How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Can you imagine four old gentlemen, the youngest is over ninety now, taking on the study of Hebrew? They engaged a learned rabbi. They took to the study as though they were children. Exercise books, grammar, vocabulary, simple sentences. You should see Hebrew written in Chinese ink with a brush! The right to left didn't bother them as much as it would you, since we write up and down." (24.2.68)
Talk about cross-cultural pollination—this is where East meets West, big time. In one corner we've got Hebrew and the Bible representing one of the major foundations of Western civilization and thought; and in the other corner we have the East, as in China, taking it on like it's no big deal because, really, it's not. Who says that Chinese people can only study Chinese things? This image of Chinese scholars learning Hebrew is supposed to jar our expectations and make us realize that categories like East and West aren't real categories so much as boundaries we set up ourselves.
Quote #8
"Now in the cold parts of the country, don't you think people get to wanting perishable things in the winter—like peas and lettuce and cauliflower? In a big part of the country they don't have those things for months and months. And right here in the Salinas Valley we can raise them all the year round." (37.1.64)
It's hard to imagine a time where you had to go through a fruit dry-spell just because you lived on the East Coast. In California? Not an issue. So we've got another scenario in which California is Edenic and lush compared to its eastern counterpart.
Quote #9
After Cal had gone Lee went back to his chair. He thought ruefully, I wonder what happened to my Oriental repose? (38.3.55)
Lee is being tongue-in-cheek here—he's fully aware of the stereotype of the wise old Chinese man who remains serene and quotes Confucius to solve any problem. That seems to be along the lines of what he means by Oriental repose. In reality he just threatened to break all of the bones in Cal's body, so we're going to say that he doesn't exactly fit the stereotype.