Educational Media Reviews Online

Filmmaker Flora Moon was an adult before she realized that some Chinese saw her as a banana―yellow on the outside but white on the inside. Born and raised in the American heartland, Flora looked, sounded, and operated like any other American girl of the mid-20th century. She was surprised to be seen as different.

In The Living Tree, Flora related how she discovered her Chinese heritage, more from an aunt who came to the United States in the 1980s than from her parents, who shielded her from their painful loneliness and the family's suffering during the Cold War, Cultural Revolution, etc. Slowly she discovers the layers of complexity surrounding their illustrious heritage, which the family traces back to China’s famous Emperor Li.

Flora’s parents, like good Chinese children from good families, were sent to be educated in the United States. They met and married here, and moved from one campus to another as Flora’s father pursued his graduate studies. Just as he was ready to return home and begin a professional career, the Cold War intervened and his family warned him to remain abroad. Without complaining, he did as he was directed, succeeding both at his profession and untiring efforts to maintain contact with others in the Chinese expatriate community.

Throughout the turbulent civil rights era, the Moons, including Flora, being neither black nor white, tended to fade into the background even as they supported minority rights. But as the American political upheavals were playing out with ultimate success for greater freedom and assured minority rights, a different story was unfolding in China. When the Cultural Revolution moved into high gear, members of the Moon family who remained in China were persecuted as capitalists, descendants of the aristocracy whose success and status in earlier times invited severe punishment.

Flora’s aunt kindles her curiosity about China and her ancestors. Flora visits the People’s Republic of China, but fails to feel at home there. Instead, when she arrives in Rome and goes to the Coliseum, she senses that this place is related to her roots. But she persists in trying to understand her Chinese heritage and, in time, comes to appreciate its meaning and influence on her parents and their families, and its impact on her own life.

A simple format―images from photographs, film clips, printed documents, and other archival images are the background for a clearly articulated voiceover narrative―is beautifully presented and well-paced. Suitable for classes studying Chinese-American culture at virtually any grade level, from middle school to university.

Recommended.