Chay Yew, in "Porcelain" and "Wonderland," examines various notions of "queer" through her characters, who desperately seek connections and love, with the people around them. Their lives are marked by death, violence, and tragedy, which occur not only because they are queer, but also because these events mark them as separate from the rest of society, which “queers” them. Most of all, though, they are survivors, and like the word “queer” itself, they escape simple definition by having many definitions, or facets, of their diverse and interesting selves. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In Yew's "Porcelain," the protagonist, whose name is John, kills his lover in a public restroom. The plot of this play is interrupted by scenes from a story John's father told him when he was a boy, about a lonely crow who longed to be with the cute, happy sparrows who lived on the other side of the field. The crow eventually flew across the field and lived with the sparrows, but was still a stranger due to its appearance and behaviors. After realizing that he will never belong to him, he returns home, but his experience has changed him: he is now different from the other crows. Having said this, he flies away to look for another life, with another family. Many of the characters in Yew's work, particularly John, embody this metaphor of the raven among the sparrows in their desire for a better life and greener pastures. John feels strange, like an outsider among outsiders, because not only is he homosexual, but also Chinese. His father tells an interviewer about John, saying, “I only have one son. Lonely. I don't know why he changed his name to John: English. Maybe be like your English friends at school, don't be different. Be like them” (84). Yew chooses the name “John” to call his protagonist, to refer to the term many hustlers call their clients, who are indiscernible from one another. He also links this name to his character's tendency to perform sexual acts in public restrooms. By changing his name to an English one, John hopes to change the way others perceive him and to blend in like the raven in the sparrow family. Many aspects of his identity, however, prevent him from assimilating. His father also talks about when John worked in his restaurant and how “Deep down, I know he hates working [there]. Remind him too much of who he is. Where it comes from. I come from Singapore a long time ago, in the sixties, I sacrifice everything I have so that the children can live well in England” (85). John's father, like the crow, moves from place to place in search of a better life and better fortune. After her children grow up and absorb English culture, however, she realizes that she has no idea who her children are: her daughter dates many white men, her son has been implicated in a gay scandal, and they both seem very out of touch with their Chinese identity. Because everyone knows that his son is gay, John's father also comes to feel like an outsider in his own Chinese community in England due to his shame over his son and his fear of how people perceive him and his family. John admits he wants it. he was white so he could feel a sense of belonging, saying he sees “pictures of cute white guys hugging, kissing, holding hands in magazines like they were made for each other. Always white guys. But always happy” (58). While the raven desires the company of sparrows because of how happy they always seem, John envies the happiness and love he sees white gay males enjoying and receiving.He sees love as a way to help him find a sense of self-acceptance and wholeness, and he sees his Chinese identity as the part of himself that keeps him from finding someone to connect with and who will love him. John and his father both have strong reactions to Chinese culture: while John hates this part of himself, his father fights to preserve it in his way of life as well as that of his children. The disgrace and denunciation that John's father experiences due to his son's homosexuality places them in the same social position, but instead of causing his father to reach out to him, it marks him in his father's eyes as a source of shame, and he rejects John. together with other members of society. John and his lover meet "cooking" in a public bathroom, a strange space that is both public and private in nature. John reveals that he hates going to the bathroom for sex in public, but “[he] just wants to be held by these men. For a moment, they do… Then [he] goes back and takes a long hot shower. Washing away every memory, every touch and every smell. Except he never leaves it completely. It doesn't matter how hard or how long you wash. The dirt, the filth penetrates deep into [his] skin” (60). Dirtiness refers not only to the unsanitary connotations that public restrooms carry, but also to the dirty and used feelings John suffers from after performing sexual acts there. In bathrooms he can receive physical affection despite the skin he lives in, his appearance and his racial identity. But not much more: it's just skin, just sex, and the sensations are fleeting. Her desires for a deeper connection, a deeper meaning to these sexual acts are never satisfied, until she meets William Hope. William Hope, as his last name suggests, becomes everything John wished and hoped for: his place among the sparrows. . Their relationship is violent and possessive: Will rapes and beats John to control and dominate him, and John accepts this as part of love and belonging. This treatment affects John's idea of ​​love, and when John shoots him, it is partly because John feels that Will “belonged to [John]. Only [John]” (95). “Belonging,” then, has two connotations within this play: “belonging” to someone, owning and being owned by them as an object, or “belonging” to a larger group such as a community, fitting in and being acceptable. In this way, Yew casts a critical eye on society and its language of love and relationships, commenting on its materialistic nature even with respect to transitory and impalpable things such as love and sex. And those who do not own or possess anyone, are the queers who stay outside the circle of social acceptance, far from the sparrows' homes. Will later ends the relationship and rejects John by telling him, “I'm not queer, Johnny! I'm not one of your kind. I—I have nothing against you—people like you—absolutely” (96). Marking himself separate from John, Will reaffirms that John is an outsider among outsiders by the very nature of who he is: a raven who can only remain briefly among the sparrows. By denying their bond, he nullifies the love that John experiences, and the sense of belonging and of finding John's house is reduced to the same filth of public toilets, to feelings that are only superficial. John, once again, is a queer, only because he is Chinese and homosexual. John does not lose hope, however, when the criminal psychologist points out that Will is lost to John because he killed him, John responds that "He'll never leave... [and that] he finally [has] Will all to [himself] now" (110). , John folds a thousand paper cranes according to Japanese tradition, hoping that if he does so, his wish will come true. This way it passes byone bird family to another, always searching for acceptance, belonging and finding love. Even though this tragedy has deeply affected him and those around him, he does not lose sight of hope and continues to believe that he can be happy. In the final scene, John hands a paper crane to the audience, smiling. In this way, Yew fulfills his character's desire by connecting the audience to him, questioning them and asking them to overcome their social, racial and cultural positions and ask for their understanding and empathy. Similarly, in Yew's play “Wonderland,” a Chinese family struggles to find their place in America. In one scene, the father takes his son to a place where they can see the reflection of the sun on the ocean water, and they describe it as a "miracle from God: a yellow brick road... A magnificent golden carpet" ( 317) . This golden carpet becomes a metaphor for a welcoming carpet, a path towards the family's hopes and desires; specifically, each member's desire to achieve their own version of the American Dream. Throughout the play, the characters chase these dreams, only to discover in the end that they are as intangible and fleeting as sunlight on water. The character called "Woman" comes to America after marrying the Chinese American "Man". She dreamed of making a home in America, insisting to the Man that "America must be just like the Sandpiper movies... In that movie [Elizabeth Taylor] lives in a beach house near the ocean. We must live near the ocean. 'ocean We Must Only as Sandpipers” (295). The Woman builds her dreams on the glittering images of Hollywood-style America, and her sense of home becomes equally illusory lie: To force his hand, she lies that she is pregnant, so he will marry her and take her back with him to America. After her experiences change him, she doesn't know how to support and comfort him, and their relationship becomes more and more tense and distant.Moreover, as her son grows up, the two begin to drift apart and she does not understand his Americanized ways or his antipathy towards his Chinese heritage is shaken she sees her son kissing her boyfriend and rejects him because he doesn't live up to her vision and is unable to realize the dreams she has for him. The woman's dreams of even finding a place for herself in America are equally intangible and incomplete. Having five years of experience in Singapore, she tries to get a job as a department store clerk, but is stopped by the racism of those she tries to hire her from (306-307). They use her inability to speak, read, or write properly as an excuse not to hire her, viewing her as a foreigner and a Chinese outsider, and she remains queer despite her best efforts. Her son also annoys her with the way he sees and behaves towards her, mocking her fractured English and her Chinese-influenced views. Eventually his family collapses and, in parallel, he begins to spend less and less time at the Sandpiper, doing his best to get away from it as much as possible. By the end of the play, she has become homeless both literally and figuratively, sleeping in the shell of the mall that her now-dead husband had built, without a child or husband to support her. Man also wants to find his place within himself. America, as well as in the world of architecture. His wife, Donna, describes him as a “model minority, always polite, quiet, gentleman, don't fuss, as if he were a guest in someone's house” (327). All his life he feels put aside because of his nationality: as a child he is teased for being Asian, and the Manhe meets his wife, Donna, when his company sends him to China for a project, assuming he will. being able to communicate better with the natives because he is also Chinese. Instead of going against these racist standards, however, he does nothing, not wanting to be queer and distance himself from others by causing a stir. Paradoxically, because he never takes a stand, he makes himself an outsider and queers himself by accepting his position as a second-class American. Although Man dreams of building monuments and skyscrapers and becoming a revolutionary in the world of architecture, Man the only assignments his company will give him are shopping malls. He fits these commissions and builds a fantastic super mall called "Wonderland" which earns him recognition for his skills. This dream, however, ultimately turns against him: "he imported more expensive materials, Italian marble, teak wood, titanium [and] compromised on the rest" (396), which leads to the deaths of many people when the building collapses as a result. of being architecturally defective. Man's compromise in building materials for his shopping mall becomes a parallel to the way Man compromises his dreams: after death, his license is revoked and he is never able to build any more structures. The man's dreams disappear like rays of light beyond the horizon, and this experience leaves its irrevocable imprint on the man's soul, until it transforms him into an empty shell that his wife no longer recognizes. The scandal after the death also serves to make him further strange: he is seen by many as a murderer and goes from being a contributing member of society to a stigmatized drunkard from a broken family. The Son also struggles to find his place in America. , feeling like a strange hybrid as the child of Chinese and Chinese American parents. As a child, he tells his father that other children at school “come running up to [him] calling [ching chong chinaman ching chong chinaman” (330). He comes to hate this part of his identity because of the way it sets him apart from those around him and fervently denies any association with his culture and others of his culture. Doing so, however, distances him from his mother, who comes to embody everything he doesn't like about himself. The son is also queer due to his homosexuality and falls in love with his best friend George. When the Son tries to communicate these feelings about his relationship with his father, his father stops him by quoting Leviticus twenty-thirteen - and then "The Man... mutters the magic verse and sets everything in motion... he has no children" ( 386). The Son, like the character Giovanni from “Porcelain,” is an outsider among outsiders because of his dual otherness: his classmates will not accept him because he is Chinese, and his Chinese parents will not accept him because he is homosexual. The family, although experiencing similar experiences to Chinese and Chinese Americans living in America, are unable to connect and support each other, and are consequently queered by the rest of society as well as each other . The son also feels his family is queer as they don't support his dreams of becoming an actor. His mother asks him “Why do you like it? Why? Better to be someone else's child! If you can't be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect!” (388). Therefore, Woman queers her Son by pushing him to accept an identity and occupation in which he has no interest, suggesting that if he is not who she wants him to be, then he is too queer to be her son. As an actor, the Son could move beyond queerness and his issues with his identity by embodying and personifying different people, and finally feel an ease and fluidity in identity that.