Hong-Kingston charms crowd

Throngs of people filled the seats and aisles of an Annenberg School room to be mesmerized by a serene, silver-haired woman who stood on a foot-high trunk so she could reach the podium microphone. Over 200 members of the University community gathered to hear a speech by Maxine Hong-Kingston, the famous Chinese-American writer and University of California professor. Hong-Kingston read the first few pages of her as-yet-untitled book, which is subtitled A Book of Peace. She explained that the idea was conceived from three lost books about peace in Chinese history, adding that she wanted to "imagine them and write them myself for our times." She said she was forced to rewrite the story after her first unfinished draft burned when the 1991 Oakland fires destroyed her house. Hong-Kingston incorporated this tragic event into her work to write a new, altered version of her book. In his introductory speech, Peter Conn, graduate chairperson of the American Civilization Department, praised Hong-Kingston for "shaping a redefined, reimagined cultural expressiveness." "Her stories are embedded in a vivid particularity which at the same time reaches across cultural boundaries," he said, describing her as "a pathfinder, mapping a world of human joy and sorrow that has long been invisible." After the hour-long speech and reading, students asked Hong-Kingston numerous questions on topics from the issue of multiculturalism to Asian-American identity. Sponsored by the PEN at Penn program and the College, Hong-Kingston's two-hour appearance ended to hearty applause, as a number of eager, book-toting individuals hurried down to meet the author. Before yesterday's speech, College junior Winnie Lam, who serves as the Vice Chairperson of Students for Asian Affairs, said she had imagined Hong-Kingston to be an outspoken, physically larger woman because "her book seemed so strong and powerful." "It surprised me to see this small woman with such a nurturing voice," she said. She said the "best treat" of the afternoon was Hong-Kingston's reading of her new book, adding that she was pleased with the ethnically diverse turnout. "I was expecting to see a room full of Asian faces," she said. Lam also lauded the choice of Hong-Kingston as speaker. "It's a very big step that the University is willing to bring in an Asian-American writer, which shows [the University is] paying more attention to the Asian-American population and their need for Asian-American role models to look up to," she said. College senior Ed Shin, managing editor of Mosaic, the Asian-American literary magazine at the University, agreed. "I hope more minority speakers will come to campus to promote Penn's diversity and cross-cultural communication," he said.