Searching for Sylvie Lee

The motif of Buddhism in this text speaks to the novel’s interest in how characters maintain (or lose) their connection to Chinese culture after immigrating to both the United States and the Netherlands. Buddhism is the religion of the older generation: Ma and Pa, Grandma, and Helena and Willem. They raised their children, the first generation in the family born outside of China, to be Buddhist. However, though Buddhism permeates all the characters’ experiences and shapes their beliefs, values, and practices, its presence is somewhat fractured.

The younger generation, represented by Sylvie, Amy, and Lukas, embodies Buddhist philosophy in their kindness toward all living creatures. This kindness often contrasts with how society treats them and with how they choose to view themselves; all three often exercise an empathy toward non-humans that they fail to exercise for their own benefit. Amy rescues a tiny snail from a bag of purchased loquats in the beginning of the novel. Sylvie, as a child, saves an injured bird in the Netherlands. Lukas rescues a starving cat in Turkey, even recruiting Helena, who is otherwise a cold and severe character, to the cause. However, Amy makes explicit reference to how her father’s work at the fish market has worn down the man’s gentleness in this regard. In the face of American culture and capitalism, which is overwhelming and omnipresent, even the older generation struggles to maintain their cultural beliefs. This erosion even among the older adults indicates how difficult it is for their children to resist the worldviews imposed by the United States. Simultaneously, some aspects of the beliefs of the parents linger in the children. The result, for both generations, is that they inhabit an in-between space, reflecting the theme of The Cultural Dissonance of Immigration.

The family’s dissonance manifests as well with their efforts to celebrate holidays, an important part of participating in a culture. Although Ma and Pa want to mark the Lunar New Year, the family struggles to get in the full spirit of the Chinese holiday because so few people in New York City celebrate it. Back home in what Ma calls the “Central Kingdom,” everyone celebrates Lunar New Year, and each village, town, and city comes alive in the weeks surrounding the day. In New York, this kind of festivity surrounds Christmas instead, an American holiday; it is this holiday that Amy and Sylvie seem to have a greater connection to. Although Lunar New Year is not an exclusively Buddhist holiday, many Chinese people honor their ancestors on that day, and there are multiple occasions within the story when Ma and other characters light incense to their own ancestors and to various Buddhist deities. Ma, Amy, and Sylvie all at times pray to Buddhist figures. These moments of connection to Chinese culture become touchstones within the narrative.