Kindred of the East: Theme
From Metro Wiki
With over a quarter of a million residents of Chinese ethnicity, and almost as many collectively of varied South Asian descent, the Asian population of Toronto comprises its largest minority and constitutes a quarter of its total metropolitan population. Growing out of immigrant movements as early as the mid 1800s, they brought with them as much as they left behind: their language, their culture, and their ghosts as well. Bound, in life and death alike, to their mortal descendants, a few among the demon people braved the journey to fulfill a karmic obligation to their kin. Insular and secretive, the Kuei-jin looked to their own kind alone in a time of institutionalized racism and struck swiftly to silence any outsider who presumed to interfere. The Chinatowns of Toronto were worlds unto themselves, impenetrable to native eyes - and people were happy with the situation.
More than a century later, a great deal has changed in the Chinatowns of Toronto, as much as it has stayed the same. Superstition is no quaint throwback when the dead watch from the darkness with disapproving eyes, and people cling to their traditions with good reason. At the same time, the boundries of discrimination and racism that once kept communities apart have eroded in the era of global culture, threatening the insularity and secrecy of the Kuei-Jin. And there is a new pressure from a distant but not-forgotten homeland: That same global economy has engendered ambition of no less grand a scale, and now the ancients of the Middle Kingdom, the rulers of the resurrected Quincunx look to foreign lands. It is time for the Great Leap Outward, and Toronto, with its enclave of Wan Kuei, is to be among the first stepping stones.
Contents |
Main Themes
AMBITION
The second breath offers much to those who draw it: A chance at spiritual renewal and redemption, the opportunity to settle karmic debts and to right one's place in heaven's order, and also power, nearly limitless, if one chooses to pursue it. No Kuei-Jin walks the road back without feeling that temptation, and indeed few find their way without indulging it. But can ambition -be- the path? Dynasties have risen and fallen according to the desires of the Middle Kingdom's ancient masters, and now, in an era when the once marginalized East has taken a front seat in global politics, their appetites for power grow larger still. The Great Leap Outward is the ultimate statement of that ambition, a war declared in silence upon the western world.
For the few Wan Kuei of Toronto, ambition will guide the choices they make as that war reaches their own doorstep. Already possessing great power in their own communities, holding them tight with invisible strings, the arrival of the Quincunx offers a chance at more. At the same time, the would-be invaders must decide their own path, weighing patience and relations with their native cousins against the danger of their own stagnation and the lure of quick and decisive victory. Ambition may lead to greatness, or just as easily to blindness to one's path.
THE UNKNOWN
The stereotype of the mysterious, inscrutible East has not wholly been banished from the Western consciousness, even at the dawn of a new millenium, and this truth is evident nowhere better than in the Chinatowns of Toronto. For an outsider, there is a superficial layer, one characterized by busy restaurants and bargain shopping. Beyond it, few really understand the day-to-day business of these still insular ethnic communities, or appreciate the degree by which they remain outsiders. Although one might glimpse at the surface, even come to know it, they will never truly understand the world they enter into. At the same time, the Kuei-Jin of Toronto, whether long-time residents or new arrivals, face uncertainty at every corner. Even for the natives, a step beyond the boundary of their neighborhood marks the beginning of an entirely different world. They have always been secluded and withdrawn, observers more than active forces of change, and extremely subtle when forced to act. The foreign vampires of the Quincunx, on the other hand, may know the West as an adversary, but they do not know it as a home, and while they might find some comfort in the familiarity of the Chinatowns of Toronto, their arrival places them far beyond their element. Ironically, it may be the youngest, those who draw their second breaths in this era of conflict, those steeped in modern culture, who will rise above such limitations. But how can such children hope to know the motives of the centuries-old creatures they serve, how can they hope to understand the conflicts which surround them?
FAMILY
Although it is ambition, and some might say arrogance, that has brought the Kuei-Jin to Toronto in numbers, the first came for very different reasons. In ages past, the world was a much smaller place, where one was born, lived, and died all within a single community. And those who died poorly? They could expect to take their second breath there as well, to return to a life in the shadows of their former existence. It was this communal tie that brought some of the first Kuei-Jin across the sea, following as their mortal kin sought fortune in the American West, and as they moved east building railroads across a continent. Those who first settled in Toronto brought their ghosts with them, and there many have remained. These vampires are peculiar creatures, their relationship with the community both parasitic and paternal, the very definition of dysfunctional. No less monstrous than any of their kind, they are at times abusive and selfish parents, willing to exploit mortalkind where it is necessary, and more than happy to deliver swift and terrible punishment to those who offend them. And yet, they act with the vision of a greater good for their extended families, striving to maintain virtue and tradition among those communities, and to protect them from harmful influences. In the end, with all feuds and ambitions aside, the blood of kin is always worth more than that of a stranger, and those beyond who would venture into the shrouded microcosm of Toronto's Chinatowns would do well to keep such thoughts in mind.
