50 pages • 1-hour read
Homeseeking
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Chapters 10-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “December 1981: New York City”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of rape, illness, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, sexual content, and cursing.
In December 1981, Haiwen, now age 50, is in New York. He is there on a business trip for the company he works for, Yong Yuan Fabrics, to sell fabric to a fashion designer. He meets with two women, one of whom he thinks he recognizes. At the end of his pitch, he introduces himself by his Shanghainese name, Waong Haeven, to the woman, and she recognizes him: It is Sulan. She is immediately angry with him because of how he made Suchi “suffer.” She tells him that Suchi is married with a son and living in Hong Kong. That evening, Sulan meets Haiwen at his hotel. She tells him that Suchi’s husband is “unkind.” She gives him Suchi’s number and encourages him to contact her because “she needs [him]” (273).
Later, Haiwen calls his wife, Linyee, in Los Angeles. She tells him that she found a gold ring in his violin case, and he tells her that it was his mother’s ring. After they hang up, he realizes that “he c[an]not right Suchi’s life without leaving Linyee’s in shambles” (277). He tears up Suchi’s number and decides to appreciate what he already has.
Chapter 11 Summary: “February-August 1965: Hong Kong”
Suchi, now age 32, goes to a somewhat seedy club and asks the manager for a job as a waitress. He hires her and makes it clear that her job is to keep the male customers happy. She needs the money because Sulan is very sick and keeps getting worse. After Suchi has been working for a few weeks, a customer, Lam Saikeung, a 40-something businessman, takes a particular interest in her. She tries to brush him off, but he is persistent. Meanwhile, Suchi takes Sulan to the doctor, but he says that Sulan’s pains are “brought about by stress” (291).
One night, Saikeung buys Suchi’s time for the whole night. She is obligated to talk to him and tells him that she once had a dream of being a singer. He arranges for her to sing at the club a few nights a week. The first time she performs, she pretends that she is singing for Haewen and performs the song “Lovesick Dream,” the last song he played for her.
Chapter 12 Summary: “April 1975: Taipei”
In 1975, Haiwen, age 44, is living in Taipei, Taiwan, when his wife tells him that Chiang Kai-shek has died of a heart attack. Haiwen is shocked. He goes to see his old army buddies, Zenpo and Lau Fu. Zenpo is bitter because Lau Fu and Haiwen made good lives for themselves outside the army, but Zenpo works a dangerous construction job. Zenpo wishes he had died by suicide like their colleague Li Tsin. Later, Haiwen tells Linyee that he wants to go to the funeral procession for Kai-shek. They argue because Linyee sees the Nationalist Army as invaders of her homeland, Taiwan. Ten days later, Haiwen is home with his daughter Yijun and watching the broadcast of the funeral procession. He begins to cry because he recognizes that the death of “President” Chiang signifies that the Nationalist Army will not be able to retake mainland China from the communists. This means that he will not be able to return to Shanghai or reconnect with his family and instead has to stay in Taiwan where “so many locals hate[] him” (313).
His daughter is upset seeing her father cry. She gives Haiwen his violin and encourages him to play to calm himself. He plays for a long time until his wife and other daughter return home.
Chapter 13 Summary: “January-March 1966: Hong Kong”
Lam Saikeung has been visiting Suchi at the club for 10 months. He has arranged for her to learn English from a private tutor, and she practices her English with Filipino musicians who play at the club. One day, Saikeung arrives early while Suchi is alone preparing to perform in the dressing room. He tells her that he wants to marry her, and she asks for time to think about it. A month later, after her performance, he goes to see her in the dressing room. He presses her to agree to his proposal, and she deflects, suggesting that she is “tainted” (not a “virgin”). He gets aggressive and demands to know if she has been faithful to him. Suchi is scared. Saikeung rapes her and is “satisfied” to see that she was, in fact, a “virgin.” He tells her that they will get married in May. Suchi is devasted and traumatized.
One day, Sulan’s symptoms are so bad that Suchi insists that they go see Saikeung’s mother’s doctor at the expensive British medical center. The doctor diagnoses Sulan with multiple sclerosis. When Saikeung pays the medical bill, Suchi realizes that she “now ha[s] no choice” but to marry him (332). A few months later, while at Sulan’s checkup, the doctor asks Suchi about her health. Suchi admits that she has been throwing up and is nauseous. The doctor lets Suchi know that she is pregnant.
Suchi resolves to die by suicide. She writes her sister a letter and gets on the ferry. She rides the ferry back and forth, working up to jumping into the ocean. Right before she jumps, she sees Haiwen on the ferry.
Chapter 14 Summary: “March 1966: Hong Kong”
Haiwen is shocked to see Suchi on the ferry. He is in Hong Kong for a business trip. Early that morning, he had met with a courier in Kowloon in the hope of getting letters to the mainland, but the courier had told Haiwen that it would cost 100 sterling because of the political instability there, more than Haiwen could afford. On the ferry back to Hong Kong, he ran into Suchi.
They catch up over tea and talk about how they came to be in Hong Kong. Haiwen does not mention that he is married. They make plans to get breakfast the next day. Over breakfast, Haiwen reveals that he has not heard music playing in his head like he used to as a child since the war. While Haiwen ruminates over regrets about his choices, Suchi encourages him to “move forward.” Haiwen is happy to hear that Suchi is singing, but she refuses to let him see her perform. They meet for dinner that night, and Suchi gives Haiwen his violin. They talk about memories of their childhoods and courtship.
After dinner, they go back to Haiwen’s hotel room. He reveals that he is married. Then, they have sex, and Suchi cries afterward. The next morning, when Haiwen wakes up, Suchi is gone. She has left a note saying that her “heart is at ease now because [she] know[s] [he’s] alive and well” and encouraging him to keep playing violin (372). He doesn’t see her again.
Chapters 10-14 Analysis
In Chapters 13 and 14, the novel reaches its climax when Haiwen and Suchi meet on the ferry between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. This is a moment of melodramatic intensity, building on previous moments in the text. Before getting on the ferry, Suchi has resolved to die by suicide. As she prepares, she symbolically finds the gold ring in Haiwen’s violin case. She puts it on and notes that “it fit[s] perfectly” (336). She then takes it off. This represents her decision to forsake the possibility of love in her life. However, her fortunes are fortuitously reversed when, just before she jumps off the ferry, she catches sight of Haiwen. Her love for him persuades her not to go through with the suicide. This just-in-time encounter is an example of how the novel builds and then releases tension.
Through this climactic scene, Chen further develops The Enduring Nature of Love. Despite their decades apart, Suchi and Haiwen immediately reconnect and have chemistry. The author shows this in many ways, including Haiwen’s close attention to Suchi’s body, like “the small cleft on the inside of her wrist where two ligaments me[e]t” (345), as well as Suchi’s obvious emotion when she talks about how she felt while waiting for Haiwen to return and her ongoing guilt about how their last conversation went.
The clearest indication of Suchi and Haiwen’s enduring love for one another despite years apart is their decision to have sex. For both Suchi and Haiwen, having sex is a major commitment. As the text later reveals, Haiwen has had sex with sex workers, but he finds the act unsatisfying because they are not Suchi. Further, Haiwen is married, and having sex with Suchi could imperil his already fragile marriage with Linyee. However, they go through with it as an expression of their desire for one another. The chapter is written from Haiwen’s point of view, and he expresses this desire as the need “to live inside her skin, to know all the things she had experienced, to absorb them into himself and let them mingle with all the things he had been through so the space between them c[an] be erased” (369).
For Suchi, this decision is even more significant given the way the novel constructs a contrast of her sexual experiences. In the preceding chapter, Saikeung rapes Suchi. This is the first time she has ever had sex, and it is traumatizing. The experience is described from her point of view but in language that reflects her shocked, somewhat detached state during the act. She describes Saikeung’s penis as “a fleshy rodent burrowing” (326), a metaphor that implies that it—and, by extension, he—is inhuman. While she acknowledges the pain she is in, her mind disassociates from it, instead “wonde[ring] if she would have angular bruises on her back in the morning” (327). Chen contrasts this horrific, dehumanizing experience with the love-affirming sex she has with Haiwen. She verbally and enthusiastically confirms her consent to the act, telling Haiwen, “Don’t stop.” She then expresses her desire for him through her actions, climbing on top of him and holding him “as if she would never let go” (371). The language is descriptive, detailing every action the two take together. In this way, it is clear how much this experience means to Suchi as an expression of her love even though the chapter is not from her perspective.
Chen also centers the theme of The Search for Belonging and Home in this section. She most clearly illustrates this through Haiwen’s reaction to the death of Chiang Kai-Shek. Initially, it seems as if Haiwen’s feeling of loss is connected to a deep-seated nationalist sympathy and a feeling that the Generalissimo was a hero. However, after some reflection, he realizes that “he d[oes]n’t give a shit about Chiang Kai-shek” (313). Instead, his feeling of loss is tied to his recognition that with the death of the leader, “there w[ill] be no reclaiming the homeland, there w[ill] be no returning to China” (314), and therefore there will be no possibility of returning to see the family he had left behind in Shanghai. His realization that he cannot go home again prompts him to cry. However, this is a somewhat ironic scene because Haiwen is at home with his family. He has lived in Taiwan for decades; even if he feels like he does not “belong” there, he is nevertheless married and has two children. Haiwen himself comes to this realization when he stops playing his violin and sees his family standing behind him, “their expressions […] concerned, careful, full of love” (317). This scene illustrates how complicated Haiwen’s search for belonging and home is in a time of political instability.
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