Skilled and educated, he is morally and intellectually superior to everyone around him, but he is still unable to clear his name or establish a settled life in America. Ironically, although he supported "democracy- in China, the system works against him in America. Losing his brother, Wa-Go (Chi-Muoi Lo), to the excesses of capitalism represented by an Asian criminal gang, Jian-Wa's dream of freedom has turned on him, and, helped by his brother's ghost, he continues on his quest for some sort of resolution as the series follows him on his journey across America.
.
Vanishing Son (1994-95): Russel Wong as Jian-Wa .
The contradictory nature of Vanishing Son's fantasy reflects the multicultural environment in which the television show, as well as its fictional protagonist, must journey. As a syndicated series without an American network home, Vanishing Son needs to have the ability to travel across network, cable, satellite, as well as national, ethnic, and linguistic borders. Russell Wong as Jian-Wa has to appeal to audiences that will draw in advertisers transnationally. Thus, Vanishing Son encourages cross-cultural understanding in its support of Chinese political dissent and romances between Jian-Wa and Euro-American women and, at the same time, points to the impossibility of assimilating the criminal, Asian alien into American society. For liberal America, Jian-Wa represents a race-blind, melting pot ideal, and, for conservative America, he embodies the "yellow peril- of criminality and non-white immigration out of control.
However, when looked at in a global context, this aspect of the fantasy also has another dimension, since it sharpens Vanishing Son's ability to travel and appeal to audiences who may not be so eager to be assimilated into American culture. In this light, although reluctant, Jian-Wa remains a character that symbolizes resistance to both the white American and the Communist Chinese status-quo, and, thus, he can travel the world fulfilling fantasies that resist both Chinese and American hegemony.
