Dragonwings

Moon Shadow’s father Windrider immigrated to the U.S. from China before Moon Shadow was born. In 1903, when Moon Shadow is nine (by Chinese reckoning, counting time in the womb as the first year), his father’s friend Hand Clap visits with a letter asking Moon Shadow’s mother to send Moon Shadow to Windrider in San Francisco. When Moon Shadow arrives., he meets Windrider, who greets him lovingly, though they have never met. Moon Shadow also meets the Company, men with whom Windrider lives and works. In addition to Hand Clap, there are also elderly Uncle Bright Star, Uncle’s opium-addicted son Black Dog, excellent cook White Deer, and former gambling addict Lefty. They all greet Moon Shadow warmly except Black Dog. That same night, White rioters throw bricks through the Company’s laundry windows.

After the rioters move on, Windrider takes Moon Shadow up to the room they will share. Windrider tells his son that the night Windrider arrived in the U.S., the Dragon King came to him in a dream and told him that in a previous life, he had been a dragon blessed with the art of healing. However, due to a dangerous prank he committed, he was reincarnated as a human and must prove himself worthy of becoming a dragon again. As time passes, Moon Shadow begins to accompany Windrider on laundry deliveries. During one delivery, Windrider helps fix the broken-down automobile of a White man named Mr. Olver Alger who gives Windrider his card. Moon Shadow excitedly speculates that Windrider’s healing abilities as a dragon manifest as mechanical skill in the human world.

One night, Windrider reads an article about the Wright brothers and develops the ambition to fly. Uncle Bright Star criticizes his zany ideas: first he wanted Moon Shadow’s mother to come to the U.S., and now he wants to fly. Moon Shadow asks about his mother immigrating and learns that Windrider would need to become a partner in the laundry business to bring her over—but Uncle Bright Star is against the idea because the U.S. is unsafe for Chinese women.

Black Dog disappears. Windrider finds him in an opium-den neighborhood and daringly saves him from a gang that wants to kill him for stealing money from one of their sex workers. Months later, when Moon Shadow is collecting money from the laundry’s clients, Black Dog beats him unconscious and steals the money. Moon Shadow regains consciousness in the Company building, where the Company is arguing over what to do. Later that night, Windrider takes a short sword and creeps out to handle Black Dog himself. Moon Shadow secretly tails him. Windrider parlays with the leader of the gang to which Black Dog belongs. When the leader hears that Black Dog beat up Windrider’s child, he sends Black Dog into the street to fight Windrider. Moon Shadow, spying unseen, sees an accomplice of Black Dog’s creep up with a gun—and tackles him before he can shoot Windrider. Windrider hurls his sword at the accomplice and kills him. Afterward, the gang leader warns Windrider to leave Chinatown: some gang members will resent the death of their comrade.

Windrider gets a handyman job with Mr. Alger, the White man whose car he fixed. He and Moon Shadow move into a converted stable in a working-class White neighborhood. Their landlady, Miss Whitlaw, turns out to be friendly, offering Windrider and Moon Shadow delicious gingerbread cookies. They also meet Miss Whitlaw’s spunky orphaned niece Robin. Windrider, in his limited free time, builds a model airplane and takes Moon Shadow to test it. Robin tags along. Later, noticing that Windrider’s airplane experiments have stalled, Moon Shadow asks Miss Whitlaw to help him write to the Wright brothers. Surprisingly, Moon Shadow receives a response. He and Windrider end up corresponding with the Wrights.

In April 1906, a massive earthquake hits the city. Miss Whitlaw’s sturdy house survives, but the tenements that comprise the rest of the neighborhood mostly collapse. Miss Whitlaw and Windrider forcibly convince uninjured passersby to help them dig survivors out of the wreckage. A few hours later, soldiers march through the neighborhood and order everyone to gather in Golden Gate Park.

In Golden Gate Park, the Company and the Whitlaws become friends. A few days later, soldiers round up all the Chinese San Franciscans in the park and march them to separate camps. After several more days, Moon Shadow overhears Uncle Bright Star telling the other adults that the White authorities are trying to resettle the Chinese population on the outskirts of town, not in their historic city neighborhood. However, Chinese San Franciscans are successfully resisting them—both because they legally own parts of San Francisco’s Chinatown and because the city’s economy is dependent upon Chinese immigrant labor. Chinese immigrants from all over the western U.S. come help Chinese San Franciscans rebuild after the earthquake. Meanwhile, because Miss Whitlaw’s house burned down in fires that followed the quake, she moves to Oakland for a job.

Windrider reveals to Moon Shadow that the quake has shown him the transience of human life and ambition—and made him resolve to become a pilot to fulfill his dragon dream. Against Uncle Bright Star’s advice, Windrider moves with Moon Shadow to the hills above Oakland to build an airplane. Three years pass as father and son work hard earning enough to pay rent, buy parts for airplane models, and send money home to Moon Shadow’s mother. Finally, in August 1909, they are almost ready to test-fly a one-man airplane named Dragonwings. Then Black Dog returns and convinces Windrider to give him their last savings by holding Moon Shadow at knifepoint. After Black Dog flees with the money, Windrider and Moon Shadow no longer have enough money to pay their rent or hire a wagon to carry Dragonwings to a hill from which it can take flight.

Windrider and Moon Shadow’s landlord gives them three days to produce their rent. The next morning, the whole Company shows up with a horse-drawn wagon at Windrider and Moon Shadow’s door to help them tow Dragonwings to the test-flight location. Uncle Bright Star also reveals that they’ve paid Windrider’s rent. When the group reaches the hilltop from which Windrider plans to launch Dragonwings, Miss Whitlaw and Robin join them. Miss Whitlaw reveals that she found out about Windrider’s troubles because her boss knows his landlord. Once she realized Windrider was in trouble, she contacted Uncle Bright Star.

Windrider gets into Dragonwings and, after a rocky start, begins to fly. He flies around for a while, turning circles in the air—until a bolt riveting one propeller to the plane snaps off, and Dragonwings crashes into a hill. Windrider breaks a leg and some ribs but survives. The group carries him home in the wagon. When he regains consciousness, Moon Shadow explains what happened and says they’ll have to build another plane. Windrider says he doesn’t want to—he’s realized that what’s important to him is his family, so he wants to save his money to bring Moon Shadow’s mother to the U.S. Uncle Bright Star agrees to help. Windrider and Moon Shadow move back in with the Company, and the following year, Windrider sails to China to retrieve Moon Shadow’s mother.