Structure
The short story “Everyone Talked Loudly in Chinatown” by Anne Jew follows a first-person narrator as she struggles with her Chinese and Canadian identities, presenting rather simple facts in the life of a typical teenage girl. The author has organised the narrative following an exposition, a rising action, a climax and a resolution, elements which make up the p…
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Beginning
The short story sets off directly, in media res, presenting two of the characters and the setting, without giving too much information about them: “Lately I have been walking home from school in the sunshine with Todd. It's October and the leaves have turned, though the temperature hasn't changed since the end of Augu…
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Middle
The middle of the story continues with the rising action, in which some of the initial mystery surrounding the main character is revealed gradually. We find out her name is Lin, that she lives in Canada and is of Chinese origins.
The rising action mixes moments spent by Lin at home with her family and taking care of her dying grandmother, with moments spent with Todd, the Canadian boy whom she likes.
Also, the author conveys Lin’s struggles with her two identities through a backstory rendered through flashback. Lin recalls how she used to go to Chinatown with her grandmother and how she stopped doing it when she grew up, preferring the company of people who were not Chinese:
But as I started to grow u…
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Ending
In the falling action, Lin hides in her room, expecting her father to come after her, and crying herself to sleep. The resolution of the short story presents Lin going to her grandmother’s room in the middle of the night and discovering the woman is dead: “She is dead, I think. I stare at her face expecting it to move, but somehow it looks peaceful. I t…
