Reading Journal 3 || Eric Liu || "The Chinatown Idea"

1. The most successful strategy of Liu's narration is the way he confronts his readers and their prejudices. He speaks to his audience explaining to them what people think about Chinatown and what it really is.  In paragraph 7 Eric Liu says, "Their faces were another brand of Chinese, rougher-hewn. I was fascinated by them. I liked being connected to them. But was it because of what we shared - or what we did not? I began that night to distinguish between my world and theirs" (82). This label is not only put on Chinatown, but also any tourist of the world experiencing and stepping into any foreign culture. This narrative strategy put his readers forth on many internal rhetorical questions for themselves.
2. His personal strategy of using such detailed description is his observation of his surroundings and reflecting on them. He uses his senses to describe what he saw at Chinatown. Also the use of different foods brings a scent to the reader while reading. Liu brings in these detailed descriptions to allow the reader to see what he sees vividly. These descriptions also allow the purpose of the story to pass; to show his audience what Chinatown is really made up of, and not to stereotypically judge the place and pass by it. 
3. Liu's diction affects the moods of the scene he describes to something stereotypical towards the Chinese community. The words such as, incongruous, brings out a bad connotation towards this society. In paragraph two as he notices "NEW YORK, EMPIRE STATE" on a license plate in Chinatown he says that it seemed foreign to be here, even though this Chinatown was located in Manhattan, New York. His diction also affects the details of the scene he describes by placing an emphasis on every street and corner of Chinatown, like the "emporium". As Liu describes this marketplace scene, he brings in the feeling and descriptions of what surrounds him.