Watching TV with the Red Chinese

Watching TV with the Red Chinese (1992) is a novel by American author Luke Whisnant. Set in the early 1980s, it follows struggling actor Dexter Mitchell as he takes it upon himself to educate three Chinese exchange students in American mores. Exploring racism and cross-cultural communication, the novel satirizes the commercial artificiality of American culture.

As the novel opens, would-be actor Dexter Mitchell has washed up in Cleveland after a few years trying to make it on the stage in New York City. He has found a job as a theater technician, but struggling to keep himself stimulated, he is on the brink of despair. The one upside of his new life is his vibrantly multicultural neighborhood, which makes him feel less like he is stuck in a backwater.

Two things happen which pique his interest in his new city. First, he meets a trio of Chinese graduate students. Wa, Tzu, and Chen have come to Cleveland to study, but they spend most of their time in their sparsely furnished apartment trying to come to grips with American culture by watching TV. The daytime shows and commercials they watch have given them a strange, exaggerated idea about what America is like—although the novel suggests that this idea is not inaccurate.



To Dexter, the Chinese students seem eccentric, but they are also friendly and keen to get to know some Americans. Dexter—who is more than a little lonely—decides to help them master American culture.

Through their studies, the Chinese students have met Billy Owens, an American graduate student and would-be filmmaker who also finds the Chinese students’ eccentricities interesting. He has begun making a film about the students, and transcripts from his film appear throughout the novel.

The second thing that intrigues Dexter is an uncannily beautiful young woman, Suzanne Betts. She is infuriatingly unreadable, but she bewitches Dexter and they soon fall into bed.



Suzanne is hard to pin down, so Dexter finds himself with a lot of time to kill. He spends it with the Chinese students, watching news coverage of events from the Iran hostage situation to Reagan’s first election and the assassination of John Lennon. Dexter teaches the students to recognize brand names and to follow football games. One day, the students come across a Charlie Chan movie and in an ironic reversal have a lot of fun explaining to Dexter how completely Americans have misunderstood Chinese culture.

As the students master American culture, Dexter gets to know them better and understand each of their personal journeys. Devout communist Wa remains uncorrupted by American materialism, deciding to avoid America’s most enticing temptations. Tzu, sensible and practical, finds a middle ground, recognizing that the American system has advantages without luxuriating in material comforts. Chen, however, becomes infatuated with the American way of life, diving wholeheartedly into everything it has to offer. When he learns that Malcolm X, like him, used to memorize words from the dictionary, he begins to identify with the civil rights leader, especially as he begins to realize that his own non-white appearance provokes racist attitudes in some of the Americans he meets.

Meanwhile, Dexter has learned that Suzanne is seeing several people at once. Frustrated with her inconsistency, he ends their relationship. Shortly afterward, he is surprised to learn that she has taken up with Chen.



Chen’s identification with Malcolm X is tested when two young black men mug him. Traumatized by the encounter, Chen feels fear whenever he meets a black person. He also begins to feel that he is being followed.

The novel’s climax arrives when Chen discovers that he really is being followed by one of Suzanne’s other boyfriends. A fight ensues, in which Chen is killed.