Hoon Lee in East of Eden, a Netflix series adapting the Steinbeck novel of the same name, does a fantastic job portraying the character of Lee. Koji’s character analysis of Lee has always been one of our most enduring posts. Until I saw this adaption, I never understood why. The series is worth watching not only because of the production and Hoon Lee’s, Florence Pugh’s, and the rest of the casts’ acting, but also because of its insights in Asian American life.
I had never read Steinbeck’s novel, so Lee’s code-switching was a pleasant surprise for me. It made remember how the series Eli Stone used a similar trick with the character Dr. Chen. You can see some of it in the clip above although I recommend watching the whole scene in Episode 3. You can also check out Koji’s character analysis which has the dialogue. Lee also details Asian American history, particularly that of Chinese railroad workers. Given the push to purge Asian American history, the East of Eden helps keep that history alive. Note that Lee was completely cut out of the East of Eden movie that starred James Dean.
In his character analysis, Koji points out that Lee grows somewhat stereotypical later in the novel. I don’t know if co-showrunner Zoe Kazan read his essay, but in this talk at Harvard, she describes how they cut some of Lee’s lines from the book that made him sound like a “fortune cookie caricature.” She also hired Alexander Chee to write the episode where Lee goes to San Francisco Chinatown.
East of Eden is streaming exclusively on Netflix.
