Monday, March 3, 1997
By Sam Toussi
Daily Bruin Contributor
The Association of Chinese Americans on Saturday held its annual
cultural show  a musical drama set in the 1860s and based on
the Chinese immigration to the United States and their contribution
to the transcontinental railroad.
The piece "Tracks of Tears" written by Weiko Lin is about two
couples on their journey from Canton to America. The play boasts
itself as a love story; the romance between one couple, who
represents the idealistic immigrants tricked by tales of grandeur,
is the one that truly ignites.
The supple performances by Lin and Tina Wong really draw the
audience into their story: Wong is at once endearing, sassy and
strong; she’s the glue in their relationship. Lin holds his own
with Wong, but his real contribution to the bond is through his
writing.
The romance between the other couple fails to capture the same
emotion. Lin shows his youth as a writer here, obviously falling in
love with one set of characters more than the other.
Amidst the broken dreams and hardships of the main characters,
Lin dropped in some comic relief in the form of three bumbling
idiots who work off stock American humor to keep the audience
rolling along.
But what adds the real flavor to the show is the
choreography.
The hip-hop segment which opened the show at first seemed
disconnected from the rest of the performance, but when juxtaposed
with the wave of Chinese immigration, takes on a meaning of "then
and now."
The Chinese traditional dance segments were eloquent and
graceful and added cultural flavor to the segment in Canton. The
lyrical dance segments help to further the love stories as
well.
Yet the segment of dance that really stood out was the
interpretive stomp segment, which was symbolic of the Chinese
working on the railroads.
The ACA obviously understood its target audience: It wasn’t
interested in a night of "theatre" in its most hauty-tauty sense,
but rather in a good time.
"Tracks of Tears," performed on Saturday, included: (right)
traditional Chinese "Remembrance" dancers. (below) A trouble maker
(Kristina Wong) gets the best of a would-be Bruce Lee (Jimmy Lu) in
a bar room brawl. (below left) Mei-San (Teresa Hsu) and Lee
(Leonard A. Lang) are reunited in America.