SOURCE: “Confucianism in Timothy Mo's Sour Sweet,” in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Vol. XXIV, No. 1, 1989, pp. 49-64.

In the following essay, Rothfolk explores the philosophical underpinnings and actions of Mo's characters in Sour Sweet.

Timothy Mo’s three novels are all concerned with social philosophy, specifically with the clash between traditional Chinese and contemporary Western social values and with suggestions for resolution or synthesis in the emerging global crosspollination of cultures. Born of an English mother and Cantonese father, raised in Hong Kong and working as a journalist in London, Mr. Mo knows the conflicts from experience.

In his first novel, The Monkey King (1978), Mo illustrated the clash of values experienced by many Chinese in Hong Kong during the 1950s: those who felt the traditional Confucian social practices (li, tradition) were repressive relics in comparison to the alluring individualism and freedom of Western life. The hero of...