The Cricket in Times Square — Chapter 6

Narration Prompt

Treat Chapter 6 as a two-act structure: Act I, Mario's expedition to Chinatown (the IRT ride downtown, the zigzag through closed shops on Sunday, Sai Fong on the doorstep, the cluttered shop interior, the Shishwai myth, the pagoda cage, the fortune cookie); Act II, the night scene at the newsstand (Chester's retelling, Tucker's emperor-fantasy in the pagoda, the dollar-bill bed with earring pillow, Chester's return to the matchbox). Before discussion, identify what Selden is building structurally by placing both acts in one chapter.

Discussion Questions

1. The Shishwai myth advances a specific epistemic claim: 'now sing songs that no man understands and all men love.' Place this claim in dialogue with Coleridgean symbolism, Merleau-Ponty's pre-theoretical understanding, and apophatic theology, and evaluate whether Selden is articulating a serious aesthetic position or deploying folk-wisdom for narrative convenience.
2. Sai Fong's rendered English — compressed syntax, dropped articles, musical cadence — participates in a mid-century convention that Laurence Yep and others have later critiqued. Argue whether the chapter's surrounding materials (the Shishwai story, Sai Fong's preternatural perception, his dignity-preserving commerce) redeem the portrait or whether the form conventions retain problems the content cannot fully absorb. How should this book be framed for contemporary teaching?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide