The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Obee and Crick, known as the Missouri Boys, sneak into Idaho City in 1865 to take revenge on a saloon owner by burning the place down. The fire rages out of control, ruining businesses and lives. So, when Chinese gold miners show up to work and spend money a few weeks later, they are welcome.

One day, young Lily sees the 27 Chinamen at the river singing. They’ve diverted the water and are taking out gold. Crick and Obee come along with a gun, claiming that this is their spot and the gold belongs to them. There is an altercation in which one man, Logan, receives a shot to the shoulder: “Still, Lily thought he looked calm, like he wasn’t in any pain, though he was a little sad” (268). Logan throws a rock and hits Crick in the head, and Obee runs.

In the next section of the story, titled “Whiskey and Wei Qi,” Lily and the Chinamen are in Logan’s garden, where his associates are tending to them. He teaches her the game Wei Qi (or Go) as he drinks whiskey. Logan says, “Every place has a taste that’s new to it, and whiskey is the taste of America” (271). He uses acupuncture on his injury, and she is shocked. He uses a needle on her as well, and it blocks her pain. She has never met anyone like Logan, but thinks he’s lying about the story he tells where he gets his bones scraped. He admits that anecdote happened to the Chinese god of war, Guan Yu.

The next section, “The God of War,” is the story of Guan Yu. Logan tells how the god of war is born and grew up. After working in the fields, the boy Chang Sheng would pretend to be a great hero while cutting down rotting trees. His father, Master Guan, teaches Chang Sheng Wei Qi. Soon, he starts to beat his father and others at the game. His father thinks he could be a great general. One of the people he beats is Hua Xiong, the son of a wealthy man. As the economy suffers from taxes, plague, and locusts, Hua Xiong buys up Master Guan’s land for enough to pay off the family’s land, then rents it to them, but he cheats Master Guan with a doctored contract. When soldiers come to the house and take Master Guan, Chang Sheng is angry.

In the section called “The Meal,” it’s dinnertime, and Lilly eats with chopsticks and experiences flavors she has never known, including hot spice. Logan says, “It’s all about the balance of the flavors. The Chinese know that you cannot avoid having things be sweet, sour, bitter, hot, salty, mala, and whiskey-smooth all at the same time” (291). Jack comes to get Lily, and Logan invites him to eat. Logan tells them they are eating wild dog. Jack says this is barbaric.

In the next section, “Feather Long Clouds,” Hua Xiong lies about the elder Guan in the courtroom, and the court sentences Guan to death. Upon hearing the news, Chang Sheng’s mother kills herself. In revenge, Chang Sheng sets fire to Hua Xiong’s home and kills everyone in his household, then cuts out the man’s ligaments to paralyze him. He leaves Hua Xiong alive till the end: “His heart was light as a feather, and it seemed as if love of the fight and joy in vengeance would never leave him. He felt like a god” (298).

In the section “Impressions,” Lily has a nightmare about Crick. As her father makes her tea, she tells him all she knows about the incident with Crick and Obee, though she’s not sure she can verbalize how safe Logan makes her feel or the stories he shares with her. Jack thinks Logan might be hanged if Obee decides to accuse him of murder. The two of them go outside and take a walk so that he can sing to her without waking her mother. He sings “Finnegan’s Wake.”

In “The Apotheosis,” Chang Sheng, now Guan Yu, is an outlaw. He meets Zhang Fei and Liu Bei, who wants to restore the glory of the Han Dynasty. The three become sworn brothers and found the Kingdom of Shu Han, one of the Three Kingdoms. During one campaign, Cao, the leader of one of the other Kingdoms, asks to parley with Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. If they surrender, he says, they will become dukes. Guan Yu says Cao does not understand why he fights, and his band of 100 men go up against Cao Cao’s soldiers.

At the end of the fight, only Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are alive. Guan Yu refuses to surrender, and Cao Cao admires him, asking if they can share a drink before Guan Yu dies. It is wine, a new drink from the west. Guan Yu urges Zhang Fei to leave, while Cao Cao tells his men that the soldier who captures Guan Yu will become a duke. Guan Yu jumps off his dying horse and stares at the approaching soldiers. They cut off his head the next morning but can’t find his head or his body afterward. No one actually believes he is dead. They begin to pray to him.

In “The Chinese Restaurant,” The Chinamen need a new source of income and take up laundry as a business. Elsie, Lily’s mom, rails about how the Chinamen will steal business from respectable widows, and Jack suggests that the men open up a restaurant. The Chinamen believe this will not work unless the Chinese become more American, or vice versa. Logan and Lily walk through town, selling vegetables that are better than what’s available in the store.

In “Chinese New Year,” The Chinamen prepare for Chinese New Year by making dumplings, unpacking firecrackers, folding and cutting paper animals, and wrapping candy. Lily helps out where she can, and is especially good at sculpting dumpling edges. Logan says, “If you didn’t have red hair and green eyes, I’d think you were a Chinese girl” (323). The women in town say Jack has been raving about the Chinaman’s cooking, and here is their chance to try it. The men look forward to the parade and a feast.

“When in America,” describes the Chinamen’s arrival. They travel on a six-week journey by boat, though some do not survive. Their employment contracts have difficult terms, and they are sent into a mountain camp where they learn about whiskey. Lao Guan plans to run away and hide in the mountains, then go back to San Francisco. He tells the skeptical men the story of Jie You, the Han Princess who was married off to a barbarian king in return for strong warhorses. The princess hates the king, yet she refuses to come home when her father offers to go to war on her behalf: “By becoming one of the barbarians I will become truly Chinese. Though I will never return to China, I will bring glory to you” (333). Lao Guan says they should not fear to rise high and fills them with resolve: “You feel that lift in your heart? That lightness in your head? That is the taste of whiskey, the essence of America” (334).

In “Chicken Blood,” the Chinese New Year celebration is amazing, even lightening Elsie’s mood. The sheriff arrives to arrest Logan. Jack convinces Judge Emmett Hayworth to listen to the Chinaman as part of a fair trial, and the judge agrees to allow Obee to swear in the way Logan’s people have always done it—with chicken blood. Lily testifies, and asks Logan where he will go when he’s freed. He says he will go home, and this is his home. Liu doesn’t document the end of the trial.

An epilogue follows, stating that Idaho was home to a vibrant Chinese community, which dwindled because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and laws against intermarriage. To this day, however, mining towns in that region still celebrate Chinese New Year.