Story of Lee: Steinbeck's Chinese Cook

A historical narrative of Lee, John Steinbeck's Chinese cook in East of Eden; and Chinatown, San Francisco in the 19th century. The tale traverses both China and America in their most turbulent centuries; each wrestling with a national identity against the appearance of ‘foreigners’ on their shores. You will be reading about the life of an ‘English-speaking Chinaman’; his travails within an infant but violent Chinatown, his survival in a hostile land with bilingualism as his only weapon, and a torrid forbidden love affair. Lee was a man whose time was not ready for him. This site is dedicated to his story