Dragonwings

“But my mother never complained about the hard work or the loneliness. As she said, we were the people of the Tang, by which she meant we were a tough, hardy, patient race.”

The story focuses primarily on Moon Shadow’s growing relationship with his father, but his mother’s character remains pervasive in the narrative, even from a distance. Mother is described as a resilient and patient person. She is also part of the immigrant experience, for she endures a long separation from her husband and son. Despite the strong bond between father and son, her ongoing absence signals that the family is still incomplete.

“‘It’s because there’s a big mountain there,’ she said. ‘The mountain’s a thousand miles high and three thousand miles wide, and all a man has to do is wait until the sun warms the mountain and then scoop the gold into big buckets.’

I squirmed on the bench.

‘Then why doesn’t Father go get the gold instead of washing clothes?” Grandmother shook her head.

‘It’s because of the demons, you see. They roam the mountain up and down, and they beat up any of our men who try to get the gold.’”

In this quote, Moon Shadow’s grandmother provides a stylized explanation of the meaning of the term “golden mountain” that some Chinese people use to refer to America. It is a historical reference to the California Gold Rush that drew many Chinese immigrants to the United States. During this time frame, Chinese people in the US endured racial violence and exclusion from the gold fields. Despite these hardships, many immigrants remained, pursuing different jobs in their search for prosperity.

“It was an important moment in my life. Perhaps the most important. I had never seen my father, though I had often tried to picture him from Mother’s and Grandmother’s descriptions of him. His letters were certainly warm enough, filled with his worries about us and his longing to be back home. But a man cannot be a father in a letter.”

At the beginning of the story, Moon Shadow and Windrider Lee are strangers to each other. Despite the boy’s apprehension at traveling across the world and embracing a new life in a new country, his Chinese values are reflected in his eagerness to obey his father and build a relationship with him. Although his mother has done her best to create a sense of Windrider as a living, breathing person despite his absence, there is no substitute for this in-person meeting.

“I was afraid of the Golden Mountain, and yet my father, who lived there, wanted me to join him. I only knew that there was a certain rightness in life—the feeling you got when you did something the way you knew you should. I owed it to Father to obey him in everything – even if it meant going to such a fearful place as the Golden Mountain.”

The theme of the Solidarity Between Father and Son drives the progression of the plot and infuses the majority of the events in the story with a deeper significance. In this quote, Moon Shadow expresses devotion toward his father even before meeting him, and this trend continues as the bond between father and son grows stronger with familiarity. At crucial times in the narrative, Moon Shadow always chooses to support his father as they navigate their relationship and their life together.

“The demons kept us locked inside a long, two-story warehouse for a week before it was our turn to be questioned. I don’t like to think about it too much. We were kept on the bottom story, where we slept and ate off the floors.”

This quote describes the deeply disturbing experience that Moon Shadow endured when he first arrived in America and underwent the process of inspection and interrogation by the American authorities. Oftentimes in these situations, the immigrants were held in detention for weeks before being questioned and admitted to the country. The process is traumatic for a seven-year-old boy like Moon Shadow and contributes to his fear of San Francisco upon his arrival.

“In their dark tunics and pants, they looked like shadows—a street of shadows, flitting here and there, talking in high, loud, excited voices.”

The “shadows” metaphor in this case describes Chinese immigrants. It alludes to the historical treatment of Chinese immigrants as an invisible mass of people who migrated to America and were not given recognition of their individual identities, strengths, and values. However, the passage emphasizes their humanity, contrasting the “shadows” with the “loud, excited voices.”

“I should say now that there were no women on the streets, only men, thousands of men; and perhaps carefully locked away in the buildings might be a few hundred Tang women.”

With this quotation, Moon Shadow briefly explains the difficult position of Chinese women who were immigrants in America. Chinatown is described as a male-dominated community. Chinese women endured multiple layers of oppression due to their gender and their race. They were often restricted, and many were exploited in traumatic ways.

“Boy, this Company was here a year before I even came to the land of the demons, and it was operating successfully for twenty years before I finally joined it. It will go on after me, for this Company is an idea. It is a dream—a dream that is much older than you or I and only slightly younger than the world: Men must help one another in dangerous times and places.”

Uncle Bright Star’s words emphasize the principles of the Chinese community of immigrants and the meaning of the Company as a symbol of strength, endurance, and unity. From this quote, it is clear that the members of the Company think of themselves as part of a group that functions as a family. The text also highlights the long history of Chinese immigration and the many hardships that the people endured.

“Looking at his smile, I felt as if here at last in the city of the demons, I had found my true father, and more – friend and a guide.”

This passage illustrates Moon Shadow’s delight at being able to forge a strong bond with his father after years of only hearing about him through his mother’s stories. As father and son get to know each other, Moon Shadow develops a healthy respect and love for his father, and Windrider likewise demonstrates a strong sense of responsibility toward his son as he teaches him to be strong in this strange new world. Windrider becomes an exemplary figure for him and a true father.

“There was many a Tang man with a cracked skull or a broken arm or rib because he had crossed over the invisible boundary line between our town and the rest of the demon city.”

The text describes the discriminatory structure of San Francisco’s ethnic neighborhoods. Chinatown is a restricted community, and the constant threat of racial discrimination and violence creates a sharp divide between the Chinese people and the white Americans. In the story, crossing those socio-cultural boundaries often led to incidents of racial violence.

“Every trip was an adventure into a strange, fearful city; and yet I felt safe by my father’s side. Anyone who could laugh and tell stories and jokes and sing while he was alone among the demons must know what he was doing. In my own mind, Father was the embodiment of Uncle’s superior man.”

Windrider functions as a strong mentor for Moon Shadow. Although the boy is afraid of leaving Chinatown and entering the white community, Windrider acts in defiance of such boundaries and teaches him to boldly explore his world despite the risks of hardship and discrimination. Windrider carries himself with courage and decency, and he passes these traits on to his son as well.

“I looked at her eyes and saw a friendly twinkle in them that made her seem even less threatening. There were demons, after all, who could be kindly disposed. I suddenly felt calm and unafraid as I stood before her.”

Miss Whitlaw behaves in a kind and respectful fashion, disproving Moon Shadow’s expectations that all white people will be cruel and seek to harm him. He expects a white woman to be hostile and threatening, yet he discovers that she is always friendly and open to him and his father. Her kindness helps Moon Shadow’s fears to recede as he integrates more fully into mainstream San Francisco.

“The shafts of colored light shot across the room to where the demoness sat. Her skirt seemed to gather in a distorted picture of the dragon in the window – or not really distorted, but an image that was alive.”

The dragon symbolism extends beyond the Chinese cultural framework and also comes to be associated with Miss Whitlaw’s strength of character. This scene alludes to Miss Whitlaw’s ability to engage in intercultural exchanges and to foster a strong bond between her family and Moon Shadow’s. The values of resilience, endurance, and freedom that the dragon symbolizes also come to be connected to her character as well.

“As I lay down on my mat and pulled the blanket up about my neck, it seemed to me that if this was the case, the demoness would surely be reborn as a rich Tang woman in her next life. I even toyed with the idea that perhaps we had been close to each other in some former life – a mother and child, even.”

In this section of the novel, Moon Shadow finds his father, but now feels the absence of a mother figure: an issue that will persist for years. However, he does feel a strong connection with Miss Whitlaw despite their cultural differences. His thoughts demonstrate that the relationship with Miss Whitlaw provides him with an element of family that he currently lacks.

“Another thing to say for the demoness was her genuine interest in learning about people as people. Where some idiot like myself would have been smug and patronizing, the demoness really wanted to learn.”

The passage describes Miss Whitlaw’s character. She is interested in the humanity in people and is not guided by prejudice or assumptions. She does not know much about Chinese traditions, but she is always eager to listen to Moon Shadow with interest and learns much about his culture in the process.

“She studied me for a moment. She and I both knew the dragonish thing to do. Then she went back to shelling the peas. Outside in front of the house I could hear the voices of Jack and his gang.”

This quote highlights a bonding moment between Robin and Moon Shadow as children. In this scene, Robin mischievously urges Moon Shadow to confront the white boys of the neighborhood who previously bullied him. Robin stands by Moon Shadow’s side like a true friend against the boys who bully him, and with her encouragement, Moon Shadow is able to overcome his fears and do the “dragonish thing,” confronting Jack and proving his own strength in the process.

“Thinking of the dead, I began to think about how quickly things pass by in this world. I had a feeling that all of this was likely to disappear, as if I was like one of the heroes, in the old tales, who comes upon a golden palace and is welcomed inside by the palace folk and they are all beautiful and handsome and richly clothed. They wine him and dine him and sing to him until they put him to bed. The man goes to sleep in a golden palace and wakes up in a set of ruins, for the man had been the victim of illusions conjured by the demons.”

Moon Shadow’s inner thoughts foreshadow the upcoming earthquake. The passage builds tension and prepares the reader for the devastating impact that the quake will have on the physical landscape of San Francisco and on the social landscape of the people who live there. It also alludes to the effects of the disaster on the city of San Francisco as a whole, signaling the start of new struggles and hardship for all of the characters.

“Wood and stone and brick and the very earth became fluidlike. The pail beneath the pump jumped and rattled like a spider dancing on a hot stove. I landed on my back hard enough to drive the wind from my lungs. The whole world had become unglued.”

The recurring use of metaphors and onomatopoeia for the description of the earthquake renders the scene vivid and lively. With this imagery, the author conjures a sense of the pure chaos and terror that the quake caused for all who experienced it. As the disaster unfolds, Moon Shadow is in shock while he watches the earthquake devastate the city he has grown to love.

“At dinner, he even gave Miss Whitlaw – a woman, and a demoness to boot—the seat of honor in his favorite chair. It was an honor that Uncle might not have given the emperor himself – not even a real emperor of the Tang people, to say nothing of that upstart Manchu one that claimed the throne.”

In this unexpected moment in the text, the Whitlaws have dinner with the Company men and forge positive new connections and relationships. Uncle Bright Star in particular takes a liking to Miss Whitlaw, honoring her with his generosity and treating her openly and kindly. In the midst of disaster and destruction, new bonds are being built, defying both the ruins that surround the group and the social clashes that seek to keep them divided. 

“The demons can’t tell us to move off it if we want to live there. Even they have to follow their own laws. And as for the other two-thirds—well, did you ever stop to think how important we are to the demons? We run a lot of businesses and services that they need. If we were to leave this city completely, their whole economy would be wrecked.”

After the earthquake, Uncle Bright Star and other leaders of the community manage to deal with the authorities and secure the people’s return to Chinatown. The text emphasizes the importance of the Chinese community to the overall fabric of the culture and economics of San Francisco. The Chinese community has a long historical presence in the city and has become an integral part of its economy.

“And beyond the bay, beyond even the ships with the lights hung on their sides, would be the lights of San Francisco: thousands and thousands of kerosene or gas lamps glittering like the gold scales of a serpent. It was like a river of light, and each light represented a person or maybe several people—the lights of their homes or the streetlights outside them; and I did not think of them as scrabbling for money or being stupid or malicious. It was as if they had each become a tiny star shining in the darkness. I had found my mountain of gold, after all, and it had not been nuggets but people who had made it up: people like the Company and the Whitlaws.”

The shifts in Moon Shadow’s perspective on San Francisco are portrayed most forcefully in this section of the novel, for the city that was initially a strange and threatening environment for him now feels like home. In San Francisco, he grows from an inexperienced boy to become a confident teenager with a multicultural understanding of his own identity. Ultimately, he develops a kinder and more nuanced understanding of San Francisco, as well as a sense of belonging with the help of his community and friends.

“Dragonwings lurched forward, bumped, stopped, and lurched forward again, like some great lumbering beast coughing to itself as it got up out of bed.”

The simile comparing the airplane to a beast alludes to its association with the dragon. For Windrider, Dragonwings is a means of realizing true freedom, as well as a way to regain his status as a dragon in the afterlife. Ultimately, however, this tumultuous flight forces him to forge a new meaning for the dragon story, one grounded in the realities of the mortal human life that he currently inhabits.

“I’m not going to build another Dragonwings. When I was up there on it, I found myself wishing you were up there, and your mother with you. And I realized I couldn’t have the two of them together: my family and flying. And just as I saw the hill coming at me, I realized that my family meant more to me than flying. It’s enough for me now to know that I can fly.”

The passage signals a significant shift in Windrider’s understanding of what is most important in life. Only upon achieving his goal of flying is Windrider finally able to realize that his family is more significant than flying. In the human world, Windrider already exemplifies the best dragon traits by being a responsible and caring father, as well as a person of courage and resilience. In the end, he chooses his family and truly embodies the deeper, more philosophical version of being “a dragon.”