Abstract

Contemporary Chinese American author Minfong Ho (b. 1951) has written four novels focussing on the narrative of East Asian female characters living in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand and Cambodia. The Stone Goddess (2003), in particular, portrays Nakri, a typical Cambodian young woman who practices her culture in her Cambodian society. Utilising the concept of transculture/ality and its seven tenets by the transcultural scholar, Arianna Dagnino, this paper problematises the Western stereotype of the East Asian female identity as voiceless, submissive and hypersexual by examining the portrayal of Nakri and her various responses to the practice of traditional cultures in Cambodian society. Our findings suggest that Nakri renegotiates an East Asian female identity that reflects transculture/ality through her intermingling of culture together with her sister, Teeda, and later with people whom she encounters when she migrates to America, displaying an evolution of identity and patterns of her intermingling of cultures when she adapts to her new American environment. Nakri becomes unafraid to give opinions, shows agency, and masters the English language thus contesting the Western stereotype of the East Asian female identity.