearance of their son Bailey. Though Bailey is a half-breed child, he does not look like “soup du jour” (156), suggesting the multiethnic heritage. Since Bailey, who resembles his mother as embodied with blue eyes and blond hair, is much more like the white, Blondie not only sees her son whose appearance is similar to her but also takes him as a sense of belonging which she can wholeheartedly devote herself to Bailey. As Blondie mentions that the more she looks at Bailey, she sees more bits of the image of her white family (156), which Bailey becomes their inheritance henceforth. Although Blondie considers that Bailey has “Carnegie’s tilt eyes, and bridgeless nose, and perfect ears” (156), she constantly claims her dominance by saying that Bailey is

In Part One of Gish Jen’s   The Love Wife , the difference between Lan and Blondie is quite subtle. Blondie, who is the white as well as the Carnegie’s wife, is earnestly about getting involved in the Chinese family. Blondie knows some of Chinese. Besides, as Blondie mentions the two types of visitors, forks and chopsticks, she used to be a fork but now attempts to prove that she will finally and truly be the chopsticks (Jen 112). Blondie considers that she had undergone the process from the Western culture to the Chinese culture after getting married in the Wong’s family by bravely making a great effort to try such as eating snake, eel or rabbit’s ears that the eating habit mostly seen in Chinese culture. When Mama Wong is needed to be looked after in the nursing home, Blondie constantly ripples as to Mama Wong’s capricious temper with her Alzheimer’s disease. As Mama Wong nods for having some wontons, Blondie feels surprisingly elated (Jen 170). But, as Mama Wong is kept reminding C