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Chapter 1
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dragonwings, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cultural Interchange
Community vs. Individual Ambition
Anti-Chinese Racism
Nature and the Supernatural
Addiction and Destruction vs. Hope
Summary
Analysis
Uncle Bright Star—a short, round man in his 80s, who worked the railroad and the California Gold Rush—examines Moon Shadow. When he claims that Moon Shadow is staring rudely, Moon Shadow points out that Uncle Bright Star is staring rudely too. Uncle Bright Star laughs and tells Moon Shadow’s father, whom he calls “Windrider,” that he’s “lucky.” When Moon Shadow asks about the name “Windrider,” Windrider explains that that has become his name. As the group walks from the docks to Chinatown, Moon Shadow asks where the Golden Mountain is. Windrider explains that Hand Clap is a chronic exaggerator: there is no gold mountain, at least not that they’ve seen.
In the latter half of the 19th century, the U.S. constructed a series of transcontinental railroads, many of which relied heavily on Chinese immigrant labor. The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) refers to a period of substantial panning or mining for gold in California; many of the miners were also Chinese immigrants. Uncle Bright Star’s backstory thus emphasizes how the economy of the western U.S. has long relied on Chinese immigrant labor—while also treating those immigrants poorly. Meanwhile, Windrider’s revelation to Moon Shadow that there is no “golden mountain” hints that Moon Shadow’s ideas about the U.S. will undergo a transformation from essentially mythological to more realistic as he has more experiences in his new environment.
Active
Themes
After passing through an intimidating, smelly red light district, the group reaches Chinatown, whose architecture and colors remind Moon Shadow of home. However, there are almost no women in Chinatown, only a handful of sex workers or rich men’s wives, all of whom are hidden from sight. Moon Shadow’s group stops at a building whose signpost declares it the “Company of the Peach Orchard Vow,” an allusion to a vow of mutual aid and altruism that a war god and his “sworn brothers” took.
The existence of a San Francisco Chinatown aesthetically familiar to Moon Shadow indicates that Chinese immigrant communities aren’t simply assimilating to U.S. culture: rather, they have entered a process of cultural interchange between their culture of origin and the new culture in which they find themselves. Meanwhile, the lack of women in San Francisco’s Chinatown alludes to the racist and anti-immigrant restrictions on Chinese women’s immigration that were active in this historical period. Finally, the fact that Windrider and his colleagues have named themselves in an homage to a mutual aid oath hints at the importance of community support to new immigrants in surviving a strange, hostile new culture.
Active
Themes
On the first floor Moon Shadow sees a laundry with poems and sayings hanging on the walls above the ironing boards. Uncle Bright Star tells Moon Shadow that one of the sayings—“The three virtues of the Stranger are to be silent, to be cunning, but above all to be invisible”—comes from the ancient Classic of Changes. When the group climbs to the second floor, Moon Shadow sees a kitchen. On the third floor are bedrooms. A member of the Company, White Deer, cooks the group dinner. White Deer, Uncle Bright Star, and Hand Clap are partners in the laundry; the other members, including Windrider, work for wages in hopes of one day buying a junior partnership.
Active
Themes
Before the Company actually eats the dinner White Deer has prepared, they propose toasts. One member, Lefty, toasts Moon Shadow. (He is nicknamed Lefty because he cut off his own right hand as self-punishment for his gambling addiction. Specifically, he cut off his hand after losing his ticket back to China at a dice game the day before he was supposed to sail.) Everyone drinks. Then Uncle Bright Star explains that the Company predates him and will continue after him because it represents the “dream” of men aiding one another. He toasts the Company, and everyone drinks.
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After the toasts, the group eats. When everyone is stuffed, they bring out presents for Moon Shadow: a hat from Lefty, clothes from White Deer, and boots from Uncle Bright Star. When Windrider claims that even the Emperor would be proud to have his son so outfitted, Uncle Bright Star makes a rude joke about the Emperor. Everyone laughs: the current Emperor is a foreign, conquering Manchu of whom the Tang men are not fond. Then Windrider brings out a beautiful butterfly kite for Moon Shadow. Moon Shadow is overwhelmed by its beauty.
Active
Themes
The group hears boots on the stairs. Everyone falls quiet. Moon Shadow realizes Uncle Bright Star’s son Black Dog has come home. Black Dog, a sullen man in his 40s, was angry at his father for insisting he immigrate and do hard labor when his family was wealthy back in China. Black Dog further turned against his father due to the demons’ anti-immigrant violence; eventually, he became an opium addict. When he enters the room where the group has been celebrating, he looks at Moon Shadow’s presents, says the group has overlooked something, and puts down a knife. When Windrider takes it and says he’ll keep it till Moon Shadow needs it, Black Dog says he’s heard the demons are ready to riot now.
Active
Themes
Somewhere in the building, a window breaks. When the group goes downstairs to investigate, someone throws a brick through another downstairs window. Moon Shadow hears yells. Through the windows, he sees horribly contorted White faces whose looks express “the ugliest depths of the human soul.” Looking at the calm, quiet Company, Moon Shadow realizes they have experienced such incidents before. They wait until the rioters have moved further down the street. Then Black Dog welcomes Moon Shadow to “the land of the demons.”
