is IT there?

In Rebecca Solnit's Hollow City the City is portrayed as a shell of what San Francisco used to be.

It was at one point in time a place that sheltered and nourished the artistic people that it is so

famous for. She argues that now the culture of the city has leached out of it in recent years

because of the commodification of the image of San Franciscan artist and the neighborhoods in

which they live. She tells of how after the dot-com boom in the Silicon Valley these traditionally

affordable districts began to be taken over. The neighborhoods that had for so long housed and

nurtured artists began to be converted to bars, restaurants and expensive chic apartment

housing and now cater to the white upper middle class that was quickly rising in the

computer-generated valley.

She also talks of the demise of the ethnic areas that add so much vibrancy to the City itself. The gentrification that has taken over the City has been done so by “yuppifying” the once multicultural fabric of the City. African American and Latino neighborhoods have been bought up and replaced with moneymaking attractions for the white suburbanites that now flock to the city for a good time. The housing they once occupied has been converted to high-rent districts where only the wealthy can afford to call it home.

Solnit paints a picture of two cities. One is of a city whose culture, both artistic an ethnic thrives and paints the whole town in vibrancy. The other is a city that is bought and paid for by the gentrification of the old vision of the city. It is drying up and left for the only ones left who can afford it anymore.

In Tripmaster Monkey the City is not devoid of anything culturally, except maybe the place for Whitman. He struggles to find where he, a Chinese-American, fits in. For the city is full of culture, from every park to every statue there is meaning and history. Where Whitman himself fits in is not always so clear to him. The images of the past pervade this book and the ethnic identities of its past inhabitants are still a palpable foce for Whitman. He sees a city that can be at times a cliché of his Chinese heritage with its strong China town. He also sees the city as perfectly American in many places but cannot seem to find a place that is uniquely both, like he is. The City of Tripmaster Monkey exudes the essence of all the ethnic and artistic elements of its past in creating what it is today. The artistic elements of the city are not lost for Kingston. Her Whitman finds something he can always identify with in this aspect of the city. He sees is as alive with artistic energy and potential. This city has never lost its spark and thirst for more in the realm of artistic culture.