The Chopsticks-Fork Principle

The Chopsticks-Fork Principle, A Memoir and Manual is not the "Tiger Mom" method of child-rearing! Says Celia Morris, author of Fanny Wright: Rebel in America, "Zany, moving, hilarious, and deep—not infrequently all at once. Cathy Bao Bean gives us a rollicking tour of the Bean method of merging work and play while negotiating cultural and generational divides to create a daily life far richer than its original constituent parts. As Cathy the Chinese Confucian philosophy professor declares war on mice, Bennett the Caucasian artist from mid-America announces "his increasing respect for all sentient beings." As he discovers more of his Buddhist nature, she becomes "more and more like Shiva, 'The Destroyer.'" Bennett designs a kitchen, Cathy notices that he's neglected to include a stove, leaving their son William to rebel against his hippie parents by dressing like his father only on Halloween. Cathy Bao Bean has written a tart, feisty, whimsical, and penetrating saga of the family that invented the Chopsticks-Fork Principle and then proceeded to live by it. The book is a memoir. In the author's words, "In 1959, when I was a Junior and the only Asian in Teaneck High, NJ, I learned about Hybrid Vigor in Biology class. The idea was that when two different strains of corn were crossed, the result was greater than was normal for either parent type. In 1974, when I was a new mother in the maternity ward, I wondered if the same principle couldn't be deliberately applied to cultures. Physically we had the makings for such an experiment. Our newly born son was half Asian, half Caucasian. Intellectually, I formulated his prospects from the wealth of his dual heritage, translating his ancestors' stories into a future neither side could have imagined, yet both had anticipated to some degree. Practically, I worried just how much difference it would make that he wasn't an ear of corn." The book is also a manual for anyone who steps outside the home, becomes at least bicultural and wants to, please, have fun doing it! The Chopsticks-Fork Principle is a story about reconciling the expectations of extended families and society at large, and how to raise a child in a respectful context while also choosing the "path less traveled." Race, class, and gender issues are imbedded seamlessly within the narrative. Through Bao Bean's stories, we experience what it's like to be a "feminist" before being an "Asian-American," a doctoral candidate before realizing one speaks Chinglish. In doing so, the reader finds not angst, but wisdom and a lot of good cheer.