The Mixed Representation of Gambling within the Chinese Community in Fred Wah’s Diamond Grill
For those who hold the view that the rate of addiction, when it comes to gambling, within the Chinese community is much higher than that of other ethnic groups, their belief is only confirmed by Fred Wah’s biotext, Diamond Grill. Besides being portrayed as a multicultural, loving and unique family, Wah’s characters are also deeply engaged in recreational risk-taking activities. Gambling is almost always depicted in a negative light, as a highly addictive and unprofitable activity. While this notion is upheld in Diamond Grill, Wah nonetheless gives gambling an opportunity of redemption, allowing viewers to see some of the positive outcomes that come from the addiction.
According to a report published by the service coordinator of the Responsible Gambling Council, called, “What We Know About Chinese and Gambling,” we are able to better understand the Chinese’s fondness for risky games. The coordinator, Tracy Jiang, hypothesizes that Chinese people largely view gambling as an investment opportunity, unlike Westerners who perceive gambling as a source of entertainment. This view is especially correct in the case of Grandpa Wah, for his break in the restaurant business occurs because of his five hundred dollar gambling winning. By using his profits from gambling, Wah’s Grandpa was able to purchase a share of the Venice Café, and use the proceeds which had accumulated to purchase more restaurant shares; shares that would eventually be inherited by the narrator’s father and used to provide a comfortable living for the family. The card game that both Wah’s father and grandfather holdsinside the Diamond Grill also yields profitable returns. Although accumulated over an extended period of time, the proceeds that are acquired by Wah’s father, as a result of the card game, turns out to be a hefty amount, and is used to pay for much of Wah’s college fees.
Gambling is not, however, represented without its fair share of negativity within the text. I am sure we all remember that, early on in the book, Wah makes it clear that his grandfather’s reasons for not uniting with his wife from China comes from the fact that doing so would interfere with his extracurricular activities, which mainly consisted of gambling and courting white women. Wah’s grandfather is not the only person who places gambling before family. Pong, a business partner of Wah’s father’s, for instance, implies that he “won’t bring his wife to Canada,” because “she’d just get in the way of his gambling” (24). Although not done to an equal degree as grandpa Wah and Pong, Wah’s father even neglects his family at times to accommodate his desires. The narrator recalls, in one instance, that him and his siblings had no choices but to wait in the car for his father to finish his rounds in a gambling den before going home.
While gambling could fund business ventures and pay for an education, it could also disrupt families. For Liang, her studies show that Canada’s relaxed laws surrounding gambling also attribute to the increased level of participation rates in gambling among members of the Chinese community.
Tracy Liang’s Study: http://www.responsiblegambling.org/docs/discovery-2013/what-we-know-about-chinese-people-and-gambling-the-rgrc-experience.pdf?sfvrsn=4