Stone, Ink, Brush and Paper

Taiwan by Any Other Name....

2011-08-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

Two summers ago, in the throes of a Salman Rushdie obsession, I began working on an epic novel about Taiwan based on the idea of spirits and narrated by the Goddess Matsu, a fly on the corpse of Chiang Kai-Shek, and a camphor tree, among others. I wrote about 300 pages before deciding it was too narratively insane. I love the book, but I don't think it would survive outside my own little Taiwan-obsessed mind. Right now, I'm seeing if I can turn parts into short stories or novellas, so I thought I'd excerpt this tiny chapter here....

A Brief History of Names, According to the Goddess Matsu (4,000,000 BC to Present)

A sleeping island, shaped like a yam, or perhaps a leaf of tobacco, with a black spine of dark mountains and a knobby string of twinkling lights cascading down the center sits amid deep black water. On this night when, despite the lambent orange haze sent up by millions of lights in millions of homes, the island sleeps, I am awake. My head hurts.

I have introduced myself as Matsu, but I am known by so many others: Matsu-po, Tian Hou, Tian Fei—the Daoguang Emperor even christened me the Holy Mother in Heaven. And like me, this island has been known by a ledger full of names.

A planet amid deep black space. Still cooling from whatever blast or collision or universal hand that has created it. This planet is not just a lump of dumb rock; it is alive; it moves, shakes, slides. Two plates collide. Not knowing point zero, we cannot count forward, and so we count time backward from today. Four million years ago, two plates collide and an island erupts.

Millions of years pass in which grass grows and dies and grows, water flows, freezes, melts, animals born, mate, birth, die. But the island, some argue, does not really exist until people arrive, scatter across the plains, settle in the mountains, call the island by a dozen names, each according to a tribe.

But, some argue, the island does not really exist until it is made useful when the Chinese, in junks, cross the strait and build an outpost away from the iron fist of the Emperor and call the place Taiwan and sometimes Greater Loochoo.

But, some argue, the island does not really exist until the name is recorded in the salty, damp logs of Portuguese ships by men who glimpse it through spyglasses and, dazed by the garlands of soft fog around the lush jade peaks, murmur Ihla Formosa, Beautiful Island.

And then come the Dutch, hoping to expand the Dutch East Indies north and then, between Dutch and Chinese, there are two islands: Formosa and Taiwan, setting a precedent: forevermore, the island will never be a fixed place of a single appellation.

In the 17^th century, as the Manchu Tartars take over China, one of the palaces they besiege houses a Japanese woman who kills herself rather than surrender. Her grieving son—like the future Taiwan: of both Chinese and Japanese blood—vows revenge against the Manchu Tartars. He, like the island to which he eventually retreats hoping to regroup his forces to retake the mainland from the Tartars, goes by many names: Cheng Gong, Tei-seiko, Koxinga!

The pirate-warrior Koxinga, with 25,000 soldiers, claims the island as his kingdom and demands the Red Hairs leave. Fort Provintia surrenders while Fort Zelandia resists and Koxinga begins his blockade, intending on drawing thirsty, starving Dutch from the fort. Meanwhile, those unlucky enough to be caught outside the fort, in the villages they have inhabited for years and years, are beheaded or crucified, nailed through wrist, ankle and torso on crosses in the pirate-warrior’s response to these Christian colonialists. The Dutch eventually yield and Koxinga reigns for twenty years.

For almost two hundred years, the island is known as Taiwan to one half of the world and Formosa to the other (“other” in a Saidian sense: foreigners, who know it on one hand as a barbaric island with treacherous shores where ships are wrecked and survivors beheaded or enslaved; and on the other as a critical link in a trading chain—the Americans, who nurse colonial hopes until the Civil War draws their attentions away, and the British and French who make liberal use of Formosa’s treaty ports); a game chip to be traded at the whim of countries, as it was between China to Japan in 1895 in the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

The most recent century is always the one measured in a more modest concept of time, the human life, where generations seem to be parsed out in days, like the lives of flies, and so we see island names dealt out briskly in the 20^th century. After the Japanese left their colony in the defeat of World War II, the island was again, for a brief, uncertain moment, Formosa, and then the Kuomintang, losing the Chinese Civil War and reasoning that the Communists had no navy, fled to the island and wah! it became the new home of the Republic of China. Yet it wasn’t enough for the West, locked into its own Cold War, to distinguish between the ROC and the PRC—China’d been one monolithic place for five-thousand continuous years, as the myth went, so how could it suddenly be two?—and ROC and PRC were clarified into Free China and Red China and any red-blooded American knew immediately which China to love, even though the closest thing to a panda the island could boast was the Formosan Rock Monkey.

But humans are fickle and as the century went on, the West, who was now deciding such things, came to love Red China as much as Red China loved the red bottles of cola sent in by their new slavering admirers with renminbi twinkling in their eyes, and Red China received the privilege of being just China and, as we noted, there could be only one China, which left our slumbering little tobacco-leaf island a nameless orphan, nose pressed to the bakery shop window.

At which point, the people of the island began to look backward, further than their own meager personal memories could manage, to an island called Formosa, and sometimes Taiwan.

But though orphans may remake and rename themselves, the truth of their birth usually lies on a yellowing slip of paper in some drawer that sticks at the corners and it is always at the denouement that the maid runs into the room waving this piece of paper. So too with the island, a volcanic little Cinderella country, which could come to the few world events to which it was invited bearing only a name decided by others worn on its lapel: Chinese Taipei.

I don’t have to tell you how the name—not even a country but an adjective describing a city!—burned upon the breast, but the name was borne with a clenched smile, a muttering of appreciation while the stomach roiled.

And this is where we find ourselves, as the sun rises over the island and glints off the high rise windows, off the dewy leaves, off the hot streets of Taiwan.

Helpmeet

2010-09-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

I'm a little (just a *little*--carrying around Angle of Repose like it's a bible counts as "a little," right?) obsessed with Wallace Stegner right now. I just found this quote from an interview, in which he talks about his wife, Mary (who just passed away this May):

She has had no role in my life except to keep me sane, fed, housed, amused, and protected from unwanted telephone calls. Also to restrain me fairly frequently from making a horse's ass of myself in public, to force me to attend to books and ideas from which she knows I will learn something; also to mend my wounds when I am misused by the world, to implant ideas in my head and stir the soil around them, to keep me from falling into a comfortable torpor, to agitate my sleeping hours with problems that I would not otherwise attend to; also to remind me constantly (not by precept but by example) how fortunate I have been to live for fifty-three years with a woman that bright, alert, charming, and supportive.

I suppose this is why he is able to write so movingly and convincingly about marriage.

Wild as the Wind?

2010-09-06T20:29:00.000-07:00

Orlando was unaccountable disappointed. She had thought of literature all these years (her seclusion, her rank, her sex must be her excuse) as something wild as the wind, hot as fire, swift as lightning; something errant, incalculable, abrupt, and behold, literature was an elderly gentleman in a gray suit talking about duchesses.

--Virginia Woolf

"People Like That Are The Only People Here"

2010-08-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd read this before, but I hadn't.

"This" being Lorrie Moore's story "People Like That Are The Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk."

It's a beautiful story about a baby with cancer, narrated by the mother in typical funny and moving Lorrie Moore style.

But it is also about story-telling:

"How can it be described? How can any of it be described? The trip and the story of the trip are always two different things. The narrator is the one who has stayed home, but then, afterward, presses her mouth upon the traveler's mouth, in order to make the mouth work, to make the mouth say, say, say. One cannot go to a place a speak of it; one cannot both see and say, not really. One can go, and upon returning make a lot of hand motions and indications with the arms. The mouth itself, working at the speed of light, at the eye's instructions, is necessarily struck still; so fast, so much to report, it hangs open and dumb as a gutted bell. All that unsayable life! That's where the narrator comes in. The narrator comes with her kisses and mimicry and tidying up. The narrator comes and makes a slow, fake song of the mouth's eager devastation."

In other news, the coldest summer on record has suddenly become, surely, the hottest on record. According to this narrator.

Focus!

2010-08-22T22:31:00.000-07:00

"Didn't anything good happen in Seattle?" my friend asked.

Yes, it was great! I told him.

He said he couldn't tell by my post. But then again, he said, no one ever wants to read happy stories.

Or as Tolstoy said at the beginning of a certain major epic:

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Which leads me to my next and somewhat similar topic.

Recently I caught a segment on some news show about the tenth anniversary of Dora the Explorer. They talked about the process for creating the show. Each episode is put in front of a preschool focus group something like ten times. As a woman enacts the script for the kids with paper dolls, another sits to the side, marking down the kids' reactions. Any lulls, and that moment of the show is revised out until the entire episode is one smooth running, well-oiled machine.

And certainly a success. But one of the questions I've been struggling with the past few years is the novel as a genre of art. Why the novel and not a short story or a film? What does the particular form of the novel offer? What can we do with novels that aren't available in other forms?

I think I found my answer.

The novel is one of the last entertainment forms that doesn't rely on a focus group (for the most part!). I suppose one could argue a writing workshop is a kind of focus group, but otherwise, novels arise out of the writer's own love and passion more than her desire to please an audience. Of course, that sometimes is also one of the problems with the novel. But it's also lovely too to have this one little circle of artistic expression free from the groupthought of a particular collection of people chosen for the way they fall along the axiom of "average" (for whatever qualities the testers are looking for).

Viva la novela!

Free Advice

2010-08-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

Has it been ten days since I posted? Where did the time go?

Oh yes, I began the paperback tour for Water Ghosts.

In Seattle, where I just spent two-and-a-half great days, I had an "author escort" the first day. She picked me up at the airport and drove me to my first reading, a couple hours away, then made sure I was safely ensconced in my hotel. In those four hours in the car, we had a lot of time to chat (um, four hours, in fact). One of the topics that came up was the lack of advice available for authors going on the road. Many are just launched on the road with no prep, no idea what to expect, no talking points, or tips on what to say/not say in interviews, etc. So I'm going to fill in with a few of the things I learned.

1. If you live in the Bay Area, make sure you know which airport you are flying from.

This point is laughable to anyone who doesn't live in the East Bay, but a real issue for those of us who do! OAK and SFO are about 30 minutes apart, and it's equally likely with each trip that you are flying out of one or the other. A friend told me he's even taken public transportation to the wrong one. I don't know anyone who uses just one of the airports exclusively. With two choices, you usually go for the cheaper option. Anyway, I arrived an hour early for my flight, only to discover in checking the time and airline, I'd glossed over the airport. I jumped back in the car, raced to SF, got through security like it was nobody's business, and ran barefoot to the gate. The plane was still there, but the gate was closed and they weren't going to open it for anyone.

Needless to say, I missed the flight. This set off a chain of unpleasant events and likely connected events, including the loss of my jacket and falling in a pothole, etc. Which leads me to Tip # 2:

2. Make sure you know which airport you are flying from! (yes, that ending preposition is bothering me too, but let's stick to the pertinent details)

3. Invest in a good deodorant.

This too might be a Bay Area thing--allegiance to some aluminum-free, all-natural sort of deodorant that actually makes you smell like you've rolled around on the floor of a men's locker room. If you are going to be running through airports trying to catch flights, then nervously rushing into bookstores to give readings, at least be sure you don't smell like your dad's old stained undershirt. Like they say: You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

4. Um, bring a pen to signings.

I brought pens. I brought like five pens. But I couldn't find a single one of them in my purse, so, you know, put them in an accessible place!

5. Smile.

Smile, smile, smile. This is awesome. It's your baby, hitting the world!

6. Make sure your landlord pays the utilities bill before you go.

Or heck, even while you are gone. Just make sure they are paid, so that when you get back from your amazing adventure, there isn't a note from the Municipal Utilities District saying your water is going to be turned off for non-payment.

Because that's really a downer.

Part 2: Escape from Taichung

2010-08-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

The plan was in place, but loose. I’d ride down to Kaohsiung with my cousins, we’d spend the day there, then I’d check into a hotel and fly to Jinmen the next day, alone. But I’d told my grandmother that my cousins were going with me. Not because I thrilled in lying to her, but because she was not allowing me out of the house un-chaperoned. Yes, I am in my mid-30s, and had lived in Taiwan for 4 years, but certain reasons on her part overrode all these.

One, a prominent gangster had recently been killed in Taichung and the police were bracing for retribution.

Two, I speak Mandarin as a second language, which obviously meant I couldn’t understand a thing and needed the assistance of the 24-year-old Indonesian woman who lives with my grandparents and speaks even less Mandarin than I do.

Three, the world is dangerous place!

In any case, what she did not know would not hurt her (and what she did know would cause no small amount of stress and shouting), so I set off with the complicity of my cousins.

The adventure started before I even got to the airport. Since all of us were unfamiliar with Kaohsiung, my cousins took me to the nearest moderately-priced hotel we could find behind the airport.

For about $40 US, we found a “Motel,” which are quite unique in Taiwan. You pull in past a drive-thru check-in window, then drive to your room, which has a private garage. After parking and lowering the garage door, you enter your room via private stairs located inside the garage. The door to the room is also private, so it’s possible to enter the motel without being seen by anyone. I don’t have to be explicit about the function of such a place.

The room was outrageously ornate: pattern upon pattern: wallpaper, bedspread, moldings on the ceiling. Blackout curtains on tinted windows and soundproof walls. Plus, the clincher--a window peering into the bathroom that was etched with a wild-haired woman hugging a tiger. The whole place scared me.

I slept with the TV on.

The next day, I got on stand-by for a flight to Jinmen. We flew low, the ocean always in sight. As we approached the island, low white clouds covered it in the exact shape of its shorelines, which was quite a magical image. I tried to take a picture and was reprimanded by the flight attendant.

I arrived around 3:30 pm. I wanted to take advantage of every minute so I flagged down a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the Jiang Jing Guo Memorial before it closed at 5. The driver said she’d never had a fare who’d asked her to do that—especially directly from the airport. I suppose it’d be akin to a young Taiwanese woman landing at an airport and asking a driver to immediately take her to the Ronald Reagan Library.

Jiang Jing Guo was the son of Chiang Kai Shek by his first wife. JJG also took over the leadership of Taiwan after his father died. Most importantly, he helped move Taiwan towards democracy when he finally ended martial law in 1987.

And what fascinating artifacts are to be found at the Jiang Jing Guo Memorial? A noodle bowl he ate out of at a certain hotel on a specific date. The contents of his dopp kit: his toothbrush and cup, comb, razor, aftershave, and the aptly named hair crème called “Top Brass.” And, of course, a friendly wax figure sitting at his desk.

A particular fascination of mine has been the transformation of event into “history” and tourism.

I first began thinking about it when I began studying Taiwan’s 228 Incident. A horrible massacre was memorialized with not only a museum, but concerts, t-shirts and hats—items that seemed to neutralize the power of the event.

Then in Vietnam, where the tourist industry seems to be based primarily on the war. At the Cuchi Tunnels, not only can one squeeze her way through the tiny tunnels built and inhabited during the war, but one can also buy sandals made of tire tread that the soldiers wore, or the checkered scarf that was part of the uniform.

In Jinmen, in just the past five years, this has happened too.

Like I mentioned in my last Jinmen post, Jinmen was the front line of defense for the Chinese Nationalists (who ruled/s Taiwan) against the Chinese Communists. Everyone on the island was conscripted into the defense effort. The island was also, in a way, a military base.

Now, there is still a strong military presence, but the rest of the island are truly civilians again. “Mr. Bird” announces tourist routes that have been organized through the bus system. An $8 ticket is good for 24 hours and there are four loops—with tour guides—that hit all the battle museums and defense tunnels one can dream of.

One can also buy cookies shaped like bullets that come in little tins shaped like soldiers, or don a hard hat and walk along a civil defense tunnel. Or go into a museum room that recreates a multi-sensory bomb experience—the tour group is crowded into the middle of a moving platform that shakes as a black-and-white bomb explosion footage flashes on the wall and thunders from the speakers. Even mainland tourists take the ferry from Xiamen and come over to check things out. And perhaps they could take another ferry over to the battle museum on Little Jinmen (just a short 15 minute boat ride away!) and look back at Xiamen through the binoculars that are set up there trained on the mainland coast—where the mainland officials have helpfully erected a large red sign for the Taiwanese:

“One Country, Two Systems, One China.”

Stay tuned for Part 3: Little Jinmen

The Time Paradox

2010-07-30T10:35:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I tossed off the rest of my To-Do list and read The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford psychology professor who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment, and John Boyd, a Stanford PhD who currently works at Google.

Their argument is that there are 6 major attitudes about time, and these attitudes influence every aspect of life, including the success of nations. The attitudes are past-positive, past-negative, present-hedonistic, present-fatalistic, future time, and transcendental-future.

The argument is pretty convincing. For example, a future-oriented nation, that is willing to forgo present-hedonism for future rewards, will be more successful, but it also creates an environment where its citizens can also adopt a future-oriented perspective, thus perpetuating success. A good example, obviously, is America. And our recent economic setbacks, they imply, are due to people thinking in terms of present-hedonism--like the Enron guys, or the people setting up sub-prime mortgages. And if you live in a place where the future is very cloudy, it's natural you'll adopt a present-fatalistic pov, which makes it difficult to plan for the future. A country needs stability to create stability. They bring in fascinating examples about the Middle East (and imply some solutions).

They also used the time-perspective to explain certain patterns of behavior and psychological issues (schizophrenia is partially the inability to distinguish between past, present and future). High anxiety is associated with a high future orientation, and the old cure was a lobotomy: to smash the prefrontal cortex of the brain with something resembling an ice-pick because the prefrontal cortex is the brain structure responsible for future perspective. Of course, the result was absolute apathy.

The best path, they argue, is to have a time balance. Ideally, one is past-positive (pleasant memories of the past keep you rooted to family and tradition), present-hedonistic (keeps you mindful and in the moment), and future (enough sense of the future to avoid negative behaviors in the present and to plan). If you want to find out where you fall, you can take their test here.

I scored lowest on present-hedonistic--a surprise considering how often I procrastinate! But my score did help justify my tossing of the to-do list to read. I was higher than ideal in the future-pov, and a way above ideal for past-negative and present-fatalism (but I'm so cheerful!).

Part 1: Jinmen, Kinmen, Quemoy

2010-07-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

"If Kinmen falls, if the Pescadores fall, if Taiwan falls to the Communists, the United States will have to guard the rest of Asia, for hope will be gone from all hearts there....Kinmen is the symbol of right against might, of resistance against armed aggression."

--Taiwan As I Saw It, Juliette Mather, 1966

Oh, how far we've come.

In the 196o presidential debates between Nixon and Kennedy, Quemoy--the Portuguese name for Jinmen, an island off the coast of China that belongs to Taiwan--was a major issue. Nixon said he thought Kennedy would be too soft in defending Quemoy, the Republic of China's first line of defense against the Chinese. (I'm including the pertinent part of the October 13, 1960 debate transcript below).

I first heard of Jinmen as nothing more than the home of the famous Kaoliang Wine factory. Kaoliang wine is made of sorghum and is slightly weaker than lighter fluid. I should probably pay homage to the many days lost to Kaoliang wine hangovers. Empires could be built with those lost days....

Jinmen is almost literally a stone's throw from China. As such, all civilians on the island were conscripted into the Civil Defense Corps up until fairly recently. The island was too, of course, an important base for the ROC military. With everyone at all times involved in the defense of Free China, the entire lifestyle on the island was part of the defense effort. In addition to the tunnels and bomb shelters built beneath innocuous buildings (the Jincheng Bus Station also doubles as museum and entrance to one of these tunnels), all inhabitants had to adhere to a 9 pm lights out curfew, all homes had blackout curtains and special light shades to prevent any stray lights, and anything that floated was prohibited on the island. This included balls.

For many years, too, the island was subjected to the "dan da, er bu da" agreement between the PRC and the ROC, in which they would shell each other with propaganda bombs on alternating days. Propaganda from Taiwan celebrated, in color pictures, the festive life on the island, illustrated too with pictures of Asia's most famous pop star (and daughter of Taiwan), Teresa Teng. They also send canned food and other gifts. The Chinese Communists celebrated life after the People's Revolution, as well reminded the millions of mainland "refugees" on Taiwan of the families they'd left behind in 1949.

Mixed in among the military and the constant feeling of being under siege were beautiful Fujianese style houses with saddleback and swallowtail rooflines, gorgeous brick- and tile-work.

All these things: the strange history, its tense geographical position, and its beautiful architecture have recently turned Jinmen into a tourist spot for Taiwanese and Chinese--a topic I'll cover in Part 2.

MR. VON FREMD: Mr. Vice President, a two-part question concerning the offshore islands in the Formosa Straits. If you were president and the Chinese Communists tomorrow began an invasion of Quemoy and Matsu, would you launch the uh - United States into a war by sending the Seventh Fleet and other military forces to resist this aggression; and secondly, if the uh - regular conventional forces failed to halt such uh - such an invasion, would you authorize the use of nuclear weapons?

MR. NIXON: .... I will say this: in the event that such an attack occurred and in the event the attack was a prelude to an attack on Formosa - which would be the indication today because the Chinese Communists say over and over again that their objective is not the offshore islands, that they consider them only steppingstones to taking Formosa - in the event that their attack then were a prelude to an attack on Formosa, there isn't any question but that the United States would then again, as in the case of Berlin, honor our treaty obligations and stand by our ally of Formosa. But to indicate in advance how we would respond, to indicate the nature of this response would be incorrect; it would certainly be inappropriate; it would not be in the best interests of the United States. I will only say this, however, in addition: to do what Senator Kennedy has suggested - to suggest that we will surrender these islands or force our Chinese Nationalist allies to surrender them in advance - is not something that would lead to peace; it is something that would lead, in my opinion, to war. This is the history of dealing with dictators. This is something that Senator Kennedy and all Americans must know. We tried this with Hitler. It didn't work. He wanted first uh - we know, Austria, and then he went on to the Sudetenland and then Danzig, and each time it was thought this is all that he wanted. Now what do the Chinese Communists want? They don't want just Quemoy and Matsu; they don't want just Formosa; they want the world. And the question is if you surrender or indicate in advance that you're not going to defend any part of the free world, and you figure that's going to satisfy them, it doesn't satisfy them. It only whets their appetite; and then the question comes, when do you stop them? I've often heard President Eisenhower in discussing this question, make the statement that if we once start the process of indicating that this point or that point is not the place to stop those who threaten the peace and freedom of the world, where do we stop them? And I say that those of us who stand against surrender of territory - this or any others - in the face of blackmail, in the s- face of force by the Communists are standing for the course that will lead to peace.

MR. SHADEL: Senator Kennedy, do you wish to comment?

MR. KENNEDY: Yes. The whole th- the United States now has a treaty - which I voted for in the United States Senate in 1955 - to defend Formosa and the Pescadores Island. The islands which Mr. Nixon is discussing are five or four miles, respectively, off the coast of China. Now when Senator Green, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to the President, he received back on the second of October, 1958 - "neither you nor any other American need feel the U.S. will be involved in military hostilities merely in the defense of Quemoy and Matsu." Now, that is the issue. I believe we must meet our commitment to uh - Formosa. I support it and the Pescadores Island. That is the present American position. The treaty does not include these two islands. Mr. Nixon suggests uh - that the United States should go to war if these two islands are attacked. I suggest that if Formosa is attacked or the Pescadores, or if there's any military action in any area which indicates an attack on Formosa and the Pescadores, then of course the United States is at war to defend its treaty. Now, I must say what Mr. Nixon wants to do is commit us - as I understand him, so that we can be clear if there's a disagreement - he wants us to be committed to the defense of these islands merely as the defense of these islands as free territory, not as part of the defense of Formosa. Admiral Yarnell, the commander of the Asiatic fleet, has said that these islands are not worth the bones of a single American. The President of the United States has indicated they are not within the treaty area. They were not within the treaty area when the treaty was passed in fifty-five. We have attempted to persuade Chiang Kai-shek as late as January of 1959 to reduce the number of troops he has on them. This is a serious issue, and I think we ought to understand completely if we disagree, and if so, where.

What the Heck Is a "Water Ghost"?

2010-07-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

My first encounter with the Hungry Ghosts Festival was in 1993. I was in Taiwan and had been invited to dinner at my aunt's mother-in-law's house. We sat before the table set with boiled chicken and vinegar cucumber and other delectable Taiwanese dishes and then someone mentioned these were "ghost leftovers."

"What does that mean?" The food suddenly seemed to have a suspicious cast, like it had been doused in ash (so much for being an open-minded budding anthropologist).

My mom explained that the ghosts had had time to nibble on it and now we'd eat it. I think she delighted in the look of horror on my face.

I was sixteen and old enough to know this was all symbolic, but I couldn't shake the creepy feeling that ghosts actually *had* nibbled on it, and now there might be ghost saliva on my food, or I could maybe get ghost cold sores from the Supao can.

This year, Ghost Month starts August 10. On that day, the gates to the underworld open and ghosts are free to roam among the living. The living must be careful because unhappy ghosts will try to claim their lives. Especially dangerous are the Hungry Ghosts (Lisa See's book, Peony in Love, I was surprised to find out, features a hungry ghost), who have been forgotten by their descendants. No one honors them, or puts out offerings, which is why they are hungry and looking for revenge. Which is why one had better put out a table of food and burn some incense and dead-money as protection!

Among the most dangerous of ghosts are water ghosts. They've died especially unlucky deaths and are primed for being Hungry Ghosts. During Ghost Month, it's best to stay away from bodies of water and to not swim at all, because Water Ghosts will be waiting for an unfortunate person whose life they can take.

Today, my novel WATER GHOSTS comes out in paperback. So far, these particular Water Ghosts have been good to me--but I'll be burning money for them on August 10 nonetheless.

Sister pSychology

2010-07-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, against my better judgment, I'm going to try out this sister advice post again. This time, I and A. drew together all the sisters to confer on a question we got last week. We had a facebook conversation about it, which is below. Remember, send us your questions--on any topic--and we'll see what the oracle of the sisters has to say.
>

Question from Greta:

I have a sister too, and I think she's annoying. Sometimes. She's very demanding and constantly makes me go out of my way to get her stuff ALL THE TIME! Being the soft-hearted me, I always do it, though I don't want to most of the time. And it seems as if she only makes me, not my other siblings, do things because I'm probably the only one that does it.
So how do you deal with annoying sisters? And how do you get yourself to say no sometimes?

A:
Greta, you are so nice! Will you be my sister? By the way, can you stop by Costco and pick up some Tabasco for me? I’m all out. One of the most common phrases heard in my house is, “No, do it yourself.” I’m not kidding. “Shawna/Tina/Emily, will you help me with dishes/vacuuming/take out the trash?” “NO ANNIE, DO IT YOURSELF!” Sometimes there will be insult added in there, something like, “Don’t be so damn lazy!!”

Greta, here are some phrases you should learn and start using the next time your sister asks for something that cause you inconvenience: “No, do it yourself!” “Don’t be so damn lazy!” “I’m not your slave!” It’s not mean, it’s just enough for your bossy sister to know she’s not the boss of you. She will still love you.

Tina July 21 at 2:12pm Reply

I, too am the "nice" sister, always wanting to say "yes" and hardly ever saying "no" (wouldn't you 3 agree???) Anyways, I guess if I was faced with a "I dont really want to do this" scenerio I would make up an excuse but the people pleaser in me would be guilt ridden! So I guess Im not the best sister to answer the question; do it if you can and if you cant tell her you're sick (just kidding).

Annie July 21 at 2:56pm Reply

@ Tina, I don't know if you can consider yourself the nice sister when:
1. You refused to let me store your placenta in your fridge.
2. You didn't let me keep your son's foreskin.
3. You've never dog sat for me.

Feeling guilty?? :o) I'm kidding and yes, you are a lot nicer than Shawna and Emily.

Shawna July 21 at 4:05pm

That's really funny since I think it's generally agreed *I'm* the nice one. After all, I slept on the couch for a WHOLE year so that each of you could have your own bedroom! Any future back problems I develop will be a symbol of my devotion to my sisters.

I *never* say no. I just don't answer my phone.

In any case, it's not a contest. I think we are all pretty nice. But you certainly have no problem telling me off if you feel taken advantage of. I guess that's because you know I'll still love you.

That makes me pretty nice, no?

Shawna July 21 at 4:06pm

PS I've never said, "Don't be so damn lazy."!!

Tina July 21 at 4:37pm Reply

Omg everyone is soooo funny, I am by far the nicest one:p
Annie, I was going to let you have my childs placents, that's gotta count for something and brian was the one in the room for the circumcision, I was picking up my daughter. And hey u got a umbilical cord! And bring penny anytime! Lol!! By far the nicest:) (I'm laughing as I write this)

Emily July 21 at 4:47pm Reply

I won't claim to be the "nice" sister. I think that's a particularly futile effort given that we're all rather snarky and... well, we're sisters. But look, I'm nice enough to come answering when Annie comes a-callin'.

I've dog-sat, cooked dinner, and traveled long ways for each and every one of my sisters. None of them deserve the title as a "nice" sister as I remember a tortured childhood, living terrified under the trauma and abuse of wedgies, indian burns, rug burns, chin hickeys, burps, farts, embarrassment, and of course being constantly told, "your breath is 'bummpin."

Thanks Shawna, Tina, and Annie--thanks for all those great memories. It is often hard to say "no" to you guys but I only have to remember back to how loving and wonderful you all were to remember that you only want the very best for me. Often, the best for me means a "no" for you. Love you guys!

Annie July 21 at 4:51pm Reply

OMG! I remember the chin hickeys! Tina, I am stripping you of the nice sister title, you were terrible!

Annie July 21 at 4:52pm Reply

And Emily, you are almost as bad as Shawna when it comes to answering your phone. Don't pretend like you answer my calls.

Tina July 21 at 10:15pm Reply

I laughed so hard reading this! I forgot about chin hickeys! Lol sorry !

Annie:

To get back to your question Greta, it’s easy to say ‘No’ to your sister. Just say it and be polite but firm. Learning to say no will likely help the relationship as you will no longer feel annoyed and used by her, and she might start doing things for herself or asking other siblings for favors.

Learn to say no, or have her call one of us and we’ll say no for you.

The Quarter Acre Farm

2010-07-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

To be frank, grad school was a mixed bag for me. I was thrown into a quirky cohort prone to too much cross-pollination (ahem) and snarkiness (oh wait--is that *every* grad school experience?). However, one great thing came out of grad school--my friendship with Spring Warren.

I don't really remember how the friendship started, but by the time I was in Taiwan a year after graduation, we were corresponding regularly. We seemed to be going through the exact same struggles with writing and publishing, and then we both won the same writing award and had our books (her novel is called Turpentine. Check it out here.) published within a month of each other. Now, ten years later, we are in daily contact. I think our friendship is akin to two mothers who experienced pregnancy and child-rearing together and are forever bonded.

However, while I'm still tapping away at my second book, Spring's is due out this winter. She turned her suburban yard into a full-on farm, which she then subsisted on for over a year (I was a happy beneficiary of many yummy vegetables too). And now she's written a book of essays, illustrated by her son (a fantastically talented artist--check out his facebook fanpage here) about her adventures with the "Quarter Acre Farm."

She keeps a daily blog about the trials and tribulations on the farm. On Thursdays, she asks a guest blogger to talk about three things they know about gardening. If you want to see what a brown-thumb (um, me) has to say, check it out here:

http://www.thequarteracrefarm.com/

(above picture is from Spring's blog)

Oh! My Lady!

2010-07-21T10:00:00.001-07:00

No narrative of a Taiwan trip is complete without mentioning KOREAN SOAP OPERAS!

My grandparents and I devoted a couple hours every evening to the trials and tribulations of Yoon Gae Hwa and Sung Min Woo as he, the moody, handsome star dealt with the new custody of a previously unknown daughter, and she, a poor single mom, cared for the daughter and the star in her capacity as nanny/manager. She was plucky and bubbly and girl-next-door; he was brooding and temperamental: love could be the only result, especially after a late-night kiss in the kitchen that sent her into awkward anxiety (he's her boss!) and him into aloof grumpiness.

Unfortunately, I left just as things were heating up. But we all know how it ends....

Then there was the historical drama about the woman in love with the king but who was just a common court painter. I couldn't quite follow all the ins-and-outs of why they couldn't be together, except for the week when the obvious reason was the fact she was being held in a shed with other kidnapped women. I also never caught the name, which is surprising considering at 8 o'clock, my grandparents completely ignored me and anything else and turned up the volume to a deafening level to ensure not one word would be missed. Unfortunately, googling plot highlights (Korean soap opera, historical, kidnapping, brothel, court painter) elicits too many possibilities.

I'm a little pained that I'll never know what happens, though I suppose the arc of these dramas dictates she either dies a horrible death or lives happily ever after with the king.

How Bad Media Can Kill You

2010-07-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night, right in the heart of downtown Oakland, Jinghong Kang was shot and killed for $17. He was in the Bay Area for an interview at Google the next day.

Some people might shrug and say, "Another day, another killing in Oakland." After all, the death caps off a particularly brutal weekend where a man in body armor engaged in a shoot-off with cops on 580, and a sniper fired on police from a West Oakland building.

But this particular murder upsets me because it appears to be another death in a trend of violence targeted towards Asian Americans in the Bay Area.

It's the Long Duk Dong Effect.

Earlier this year, in an intro talk at he Taiwanese American Lunar New Year event in Fremont, I tried to link Chimamanda Adichie's concept of "the danger of the single story" (as talked about in her brilliant TED talk) and the perception of Asian Americans. The basic gist is the limiting effects of stereotypes for both those who use them as a shorthand for understanding individuals and for the ones being stereotyped.

We have all heard ad infinitum about how the objectification of women in films and TV has been linked to the status and treatment of women in the real world, or how lack of positive images of people of color leads to feelings of disempowerment and invisibility among people of color--or, as in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, the desire to live up to some sort of racialized ideal.

Those media images not only affect how we see ourselves but also, obviously, how we see others. In Taiwan, I often heard comments about how "dangerous" or "scary" African Americans are. I'd get mad, but I also understood that the entire idea, absent of any actual interaction with African Americans, came from the deluge of Hollywood movies.

So it makes sense that Asian Americans are seen as an "easy target." We know from movies that unless he looks like Bruce Lee, that As-Am guy you see is likely to be a glasses-wearing, engineering-studying, weak-muscled geek. Right? Who better to mug? And while I understand that it's hard to pinpoint one's motives for committing a crime, I also can't believe that the stereotype of a weak Asian male isn't part of the matrix.

And while I thought that stupid stereotype had gone out with the 80s, it seems we just can't shake it.

It's enough to want to get rid of it because we know stereotypes are dumb, but this is actually a matter of life and death.

And the "model minority" stereotype isn't much better. As sociologist Frank Wu explains:

"It would be bad enough if the model minority myth were true. Everyone else would resent Asian Americans for what Asian Americans possess. It is worse that the model minority myth is false. Everyone else resents Asian Americans for what they believe Asian Americans possess.”

As an article, published in the 1960s, in the US News and World Report claimed, "At a time when it is being proposed that hundreds of billions be spent to uplift Negroes and other minorities, the nation’s 300,000 Chinese Americans are moving ahead on their own, with no help from anyone else." It's been 50 years, and times have changed, but the rhetoric hasn't.

The Model Minority stereotype may be good for the self-esteem of Asian Americans, but by portraying us as essentially sell-outs to the American Dream, the stereotype is doing more harm than good.

Essentially, we have to step up and realize we are all in the same boat and the same community. Asian American groups should step forward and support the community efforts of Latino, African American, etc groups, and vice versa.

Because that's kind of the idea of "community."

Addendum:

Tellingly, the first comment for the story of the Oakland killing on NBCWashington's site reads: "One fewer nerd."

links:

"Model Minority" blog, with links to recent articles about hate crimes against Asian Americans.

UC Irvine- Kathy Rim's article "Model, Victim or Problem Minority? Examining the Socially Constructed Identities of Asian Origin Ethnic Groups in California's Media"

The story of Tian Sheng Yu, murdered in Oakland in April

The story of Jinghong Kang, murdered on Sunday.

Crime map of Oakland.

Paperback Writer, Writer, Writer....

2010-07-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

The paperback release is just two weeks away now and I officially have hot-off-the-press copies in hand. Penguin did a great redesign of an already fabulous cover. This time, too, there's a book club guide, which has fabulous discussion questions.

I've also fixed the mistakes in the Acknowledgments (ahem....discovering those was awk--ward!).

Justin Bieber, Tom Arnold, and Woody Allen Walk into a Bar....

2010-07-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

In fourth or fifth grade, I discovered Little Women. I stayed up all night reading it--it was the first time I'd stayed up to see dawn, and the first time I'd cried over a book (no spoilers!).

I wanted to be Jo, the hot-headed, no-nonsense writer, but I also wanted to be Beth, who was sweet and loved by everyone, or Meg, who was sensible. I didn't care so much for Amy (she burns Jo's novel during a tantrum!).

I also loved the chaos and liveliness of all the sisters together. I'd always wished for a bigger family....

Then, in the mid-90s, two of my cousins came to live with us, bringing the total of girls in the house to four. It was karma for my dad, who grew up in a house of five boys and one girl (poor aunt!).

In any case, we started living out own Little Women drama, and those cousins I can't think of as anything but sisters.

And one of the benefits of sisters is that they have a lot of advice to give. Solicited and unsolicited. And they don't mince words, a quality I have recently learned to appreciate.

In honor of the timeless tradition of unsolicited, un-minced advice of sisters, I'm handing Friday over to my sisters. So if you are in need of sisterly advice, send me a question, or post it in the comments and one of my sisters--or all--will tell you how it is. Or at least how it should be, as evidenced below....

Q: I love Justin Bieber. Any advice on how to meet one's idol??

A.'s Advice:

I think I’m qualified to provide advice on this because I have met my ULTIMATE idol. [ahem, see above. that's *not* a wax figure. -syr] All it took was some guts, good running legs to chase after him, a firm grip, and a lot of money (dinner and show at the Carlyle cost me $600+, ouch!) Here’s my advice on meeting Justin Bieber, or any other celebrities or idols:

1. Do your research - Are they playing a show somewhere? Hanging out at certain coffee shops, malls? (This is more likely if you live in a major city like NY or LA) Try to be where they will be, it’ll increase your chance exponentially.

2. Be brave – Don’t ever think, “I’m not going to approach him or say anything because I don’t want to make a fool of myself.” DON’T THINK THAT! Because really, no one cares! Worst case scenario, you are standing in front of Justin Bieber and you turn into a bumbling idiot. You think Justin Bieber has never seen a bumbling idiot before? I’m sure he sees them every time he steps out of his home, takes a drink of water, breathes…. etc. Justin Bieber meets you (the bumbling idiot) says hello, signs an autograph and whatnot, and he goes on with his life, immediately forgetting about you. Don’t worry about leaving a bad impression, he won’t even remember. The experience is more about you than him, it’s about YOU.

Don’t ever think, “I’m not going to approach him because I don’t want him to think I’m weird.” No one cares! I was at UCLA with my husband Clifford walking our dog when we saw Tom Arnold with a small camera crew. Clifford (HUGE Roseanne fan) said, “Oh my gosh, it’s Tom Arnold!” and continued walking. I stopped him and asked him why he doesn’t go up and say hello, because he obviously wants to. Clifford replied that he was worried that he’d be the ‘weird guy’ bugging Tom Arnold. I told him NO ONE CARES! He ended up walking over and Tom Arnold ended up doing most of the talking, in addition to saying that I (Annie) am too HOT for Clifford, he also pulled up his shirt and showed Clifford a scar on his chest from when he was stabbed by an ex-wife. And now we have a cool Tom Arnold story to share with our friends and family. Just think all that we would have missed out on had Clifford been overly concerned with not being the ‘weird guy’.

3. Be persistent and don’t give up – Another quick story to illustrate this point. My favorite band in the world is Travis. Last year, Clifford and I attended a show they had in LA. They announced they were going to meet fans and sign some autographs after the show but by the time we got out there, the line was insanely long. So knowing that they were playing at the same venue the next night, I bought two tickets for the next night’s show and knowing that they would make the same announcement at the end of the show, Clifford skipped the end of the show and immediately went outside and to wait in the autograph line for me (random tip: don’t marry a guy who wouldn’t make sacrifices to help you meet your idols, it really betters your chances). So that night I got to meet my favorite band, and because I planned ahead and carried a bottle of wine with me to gift them, they thought I was the BEST FAN EVER and spent a little extra time chatting with me. Another tip, everyone likes presents, and that includes your idols. Give them a gift and they will give you a little extra attention.

If all else fails, visit http://lesbianswholooklikejustinbieber.tumblr.com/.Seriously, some of these girls really do look like Justin Bieber!

Got a question?

Post it in comments or email me !

Another Homage to a Taiwanese Classic

2010-07-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Salt'N'Pepa said, "From seven to seven, he's got me open like 7-Eleven."

This could be unofficial anthem of Taiwan, if only because Taiwan ranks fourth in the world for the number of 7-Elevens crowding its streets. Nearly 5,000 7-Elevens dot the streets and alleys of Taiwan, offering everything from bubbling hot pot goodies, to steaming hot dogs to cold cases full of every variation of tea imaginable. You can also buy underwear, cosmetics, candy. You can pay your bills, fax documents, withdraw money, plus about a dozen other things I don't even know how to use.

They are so ubiquitous, that you can stand in the doorway of one 7-Eleven and look down the street at another. I thought I'd found the closest 7-Eleven to my grandparents' house, and was indignant when they insisted La Di, their home-help, chaperone me there, only to discover there was an even closer 7-Eleven--half a block, rather than one block away. Huh.

Basically, you could live solely on a Taiwanese 7-Eleven. In fact, as a new arrival in Taiwan, I was told that if I forgot to stock up on anything in preparation for a typhoon, I could always find food at 7-Eleven.

Because 7-Eleven *never* closes.

When my sister and I visited for the first time in 1993, after not having been since 1981, it was the 7-Eleven hot dog we talked about for months afterward.

Amid all these 7-Elevens, there are yet more convenience stores! OK, Family Mart, the old Mom-and-Pop place. But for its iconic status, 7-Eleven is the King of Convenience Stores and I tip my blogging hat to it.

謝光臨！

Wow...I've found a homage more glowing than my own. And he covers all the other services I didn't even know about! Link.

Taiwan...Wednesday (?): Wacky News!

2010-07-14T10:00:00.001-07:00

Er, for the sake of alliteration, I'll subtitle this post "Wacky News Wednesday!"

Democracy is great!

Democracy for Taiwan not only meant the end to nearly four decades of martial law, but also brought with it freedom of the press. And there is no press as free as Taiwan's, if by "free," one means free to fill twenty-four-hour news shows with every banality caught by surveillance cameras throughout the island, and free to re-enact anything not caught on film with Lego-head computer graphics (see this NYT article, from which the Tiger Woods graphic above was taken. Yes, that's his wife chasing his SUV with a golf club).

I know American news isn't much better, but I do think, with all due respect and love, that Taiwanese media has a special fascination for driving into the ground every detail of some pretty strange stories.

Case-in-point #1:

A 13-year-old boy was playing on his computer when his mother came in and told him she wasn't feeling well. She then collapsed on the floor behind him (this I know, because I saw in it computer animation) and lay there, dead, for two hours before he finally turned around and noticed.

The clincher to the story was when he was being interviewed by the news crew, he was still on his computer, fixated by the screen.

This story was broadcast a few times an hour one day.

Case-in-Point #2:

A man was in his office, drinking some water from the office cooler, when he noticed little black flecks in his cup. Curious, he went to the water cooler and discovered a goldfish swimming inside.

This story was not computer animated, since the crew was able to capture live video of the fish the cooler.

Case-in-Point #3:

A woman was having a seizure at the side of the road. Luckily, a bus driver noticed and leapt to her rescue by shoving his new Louis Vuitton wallet into her mouth. Sure, it's a great rescue story, but the bit about the Louis Vuitton wallet was kind of the clincher for me.

Case-in-Point #4:

Someone is making pornographic pics with X-Ray machines! And because these are basically just skeletons in high heel and provocative poses, it's okay to show on the noon news!! Egads!!

*car crash picture above courtesy of my 9-year-old cousin, who had just discovered the joys of an iphone camera.

Taiwan Tuesday: Stinky Tofu!

2010-07-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

Stinky Tofu--O how I love thee!

At 5 in the afternoon, from the courtyard of my grandparents' retirement complex, where various elderly people in afternoon pyjamas strolled around or caught some late afternoon air and gossip with their young, "wailao" (foreign workers) home-help by their sides, I caught the cry of the stinky tofu seller.

Actually, before her cry, I caught her scent. Her stench, to be exact.

"Stinky tofu?" I asked.

La Di, the young woman from Java, who has been caring for my grandparents for the past three years, said, "Right."

"Come on," I said. And we ran out the gate.

Stinky tofu is tofu fermented in a brine made of varying ingredients, but the result is--always--stinky. I've always eaten the resulting tofu deep fried, served with pickled cabbage and hot sauce. The smell is appalling--like the heavy, noxious smell of skunk (with which I've grown familiar since my dogs were sprayed by one a couple weeks ago!), but the taste is mild and delicious. One popular vendor, near Feng Jia University in Taichung, whose cart sign shows them being interviewed by a local tv station, serves extra-large cubes that are popular for their especially crispy skins and the soft, tender tofu inside.

I also love stinky tofu because though it is found in other parts of Asia, it is especially associated with Taiwan. TaiwaneseAmerican.org even sells "Stinky Tofu Walks Alone" t-shirts.

At 40 NT$ a serving, I made it a daily ritual. And everyone who walked in the door of my grandparents' home immediately said, "Stinky tofu?"

The Microsoft Mega Jackpot Lottery, United Kingdom wishes to inform you

2010-07-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

I find myself oddly moved by the trials of poor spam writers, elaborated in awkward, yet curiously elegant English.

For example, this from Charles:

Hello

Please permit me to express certain personal issues I do not know if i might receive helps from you of course my subject might appear so sudden but please consider this as a wish and accept my mail with a deep sense of humility

I lost my father about some months ago, i and my sister are Alone right now. My father was a formal district leader to our entire community more than twenty-five years before our births I was the Eldest son and our mother has a divorce with my father she did never knew of my father's fortunes and so many other aspects we lost my Mom on the 7th July 2009

Tony Molly is also having a tough time:

Dear Friend,

This message might meet you in utmost surprise, however,it's just my urgent need for foreign partner that made me to contact you for this transaction. I am a banker by profession from Burkina faso in west Africa and currently holding the post of Director Auditing and Accounting unit of the bank.I have the opportunity of transfering the left over funds ($14.3million) of one of my bank clients who died along with his entire family on 31 july 2000 in a plane crash.

However, Miss Elle wants only friendship:

How are you today? I Hope you are having a loving and wonderful moment? My name is elle, and i decided to write just a few words of mine to you, with the hope that you will respond for us to get started to know more about each other for us to create a good and lasting relationship that will bring joy and encouragement into our lives. I will like to know more about you, and i hope you tell me more about yourself,as i will do the same in my upcoming mail.

I'm still waiting for that perfect spam, the one that will make me drop everything to immediately send my name, age, dob and bank account number to help that poor soul transfer his/her dearly departed father's $4 million of assets into my account in a mutually beneficial move. Until then, I suppose I'll have to content myself with loving and wonderful moments with Miss Elle as we bring joy and encouragement to each other's lives.

Exciting Things Afoot!

2010-07-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

Ah! Hiatus over!

Admittedly, I've been tussling with the internet in the past year, even before the big Facebook privacy debate, but I think I've come to terms with this second life/avatar kind of existence.... It seemed to work well for James Cameron....

I'm also excited to share that the paperback version of Water Ghosts comes out in late July, with a spiffy quote from Yiyun Li on the cover and a Boston Globe blurb on the back, plus a fancy and mysterious new cover (see sidebar).

I'll also get to do a few readings again (see sidebar).

Stay tuned for more!

The Object of Desire

2010-02-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

For the 4^th semester, I’m teaching Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese. Not only is it the first time many of my students have read a graphic novel, it’s the first formal setting in which they have discussed stereotypes of Chinese/ Asian Americans. I was a teensy bit disturbed by the gusto with which they created their lists of stereotypes they’d heard: cheap, bad drivers, eat dog, age well, etc…The usual, except for “they wear a lot of North Face,” which half the class claimed to know as an established stereotype but which I’d never heard. (We also spent time talking about the historical roots of these stereotypes, and the fears they were based on, like the need to emasculate the image of Chinese men to reduce their “threat” to white women because there were so many “bachelors” around due to the exclusionary immigration laws that prevented gender-balanced Chinese American communities from forming, and one it goes: racism leading to racist laws that lead to new kinds of racism.)

We also got to talk about the concept of racial marking, in which race is reduced to physical markers, so that, for example, all a white actor needs to do to be “Asian,” is don a black wig, yellow his skin, and tape his lids. Or wear buck-teef, as Mickey Rooney does in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. When I tell them that Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu were played by white guys with taped lids, they are astonished. Or almost the entire cast of the 1937 version of The Good Earth, which I remember gave me no small amount of confusion when I was little.

So I was thinking of this kind of marking yesterday when I realized the same sin is committed by Yang, and lots of other Asian American writers. A common theme in many Asian American books by male writers is the interracial relationship with a white woman. Heck, I did it myself with Chloe in Water Ghosts. Deeper implication of race-identity and desire aside, I realized, in Yang, in my book, and in a host of others, this object of desire, this symbol of ultimate assimilation always takes the form of the “whitest” kind of a white woman: a blue-eyed blond. This, too, the easiest short-hand for Whiteness. It may not perpetuate an obviously negative stereotype in the same way a nerdy Long Duk Dong, broken-English speaking short-hand does, but I do think it is a fault. Not only is it lazy, it imbues whiteness with a idealized Barbie-power that these books purport to be challenging, and perpetuates this false dichotomy between white and non-white.

These are half-formed thoughts. I’ll ponder it more, and then I’ll go to school tomorrow and point out that the two crushes in ABC are blonde, as is the ultimate white bully, and the white boy that Jin wishes himself as, and, well, pretty much every other person in their school, and maybe we’ll figure out what that means, and how we—and those future writers, artists, filmmakers in the class—can start to have a more nuanced depiction of how race works.

Alice

2009-12-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

I love my copy of Alice in Wonderland. Not only does it have awesome illustrations, but it gives me this funny, poignant glimpse of my parents long ago. The copy, published in 1966, was apparently lifted (or unreturned in another international move) from Berlin American High School, which my dad attended in 1968. (In fact, flipping through just now, I found an old u-bahn ticket wedged between the pages.) And then noted on the pages are tiny Chinese characters from when my mom was apparently using the book to study English, probably about 5 years later. I get a twinge in my heart thinking of my mom at a time when she did not know the words "roof," "lamps," "curious," "directions." And I get curiouser and curiouser about my parents' relationship, imagining my dad as this young guy who kept Alice in Wonderland among all the books he must have checked out of the high school library (of course, for a hippie in the late 60s, Alice in Wonderland probably wasn't all that unusual a choice) and my mother as this sweet young woman, newly immigrated, teaching herself English via a pretty strange choice.

Finally, there is my layer. A bookmark at page 78 from the Sacramento Public Library. Due date November 30, 1987. The late fine policy was ten cents a day, $2.50 per book max.

Who's The Boss?

2009-12-08T19:58:00.001-08:00

Every time I go home, my parents beg me to clear out the ten or so boxes I keep in their shed. Getting to the boxes is kind of epic--it requires a lot of scrambling and gymnastics over the boxes left by my three sisters and another layer of old baby gear. After my mom threatened to throw all of it away, on Sunday, I delicately squeezed past a "Baby Sit & Step 2-in-1 Activity Center" that was wedged under some old dining chairs and beside a box of dishes to get to a few plastic bins of my old college papers. I was able to retrieve only about 5 boxes before 1) the car was full and 2) the shed had reconfigured like one of those sliding block puzzles, thus preventing me from moving anything else without a major overhaul of the whole place.

Among the things I found that I forgot I owned were a) an essay on Tiger Woods (so timely! and I quoted Judith Butler--so grad school!); b) an old old paperback of Dharma Bums; and c) "Dailyaide: The Silent Secretary," a schedule book I bought in 1986 from Woolworth, original price $3.39, on sale for $2.00.

I was ten years old, and it seems I really needed a schedule to manage my summer tv watching habits. For example, on August 13, I scheduled in watching "The Jetsons," "8 is Enough," "Santa Barbara," "Reading Rainbow," and the news. Don't worry, I was sure to schedule in "leisure" between some of those shows. Sometimes "play quietly" was offered as an alternative to watching tv.

Taiwanese American Artists for Typhoon Relief

2009-08-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

[reposted from taiwaneseamerican.org]

Taiwanese American musicians and artists unite to benefit for efforts to relief the catastrophe caused by Typhone Morakot in Taiwan last week. This announcement came through via TaiwaneseAmerican.org. All proceeds made from these artists' events and merchandise sales until August 31 will go toward relief funds. YellowBuzz gives a shout-out to all artists and organizers involved in this benefit!

Taiwanese American Artists & Performers Contribute to Typhoon Relief Efforts!

As of Sunday, August 16th, the government has reported over a hundred deaths and countless injuries in Taiwan due to Typhoon Morakot. Our hearts go out to the many families suffering. Indeed there has been agitation and different emotions as more developments unfold in Taiwan, but we call on Taiwanese America to see this as a time to stand together as a global community.

Showing their true colors of generosity and compassion, many previously mentioned or highlighted artists on TaiwaneseAmerican.org have risen to the occasion! Until August 31st (or other mentioned dates), the following artists have offered to donate a percentage of all their sales to typhoon relief efforts. (Proceeds will be directed towards several of the coordinating organizations and charities that TaiwaneseAmerican.org has mentioned previously.) These artists are doing some amazing and interesting things within our community! Check them out and contribute to Taiwan relief by supporting them with purchases!

Alice Tong:
We last saw her performing and wowing the crowd at Tuesday Night Cafe in Los Angeles! What an amazing and soulful voice! Check out her April 22nd, 2009 Spotlight! http://taiwaneseamerican.org/2009/04/check-out-singer-songwriter-alice-tong.html

Purchase her CD "Small" on Blacklava at: http://tinyurl.com/qkmhgu
Check out her music at: http://www.myspace.com/alicetongmusic

Kelly Tsai:
We also saw Kelly spitting spoken fire in Los Angeles earlier this month. Check out Kelly's website at http://www.yellowgurl.com for your daily dose of wisdom and sass.

All the proceeds from any CD's and chapbooks bought on http://www.yellowgurl.com/store from now until Tuesday, August 18th to the Taiwan Relief Fund! Act fast!

Dawen Wang:
With exciting news of his long-awaited "American Me" CD Release Party on September 12th, Dawen has generously offered us a space where TaiwaneseAmerican.org T-shirts will be selling next to a venue-matched Taiwan Relief donation box. If you're in the Los Angeles area, check it out!

http://www.dawenwangmusic.com

Our July 13th, 2009 Spotlight on Dawen: http://spotlight.taiwaneseamerican.org/2009/07/conversation-with-singer-songwriter.html
Want something a bit more personal? Video interview with Dawen: http://vodpod.com/watch/1900267-conversation-with-dawen-wang

Abe Young:
Abe was quick to offer donations from sales from his thought-provoking and articulate book written as a conversation among three particular individuals. Humanity at Stake: On Why the World Should Now End China's MIlitary & Political Aggression, Understand Taiwan's Democracy, and Defend 23 Million Citizens' Human Right to Self-Determination is available on Amazon and on www.HumanityAtStake.com

Calista Wu:
Our June 10th, 2009 Spotlight, soulful and passionate singer Calista Wu debuted a wildly successful first EP "The Prologue" and didn't hesitate on giving back! Check out and purchase "The Prologue" from Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/nxnwf6

Calista's Spotlight: http://spotlight.taiwaneseamerican.org/2009_06_01_archive.html
http://www.calistawu.com
http://www.myspace.com/calistawu

Grace Lin:
The prolific and ever so talented children's book author of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is also donating portions of her book sales!
http://www.wherethemountainmeetsthemoon.com

She has many other books under her belt that look like perfect gifts for a loved one or younger friend that's starting to read! Head on over to IndieBooks for more information: http://tinyurl.com/mprt9j

She's donating a portion of sales of her lovely artwork collection at her store: http://www.cafepress.com/gracepacy

Johnny Hi-Fi:
Feel like rocking out and giving to a good cause? Eric Hsu, lead vocalist from Johnny Hi-Fi, has upped the ante and offered to donate $2 from each ticket, CD, and merchandise sale from two upcoming performances at the Taiwan Fest in Canada (Toronto on 8/29 and Vancouver on 9/7)!

If you're in the area, this is a great opportunity to give back and enjoy an amazing concert!

http://www.johnnyhifi.com

Jenton Lee:
For those that just want to donate by clicking, check out Jenton! A rising YouTube sensation, Jenton has entertained us with his vibrant, likable personality, keen vocals, and such songs like "Taiwanese Night Market".

Watch Jenton's performance of the song here-- donation based on the number of clicks: http://www.youtube.com/jenton#play/uploads/13/fQFxhakOnhM

http://www.jentonlee.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/jenton
http://www.thesixtyone.com/Jenton

Shawna Yang Ryan:
Author of the poetically-written and recently-published novel, Water Ghosts, Shawna is donating a portion of her book sales if you forward her your receipt by email. An easy way to do this is to buy your copy online before August 31st at: http://www.amazon.com/Water-Ghosts-Shawna-Yang-Ryan/dp/1594202079 then send an email to shawnayangryan@gmail.com. Tracking sales is not automatic, so don't forget to email!

Visit Shawna's Blog: http://shawnayangryan.blogspot.com

Karen Lin:
You've seen several of the works of music video producer and independent filmmaker Karen Lin, but she's so behind-the-scenes, you often don't know that she's behind some amazing videos out there. On the side, she's been working on some independent film productions, and her current project will be set in Taiwan. Buy a DVD copy of her first award-winning short film, Perfection, and she will donate 50% of the proceeds!

http://zuzufilms.com

Smash Your (Literary) Idols

2009-08-12T09:52:00.000-07:00

When I was 21, I had a mini English major crisis when I found out T.S. Eliot was anti-semitic. I asked my creative writing prof if it would be--well, not quite un-ethical--but unseemly to keep loving "The Wasteland." Could I separate the man from the work? UC Berkeley in the mid to late 90s was a Foucault/Barthes/Derrida Lovefest (probably still is), and the fashionable route was think the author was dead, even if s/he was not dead. But T.S. Eliot was dead. However, I still can't read my favorite lines in all of poetry--

Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

--without thinking of...old anti-semitic Thomas Stearns (to be fair, in researching this post, there seems to be more recent disputes about these charges).

Anyway, I'm having T.S. Eliot flashbacks as I grapple with my admiration for Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose." It is a fictional account of the life of writer/frontier woman Mary Hallock Foote. The controversy is that he had unfettered access to her letters and included large chunks of them, unchanged and uncredited, in his novel.

The book is, without a doubt, structurally impressive, and flawlessly weaves the stories of two generations, and has a bit of metafiction that is also a fun surprise. But as someone who understands the work it takes to sift through historical documents for that one right detail, I wonder if he got an unfair shortcut, which would diminish my admiration of the skill and work it took to pull off such a rigorously detailed piece of historical fiction. And then there is the ethical problem of plagiarism, of course. If he had used huge excerpts and then acknowledged them as such, I would have thought that was pretty cool--mixing historical document with fiction. But there is no acknowledement in the book that this is based on her at all. The only acknowledgment reads:

My thanks to J.M and her sister for the loan of their ancestors. Though I have used many details of their lives and characters, I have not hesitated to warp both personalities and events to fictional needs. This is a novel which utilizes selected facts from their real lives. It is in no sense a family history.

In the pre-Google world, how would anybody know that this book was about Foote? Thus, in combination of his very liberal use of her letters, it's pretty sneaky.

Ironically, Foote's family was apparently more upset at the part of the book that deviated greatly from their ancestor's actual life--the fictional plot turn (not quite twist) that really solidifies the meaning of the book.

Despite my google research, I have not found anything that puts her letters side-by-side with his version of her letters, so I can't say definitively to what extent the book was plagiarized, and Stegner defenders still call bs on the whole accusation.

So last night, I was just about reconciled to the whole controversy, willing to just say "whatever," because the book as a whole is so artful, and there is no one to credit but Stegner for that, when I came across a quote from Gary Snyder as part as a hippie manifesto by one of the characters. In part:

If we are lucky we may eventually arrive at a totally integrated world culture with matrilineal descent, freeform marriage, natural-credit Communist economy, less industry, far less population, and lots more national parks.

Hmm, I thought. I'm pretty familiar with Snyder's work, and, except for the national parks line, it didn't sound much like him. It lacked the playfulness of a Snyder line, and it's uncharacteristically sloppy. But at least Stegner was crediting someone, right?

Ha! It turns out that Stegner made up the quote.

So now I am just irritated. He doesn't credit who he quotes, then credits fake quotes by real people. I just want to shake my Farrah Fawcet hair and snap my gum and ask, "What's up with that?"

Hiatus

2009-06-22T16:08:00.001-07:00

This is my #444 post--a very inauspicious number in Chinese culture ("four" sounds like "death") but if you add them up and add them up again, you end up with 3 (4 +4+4=12, 1+2=3), so let's go with the auspicious number three.

After my little respite in the woods, I've decided to retire the blog indefinitely. I'll put up occasional posts about events and readings, but otherwise, I'm going to try to take a break from interfacing with people via the web.

So perhaps I'll see you via email--or better yet--at the local bar?

Little House in the Big Woods

2009-06-13T02:06:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago, I was in New York, racing through the Met with my friend Jeffrey to check out the Francis Bacon exhibit before the museum closed, and then we headed downtown to meet his friends for drinks and then dinner at Schiller's, where, when we got the bill, I pointed out they had charged us for two carafes of wine and then was told, no, we drank two carafes of wine. I was just too wined up to notice.

And then, in about 36 hours, I went from that to a quiet cabin outside Nevada City, so far away from anything that it is "off the grid," that magical land of solar energy and well water (and an "outhouse," albeit a nice one) where on my first night I heard a little bear shushing itself against the side of the house. Well, it might have been a wild boar or any manner of large, furry, shushing-type snorting animal, as I was too scared to peek out to see, and I was bewildered by my dogs' lack of notice. They just kept snoring. I am about a quarter mile from the nearest house, there is no internet, tv, or radio. Just food, dogs, books, and my mind, which is an okay place to inhabit, though I notice that the urban world affords a lot of defenses that help one avoid thinking too deeply about things one might feel more comfortable ignoring. Without those defenses, I am supposed to write, but I also find myself running over relationships, pondering regrets, dreaming of long lost friends and I get a bit achey. (But hey--at least there's no immediate internet so I am prevented from sending out emails I might regret!)

The cabin is owned by a former professor of mine, and he is within yelling distance (sound travels well in the woods!). He has been wonderfully hospitable, checking up on me, offering me use of his library, providing better conversation than the dogs (though they are quite good listeners, even if my stories put the little one to sleep).

So that is where I'll be for at least another week: watching my dogs spin around delightedly in piles of dead leaves and hearing my footsteps on gravel against the backdrop of birdsong.

"Slow-food Organic Radio"

2009-06-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends, I'll be on West Coast Live this Saturday, June 6. The show runs on KALW 91.7 in SF from 10-12, but it also streams online. Additionally, the show is recorded in front of a live studio audience! And if you are looking for something fun to do Saturday morning, and would like to spend a nice morning in Napa, you can be part of that studio audience because tickets are for sale. I'm linking their site with all streaming/ticket/show info here.

ok, pitch over. :)

Ron Takaki, 1939-2009

2009-05-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

He passed away last night.

Vacation!

2009-05-24T17:04:00.001-07:00

Only one more set of bluebooks, then enter the grades into my magic grade calculating program and I am on summer vacation. I'll be taking a break from the blog for a bit...See you in June!

In the meantime, check out one of my favorite blogs: http://evyan-r-osborne.blogspot.com/
She lives in Texas, and in addition to blogging about life and books, she tells great, sometimes funny and sometimes sad and always entertaining, stories about the women in her family.

Here's a taste from a recent post:

We live in a rural part of Fort Worth. This past weekend, we were preoccupied with our niece and nephew. In the quiet of the evening, we suddenly hear a male voice and loud cries from a horse, not neighing, but cries...I go out to the porch. I see a fat, sturdy drunk male on top of a horse, kicking deep into its sides yelling, "You do as I say...when I say...like I say...[kick, stab, kick, whip] you heh? Get yo ass over heh! [whip, kick, whip, kick, kick, kick] As I say...I'mo teach you...As I say!" It went on more than one can imagine...I was in disbelief...angry...I wanted to call someone...the police...is there such a thing as animal abuse police? Later, I told Gera, "That's the kind of motherfucker who beats the hell out of a woman." He looks at me and says, "You don't know that." I said, "My grandmother taught me how to recognize that kind."

Um..."The China Problem"

2009-05-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

From Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, published in 1994 by the Mainland Affairs Council of the Executive Yuan:

Many countries throughout history have experienced periods of division and reunification, and the history of China is also one of periodic partition and unity. Modern China has been unable to escape this historical cycle. Since 1949, the Chinese people have lived in one of two societies on either side of the Taiwan Strait with differing ideologies and political, economic, and social systems....In February of 1991, the ROC government drew upon the insight of people inside and outside the ruling party in drawing up the "Guidelines for National Unification," part of an attempt to form a national consensus for the advance toward unification.

The "Burden of Representation"

2009-05-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

Working on a talk about Asian American fiction that I'm giving tomorrow to some Asian American student groups, and I came across this interesting editorial:

'At times I feel like a plastic Paki'
Anvar Khan, who got Greg Dyke to admit the BBC was 'hideously white', admits she's a rent-a-quote race pundit because white writers are too scared to say what they think

Anvar Khan
The Guardian, Monday 27 March 2006

When your nationality is an accident of geography, a mere matter of an atlas and joyous circumstance, you have to admit that the colour you are when you get here is just as ludicrously fateful. As a mixed-race Scottish Asian I have to admit I care as little about my colour as I do about the mating rituals of the Tasmanian mongoose, yet in the predominantly white media my racial identity has a currency and a value.
It both fascinates and appals me that I am in a position where my voice is important because it comes from a brown person. My colour is neither my responsibility nor my fault. Yet it is a passport into debates that Whitey is too scared to gatecrash.
Whether on Jeremy Vine or BBC News 24 my subjects have included the Islamic treatment of women and whether Asian youth are truly proud to be British. A white reporter would not be asked to comment on any race-related issue, and frankly I have a problem with that.
The British media are in the sad and desperate situation of not having many high-profile black or Asian journalists, and even fewer wannabes. It's a hard place to be. As long as the media are overwhelmingly white then the industry will always be open to accusations of racism.
When I asked the former BBC director general Greg Dyke, in a programme I was presenting for Radio Scotland, if he thought the BBC was "hideously white", his agreement created uproar and division throughout the media world. Whitey wrote concerned and outraged letters to the Guardian and the Times, sore at what they perceived to be his betrayal of his own race. Quite. And it's here in this peculiar and complex sphere, where white racial sensitivity equals that of any highly-strung Muslim demonstrator, that I work. As a writer, as just another journo, but one who by the nature of my parents' coupling has the option of taking up racial comment as a career move.
And all because the media operate a voluntary self-censorship, where white journalists aren't allowed, or do not choose, to speak candidly about race. Paranoid and self-protective, the industry chooses to spotlight Asian journalists rather than discuss Asian issues freely.
It is not compulsory for a white journalist to defend or attack views from minorities, but it is for me. I almost do it as a favour. The liberal, left-leaning media are so terrified of causing offence to any minority that they look to a person of colour to do their arguing for them.
When controversial subjects erupt, regarding Shabina Begum's so-called right to wear the jilbab at school or the preponderance of ham sandwiches at council meetings, whatever, the white media turn tactician, and, in order to deflect any potential criticism, recruit brown faces. That's where I come in.
The logic is obvious; an Asian person can call another Asian a bigot, but a white pundit cannot. I suspect many more white writers could comment if they did not sit at their laptops in fear of being called racist for any view that does not flatter the ethnic minority. I am hired simply because the media has decided, albeit perhaps subconsciously, that the subject of race is the domain of people of colour.
This is hypocrisy. The basis of equality is that you are not treated differently. Yet black or Asian journalists are asked to carry the burden of racial comment. It's a double standard that demands I take my skin colour far more seriously than I would like.
In the aftermath of the Iraq war and the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad (it's a really bad time for Muslims), perhaps it is the responsibility of British-born Asians who come from a Muslim background such as myself to react intelligently to Islamic extremism. If by meeting the media's need for black and Asian voices you can also bring balance then it seems churlish to refuse.
But there are times when I walk away from the studio feeling like a fake, like a "plastic Paki". Yes, I can use this term and you cannot, because if you did the CRE would be paying you a call.
When people are awarded space in a newspaper or a few minutes on air just because the media are hungry for this elusive and intangible thing called "racial experience", then being the token minority can be a great career move, especially when you have no talent.
Your voice, however faint, sounds unreasonably amplified, possibly even important. I worry about the danger of inadvertently becoming a "professional Asian". If you play along with the "person of colour" routine you will be stereotyped as such. I am reluctant to play the game, but even so I am often asked to comment on racial stereotyping - you can see the irony. It's a no win situation.
Sure, I can shun every request to speak. But in a period of ongoing Muslim intensity and hurt, you talk so that the radical cleric is not recognised as the sole representative of what it is to be Asian. It's a political and personal decision, and a white reporter would never, ever have to make such a serious choice, nor risk being perceived as "professionally white".
The media needs to be told what it is like to be black, in other words, it needs the perspective of an outsider almost to colour the white landscape of comment. While there's no such thing as the black or Asian mind, there is, the Asian-centric view, however manufactured, and it is a desirable commodity.
Skin colour
I understand this and I accept it, but I don't like it. If I wanted a newspaper career based on whether I believe in God or not I'd have gone straight off to work with the Pastoral Review. If I wanted my colour to speak louder than my words I'd apply to Eastern Eye.
Whitey must feel frustrated at being classed as the racist, the enemy, and I despair at the pressure of having to provide racial analysis.
But I do believe that one day we will be able to chuck out quotas and boo and hiss at positive discrimination, as black and Asian people will be so integrated into society there will be no need to pander to racial sensitivities. There should come a time when a black or Asian writer is not expected to exploit their skin colour as a matter of obligation; a time when Whitey is allowed to express his or her own views free from the terror of being labelled politically incorrect or lampooned as a bigot. Yet I know what you are thinking, my fellow media darlings, that occasion seems so near and yet so fatwa.

Last Week

2009-05-12T13:28:00.001-07:00

It's the last week of the tour! Tonight, I hit Clayton Books, and tomorrow the Capitola Book Cafe.

I'm sorry to see it end. Though I first faced the readings with some dread, I've come to enjoy them. I think I like reading out loud. I even caught myself reading to my class from the class text. "Listen to the words," I urged them. I make them read aloud too. It's good to remember that words have a physical presence. (of course, this is an old trick from Professor Farber.;) )

And in other books news, today, Water Ghosts received a very lovely review in the Boston Globe.

Literary Cinderella

2009-05-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

From Leah Garchik's SF Chron column today. FYI, El Leon Literary Arts was the original publisher of Water Ghosts (then called Locke 1928):

El León Literary Arts, a small Berkeley publishing house incorporated as a private foundation, had set May 1 as the official pub date for "Matterhorn," ex-Marine Karl Marlantes' 700-page novel about the Vietnam War. The book was printed and review copies mailed out, but in late April, writer Tom Farber, who presides over El León, received calls from several New York publishers.

They had heard about the book from staffers at Barnes & Noble who'd read it when it was submitted in a first-novel contest, and they were interested in pre-empting El León's edition and joining forces to create a more widely distributed edition.
A deal was struck between Farber and Morgan Entrekin of Grove Atlantic, and copies already printed but not yet distributed will become galleys for the El León/Grove joint publication, on Jan. 1. This huge book couldn't at first find an agent or a publisher. Farber recognized its power. Take heart, writers.

(ps from shawna: I was lucky enough to get an advance copy. I can vouch--the book is really really good!)

What Happens on Page 69?

2009-05-06T18:31:00.001-07:00

Find out at Marshal Zeringue's blog, "The Page 69 Test."

Aha! The Locke/KMT Connection....

2009-05-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

And my two favorite topics come together....

From Peter C.Y. Leung's One Day, One Dollar: The Chinese Farming Experience in the Sacramento River Delta, California:

Other projects of the KMT in Locke and Locke's vicinity met with greater success. As part of its effort to revive and modernize thinking in China, the KMT launched the "New Life Movement" in China in the 1930s. In America, this was reflected by a renewed emphasis on Chinese schools for native born Chinese Americans. The Chinese schools, which provided instruction in the afternoons and evenings, were designed to teach Chinese American children of their Chinese cultural heritage; help them learn to speak, read, and write Chinese; and prepare them to pursue a career in China if they found opportunities in America too restricted. Locke had its Chinese school, closely tied to the KMT. Bing Lee was an early organizer and supporter of this school. A later supporter was Joe Shoong, the millionaire owner of National Dollar Stores.

A Chinese tenant farmer near Locke also assisted in the purchase of a few KMT planes. A lot of KMT financial support also came out of Locke.

This post may contain scenes of Brief Nudity

2009-05-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

In 1997, I entered a classroom on the third floor of Wheeler Hall. It was 3 pm. I'd just walked 2 brisk miles from my apartment on Alcatraz; I was probably drenched in sweat. The professor was a tall man with a black beanie, mustache, and piercing brown eyes. It was to be a three hour class, a graduate writing workshop. Three hours. I was not sure how any class could go on for so long.

He made us read poetry.

Aloud.

It was one of the first times I'd done so. From him, I heard of Philip Larkin, James Agee, Wallace Stevens, among others. I was intimidated by the professor, who was so naturally erudite, never had notes but seemed to keep the entire library of English literature in his head. He had standards. He didn't put up with any bullshit. He made us want to write our best, even though he ran the workshop in such a way we never knew what he thought of our work. He let writers breathe. I had never had such an exhilarating time in a class. The energy suffused my classmates as well--I am still in touch with many of them, and they are still writing.

And he gave us the best advice on writing I've ever received. It's common among writers to hear them complain (even at the undergraduate level), Oh it's so hard. I'm terrible. I'm giving up writing (hand at forehead). Contrary to what you might expect of the nurturing teacher figure, he didn't respond with, Oh no. Keep writing! You have so much talent. We need you.

Instead he assured us the world would go on without our words. No one would beg us to keep writing. Sure, writing was our gift to the world--but what if the world didn't want it?

I understood that my writing was not critical to anyone but me. And it would have to be critical to me if I were to pursue it, because it's not an easy path, not a lucrative path (I'm not looking at you, Stephenie Meyer), and it may not save lives. So you really got to do it for the love of it, critics (self and otherwise) be damned. His words, perhaps designed to thin the herd, inspired many of us to work harder.

So I'm so very pleased to be here, 12 years later, interviewing him on the occasion of his 22nd publication, Brief Nudity, a memoir of his life as a writer, set in his Berkeley cottage. A simple description, but keep in mind, this is Thomas Farber, recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim, and NEA grants, current professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and publisher of the non-profit press, El Leon Literary Arts.

Starling Lawrence says of the book:

Brief Nudity is a beautifully articulated exploration of the writer's space and the milestones of his life. Photographs, cancelled checks, the shelf of his mother's books, the trove of love letters...evocative as these items may be, there are no infinities here, but instead a graceful acceptance of possibilities unrealized, stories untold.

Our chat is just a teaser--check the book out yourself!

SR: Though I’m eager to talk about your new book, Brief Nudity, I’m intrigued by an epigram in your collection The Twoness of Oneness: “Famous author, eighty, bullish on the future, discussing work-in-progress with ambitious young writers. As if he and they are on the same page.”

You’ve done what many aspire to but few actually do: spend a life writing—and writing exactly what you’ve wanted to. How did you do that? And what advice would you give a the young writer who wants to get on the same page as you?

TF: In the epigram you quote, I’m teasing the old writer for still being so single-minded about his art. As, maybe, I am still, at age 65. I think that most of all along the way I was stubborn. Stubborn about writing only the books I wanted; stubborn about not negotiating the book’s qualities with editor or agent; stubborn about not taking on things in other parts of my life that would have precluded being able to be a writer. For instance, I did not take a regular teaching job until age 50, and then just one semester a year. I think I knew my limits, that if I talked too much about writing I would cease to write. And so in other aspects of my life. Such stubbornness doesn’t necessarily make you a better human being, but it does allow you to persist at one thing you say you want. All artists also have to be wily, like Odysseus, particularly in a market-driven culture when one wants to do one’s own thing but somehow interface with the world of commerce. Finally, you have to be willing to say no thank you to some opportunities—in my case, full time teaching or running a foundation or becoming a radio commentator—in order to leave the space, and time, and energy for what may or may not become another book. This gets harder as one ages, since of course security and social context are also essential to us.

SR: Another writer-life question before we get into the book: What do you think is the give-and-take between balancing teaching and writing?

TF: As I said, I was careful to keep real limits on my teaching. For three decades, it was no more than a semester every three or four years. I savored teaching on those limited terms, hungry every once in a while to talk about books and writing, to encourage young writers to discipline and focus themselves. Teaching also gave me a wonderful respite from the self-absorption of writing, allowed me to make a brief nod in the direction of my father’s extraordinary life of service as a physician. But I remain wary of art in institutions, despite the former students who say they had rich experiences in my seminars, who have gone on to become very, very good writers. There’s the danger of too much received wisdom in institutions, when the artist is trying to make something new. As for the writer teaching, to work well with students requires nurturing, giving—lactating! This is honorable work, but it is not at all the set of hormones that, say, writes a novel.

SR: Brief Nudity is unlike any memoir I’ve seen. It’s non-linear, full of word play, and centers on life as it passes through the Berkeley cottage that you have inhabited for thirty years. How did you decide on the book’s form and style?

TF: I think I was both amazed and dismayed to realize I had spent so much time in the cottage. Now nearly thirty-five years, despite much time traveling. The cottage had both given great shelter and incarnated, inevitably, the other lives I had not been living. This was the bed I made… And of course it was teeming with stories after so many years. As for the non-linear narrative, well, I’ve been playing with that for years, in both fiction and nonfiction. Just seems to accord with how I live in time. As for the wordplay, well, I was raised in a family where wordplay was incessant, and I am in particular my mother’s son in my love of getting to the root meaning of words, savoring their color and sound and vector—force and direction. I simply made that a more explicit concern in this book, constantly referring to my own habit of cherishing words, wanting to know more about them, heading to the dictionary yet once again. Kind of taking the reader along with me in the act of writing. In terms of starting the book, though I had thought about stories set in the cottage for some years, the writing itself began with the three domestic “plagues” described in the opening section. I felt I was drowning not in the ocean, where I’ve so much time, but in a puddle, suppose I hoped I could transmute the puddle into an ocean by the force of my art. I had the idea, and not for the first time, that I could alchemize my life into something better by writing, though writing was no doubt also part of the problem.

SR: What perils, if any, did you encounter in writing this memoir? For example, was it hard to expose yourself in this way, or did you worry about what your friends would think when they saw themselves in your book?

TF: A book is not the self, exactly, it’s a performance, the self mediated by art. One learns over time how much one can reveal in order to transmute, also how much one pays in his art by too much withholding. And even apparently confessional writing, for instance, is only a tiny part of ‘the truth’ for any writer. Is, finally, no more than the writer could or would reveal. As for friends finding themselves in one’s work, well, the writer has to hope—and pray—that they deem the art worth the intrusion.

SR: Finally, one last question: What would be the cottage’s epigrammatic response to the book?

TF: Since the book’s pub date, the cottage and I have finally had a chance to talk things out. Though still miffed at not being described with the love-struck hyperbole some writers have conjured for their palazzos in Italy, the cottage is secure now about its documented place in the writer’s life. Says, if I may quote verbatim, “You know, Tom, I’ve always been there for you.” The agave in the front yard by the front steps, however, are still threatening to testify against me, should it ever come to that. They’ve heard everything, everything…

photo credit: Andrea Young (2003)

It's May...Do you know where your Asian Pacific American Heritage is?

2009-05-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

My final Kepler's post is up--some book recommendations for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month....

Video Killed The Blogger

2009-05-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

My business school friend, schooling me on social media, said video blogging is the sport of the future. I said, I can't video blog! I hate video blogs. But I decided to try it....
(We'll see how long before youtube takes down the Arcade Fire soundtrack.)

Blah.

2009-05-01T17:35:00.001-07:00

All of sudden, I woke up this morning with a headache and nausea. Of course, the first thought is swine flu, but there's no fever or aches. I had to cancel a reading this afternoon!

So I am curled up in bed, having apocalypse nightmares. I did one productive thing today--I'm guest blogging at Kepler's blog in preparation for my reading there next week, so if you don't see anything here, it's because my writing brain has been spent on another blog.

Hope you are all well! I'm going back to sleep now....

My Sister Thinks I'm Boring

2009-04-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

This just in: my 21-yr-old sister, in conversation with a good friend from junior high (the inimitable Davey G), declared I was boring in response to his claim that he thought I was a spaz.

I guess that's why I get doubly nervous reading in front of friends and family, as I did last night at the Avid Reader in Davis. Everyone knows me in a slightly different way, and it feels strange to be inhabiting all those roles at once--while trying to present yourself as a "real" writer. Meanwhile, you have sisters in the back of the room who have been with you through your acne-angsty years and they can't believe that you might 1) be able to form a coherent sentence about something beyond "Why didn't you put a new roll of toilet paper on?" and 2) people will come to hear it.

So I blushed hard. I thought it rose from my chest and covered my face, but a friend in the audience told me it actually starts from behind my ears. I touched my neck, trying to cool it. I was like a flushed southern belle, wanting to murmur "Oh my!" and call for my smelling salts.

And Davey G twittered the whole thing in a high school found-poem kind of way. Here is a sample:

A couple hours. Light the stove. Dishes stacked deep red mahogany years before nude wood mended.
7:54 PM Apr 28th from Tweetie

Afterward, my friend, the writer Spring Warren (get her book Turpentine--it was a finalist for a ton of awards--really fun, Twain-esque read!) threw a party for me. Check out the pic above--look at that great table she set up--and the water ghosts cookies she made with eggs from her own chickens and duck!

This morning, an event at Bookshop Benicia. A modest turn-out, but pretty good, I thought, for a noon event. And the most amazing thing--I didn't blush at all.

Barbie Wa-wa

2009-04-27T21:04:00.000-07:00

From 1967 to 1987, Mattel employed about 10,000 people in their Taishan manufacturing site in Taiwan. About 8,000 worked in the factory/ies while another few thousand did freelance work out of their homes, usually sewing clothes. The women made about $10 (US) a day, more than their husbands made working on farms. The Taishan Mattel women were also rumored to be the most lovely.

Before Google and all the awesome tech companies made us all long for Silicon Valley jobs with their lure of ping pong tables in the breakroom, free meals, dry cleaning, and subsidized vending machines, Mattel provided housing and other perks for their workers. Free meals, an on-site health clinic, language classes, extracurricular classes and clubs—even buses home for the holidays.

When Mattel moved their manufacturing to China in the late 80s, Taishan was devastated. It took them nearly a decade to recover, and now they are using their Barbie history as a tourist lure to the town. They are even thinking of creating their own Taishan doll, since the doll-making infrastructure is all still there.

Life in plastic; it’s fantastic.

Reading Report

2009-04-26T21:11:00.000-07:00

The first week of the reading circuit is over. The book has been out for a week. A couple friends asked me to blog about the reading tour experience, so here it is.

Though the birth metaphor for books is overplayed (and perhaps a bit silly coming from someone who’s never given birth!), I do feel how I imagine a new mother to feel. A sort of awe that this creation now exists in the world for everyone to see, with the attendant joy and terror. What do I do now? Am I the only one who thinks it’s pretty? Aren’t all mothers, high on endorphins, deluded into thinking their newborn is the cutest thing to ever slip down a birth canal? ☺

And, like a new mother, I find caring for it a bit exhausting. I’ve definitely been sleeping more. I really enjoy the readings, but the hours before each one are full of anxiety, an inability to focus, a red flush that spreads up my neck at the thought of it. I do the dishes, check my email, twitter, facebook, iron my clothes, check my email, twitter, facebook, keep thinking that there are probably more productive things to be done but I can’t concentrate. I wonder: Will anybody come? Will they throw tomatoes at me? Will this be the reading where I burst into tears? Or forget everything? (I have found that readings have a tendency to make me forget the names of people I know well who show up. This can be (ahem) problematic when signing books.)

Then I go and of course the bookstore people are super nice. I sit in the back room, wondering if the chatter in the front are customers or people coming for the reading. In SF, I came out to find the audience in whole consisted of the two friends who’d given me a ride, a friend who lived nearby, the store owner and the woman who was introducing me. And I was really grateful. And it was then pretty thrilling when I began to read and some new people came over from other parts of the store to listen in. In Berkeley, however, I walked out to a nice crowd of about twenty, including friends whom I didn’t know would attend. Love! And when it is all over, I have a little rush and can’t wait for the next one (even though I know it will be preceded by the return of the stomachache.)

The other great thing is that I get a good glimpse at how much independent bookstores rock, how much they love books. Each store has its own personality, and is set up in various cozy and pretty ways. And they treat their authors well! The Booksmith gave me a thank you card and a dvd documentary of independent bookstores; Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley thanked me with a book (Wrack and Ruin by Don Lee).

This coming week, I read at the Avid Reader in Davis, Bookshop Benicia, and Bookshop West Portal. I hope to see some of you there!

Picture, at Mrs. Dalloway's, is courtesy of Andrea Young.

April 26th

2009-04-26T21:10:00.001-07:00

April 26th.
I was typing the date into my novel, writing a scene, when the automatic fill offered "April 26th, 2009," and I had one of those spine-tingling moments as I remembered that today is April 26th.

Taiwanese around the world commemorate February 28th as the anniversary of the start of the 1947 March Massacre, which I have written about a few times on this blog. The Massacre is more famously known as 2-28.

But 2-28, less famously, has a coda: April 26th, “Thanksgiving Day” during which schoolchildren were required to pay money—“tokens of thanks”—to the Nationalist soldiers for protecting them. Of course, in sick irony, “protection” meant killing these same children’s brothers, fathers, uncles and grandfathers.

Humans never fail to astound me.

This anecdote is from page 336 of George Kerr’s Formosa Betrayed.

And the Winner Is....

2009-04-21T23:51:00.000-07:00

A tie!
Yesterday's question about who came up with the term "cold war" (which was political-speak master George Orwell) was the absolutely, positively last question, and both Donn and Isaac got it. They were neck-and-neck for the last five or more questions. They often got the same questions right and missed the same questions. In (related?) news, I have never seen the both of them together in the same room....
Anyway, congratulations! Two copies of Water Ghosts will be going out to opposite sides of the country.

Again, thank you all for playing.

The final scores:
Score:
Donn:13
Isaac: 13
Philip: 10
Rob: 7
Annie: 5
Amit:4
Sean:4
Brian: 3
JC:3
Arthur:1
Cliff:1
DaveyG:1
Gautami: 1
JLehr:1
Renee: 1

Is Trivia Over?

2009-04-21T00:48:00.001-07:00

Because I got only two answers for the last question. Should we just call the game?
Anyhow, the three-word titled bestseller was
Eat
Pray
Love
and the countries were Italy, India and Indonesia.

Score:
Donn:12
Isaac: 12
Philip: 10
Rob: 6
Annie: 5
Amit:4
Sean:4
Brian: 3
JC:3
Arthur:1
Cliff:1
DaveyG:1
Gautami: 1
JLehr:1
Renee: 1

So, one last question. And then that's it. I swear.
What novelist coined the term "cold war" in a 1945 article in London's Tribune?

Photos and text by...

2009-04-20T16:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Ho Chie Tsai of TaiwaneseAmerican.org and freelance photographer Anna Wu for featuring me in this week's Taiwanese American.org's "Spotlight."

FYI: Readings start this week.
This week's schedule:
Tuesday, 4 pm: Orinda Books, Orinda.
Wednesday, 7:30 pm: The Booksmith, San Francisco
Friday, 7:30 pm: Mrs. Dalloway's, Berkeley.

JG Ballard: 1930-2009

2009-04-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

J. G. Ballard has passed away at the age of 78.

TRIVIA IS BACK!

2009-04-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

The Winter of Our Discontent was the Steinbeck book in the final question. Though a couple people got it right (Rob and Gautami), the top score tie was not broken. So let's keep playing! Remember to email your answer to me--do not post in comments. If this question does not determine a winner, we'll go on.

Score:
Donn:12
Isaac: 12
Philip: 10
Rob: 6
Annie: 5
Sean:4
Amit:3
Brian: 3
JC:3
Arthur:1
Cliff:1
DaveyG:1
Gautami: 1
JLehr:1
Renee: 1

This recent bestseller has a three-word title. Name the title and the three countries in which the story takes place.

Um...

2009-04-17T22:32:00.000-07:00

Hello friends. I won't post final scores now in case a few squeeze in under the wire, but if it ends up being tied, the final question will be posted either late tomorrow or early Sunday.
I've been up since 3:30 am, and tomorrow sounds like it will be no less exhausting! Just wanted to check in. So it may be a suspenseful 24 hours until we find out who won!

Have a great weekend! Good night!

Okay, Here We Go!

2009-04-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Alice's husband was Calvin Trillin.

Score:
Donn:12
Isaac: 12
Philip: 10
Annie: 5
Rob: 5
Sean:4
Amit:3
Brian: 3
JC:3
Arthur:1
Cliff:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
Renee: 1

_____________________
Last Question and Potential Tie-Breaker!

What Steinbeck novel begins unseasonably with "When the fair gold morning of April stirred..."?

If You Are Looking for Something to Do in the Bay Area

2009-04-16T21:11:00.001-07:00

Fundraiser Events for the 2009 Taiwanese American Cultural Festival in Union Square, San Francisco (5/9/09)

http://www.sftafest.org
North Bay Fundraiser
Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 8:00pm - 2am
Location: Taverna Aventine, 582 Washington Street, San Francisco, CA
RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=61976504067 or http://www.evite.com/app/publicUrl/REXEAWEABPYVTUMOASEL/TAP-SF

Meet and greet people at Aventine, a luxurious bar in SF's financial district! All proceeds raised at this social fundraiser will go toward supporting the Taiwanese American Cultural Festival on May 9th in Union Square. Our goal for the night is $4,000, so come and donate to a great cause: sharing Taiwanese American culture with the community! We'll be there at 8:00 pm and start raffling off prizes at 9:30 pm, including a free Virgin America flight, Skate's on the Bay gift certificate, orchestra concert tickets, and SFMOMA pass. Come before 9 pm, and your $15 donation at the door will get you an alcoholic beverage & a (potentially!) winning raffle ticket. After 9 pm, the suggested donation will be $20.

Godwin's Law

2009-04-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Isaac for making a comment about Godwin's Law with his answer to yesterday's trivia. I'd never heard it before. The law states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
I guess that means we truly are coming to the end of our trivia game, because My Struggle is more famously known as Mein Kampf.

Score:
Donn:12
Isaac: 12
Philip: 10
Annie: 5
Rob: 5
Sean:4
Amit:3
Brian: 3
JC:3
Arthur:1
Cliff:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
Renee: 1

Water Ghosts officially launches today. This is the penultimate trivia question. The last one will be posted tomorrow night and then the winner announced. I'll be in Illinois this weekend--I'm a little unsure about my internet connection situation--but I will try to get that up as soon as I can.

I'm sorry to see this game end. It's been great to connect in daily doses with old friends and nearby friends. Thank you!

___________________

Trivia #30
What humorist dedicated his first book after the 2001 death of his wife: "I wrote this for Alice. Actually, I wrote everything for Alice"?
__________________
And another PS. Via Brian Crawford's blog, The Leafblower, I heard about a "Be an agent for a day" contest on literary agent Nathan Bransford's blog. It's totally addictive. The premise is that he has posted 50 actual queries. You decide which five you, as an agent, would ask to see the manuscripts for (I know I ended that in a preposition. erg.) Three of the queries are for books that have already been published and the other part of the challenge is to identify those. It ends Saturday night, so check it out soon!

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

2009-04-15T00:03:00.000-07:00

Ken Kesey was the LSD pioneer and children's storybook writer.
Sadly,
Scores remain unchanged.
Score:
Donn:11
Isaac: 11
Philip: 9
Annie: 4
Rob: 4
Sean:4
Amit:3
Brian: 3
JC:2
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
Renee: 1

Only 3 more questions to go!

_________________
Trivia #29

What book, published in English in 1933 as My Struggle, is better known by its untranslated title? (this is straight from trivial pursuit! from the same card as the ken kesey.)

Answer #27 and Trivia #28

2009-04-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

We are getting down to the wire...just a few more days to go!
The Writer, Editor , Critic and Reader are nothing without The Novel.
(I kind of get why it was left on the mountain. btw, this was a trivial pursuit question, not my own invention.)

Scores remain unchanged.
Score:
Donn:11
Isaac: 11
Philip: 9
Annie: 4
Rob: 4
Sean:4
Amit:3
Brian: 3
JC:2
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
Renee: 1
_________________

What LSD (not to be confused with LDS, which is how I first read it) pioneer penned the children's tale Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear?

Stunning

2009-04-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

This is really lovely. Embedding has been disabled, but the link is here.

Too Many Marshmallow Peeps

2009-04-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry for posting this late! It was a wild Easter (if that is possible).
Queequeg, Starbuck (and Ahab and Ishmael) sailed on the Pequod.

Score:
Donn:11
Isaac: 11
Philip: 9
Annie: 4
Rob: 4
Sean:4
Amit:3
Brian: 3
JC:2
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
Renee: 1
______________________
Trivia #27

What 1991 James Michener book on publishing is told from the viewpoints of The Writer, The Editor, The Critic and The Reader?

And another piece of trivia: When my dad climbed Mount Aconcagua, he found this book and carried it back for me. So sweet!

Remember to email your answers to me--do not post in comments!!!

Devil, on a cloven old lone volcano, lived

2009-04-12T00:35:00.000-07:00

Palindrome! (Thanks, Isaac, for the palindrome in the title.)

Score:
Donn:10
Isaac: 10
Philip: 9
Annie: 4
Rob: 4
Sean:4
Amit:2
Brian: 2
JC:2
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
___________________________
Trivia #26
Ishmael sailed on which whaling ship?
A. The Queequeg
B. The Pequod
C. The Starbuck
D. The Nantucket

This Made My Day

2009-04-11T01:11:00.000-07:00

And quite possibly my week:

Answer#24 and Trivia #25

2009-04-11T00:30:00.000-07:00

"Little friends may prove great friends," so sayeth Aesop, slave and story-teller.

Score:
Donn:9
Isaac: 9
Philip: 9
Annie: 4
Sean:4
Rob: 3
Amit:2
Brian: 2
JC:2
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1

_______________________

What form of wordplay does Jon Agee celebrate in Go Hang A Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog! and Sit on a Potato Pan, Otis? (from trivial pursuit)

Answer #23 and Trivia #24

2009-04-10T00:02:00.000-07:00

Miss Sarah Vowell advises that you Take the Cannoli. Only one person got the answer, but plenty could quote the Godfather.

Score:
Philip: 9
Donn:8
Isaac: 8
Annie: 4
Sean:4
Rob: 3
Amit:2
Brian: 2
JC:2
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
_____________________
Like Shakespeare, it's debatable whether or not this slave-cum-purveyor of moral lessons actually existed. If so, it's rumored that his death came by way of being pushed off a cliff. Yes, your trivia question is to name this storyteller.
___________________

And in other news: We are officially a week away from the release of Water Ghosts. Please spread the good word.:)

Answer #22 and Trivia #23

2009-04-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

Rascal was a raccoon. Not to be confused with Rocky Raccoon
(...Rocky Raccoon checked into his room/ Only to find Gideon's bible/ Rocky had come equipped with a gun/ To shoot off the legs of his rival)

Score:
Philip: 9
Donn:8
Isaac: 7
Annie: 4
Sean:4
Rob: 3
Amit:2
Brian: 2
JC:2
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
____________________

What essayist titled a book Take the Cannoli, after a line uttered by Clemenza in The Godfather?

Answer #21 and Trivia #22

2009-04-08T01:43:00.000-07:00

Flowers in the Attic--the V.C. Andrews book that started it all.

Score:
Philip: 9
Donn:8
Isaac: 6
Sean:4
Annie: 3
Rob: 3
Brian: 2
JC:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
_______________
Trivia Next, from Trivial Pursuit
What type of critter does Sterling North recall raising, in his enduring memoir Rascal?

Longing on a large scale is what makes history.

2009-04-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Answer #20
He speaks in your voice American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful.
Underworld by Don DeLillo.

Score:
Donn:8
Philip: 8
Isaac: 5
Sean:4
Annie: 3
Rob: 3
Brian: 2
JC:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1
____________________

Trivia #21
What V.C. Andrews bestseller sprouted the sequels Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns and Seeds of Yesterday?

Answer #19 and Trivia #20

2009-04-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Herman Potok became Chaim Potok.

Score:
Donn:8
Philip: 8
Isaac: 5
Sean:4
Annie: 3
Rob: 3
JC:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
Brian: 1
DaveyG:1
JLehr:1

Remember to email your answers to me at shawnayangryan(at)gmail--don't post answers in the comment section!
______________
Trivia #20
Which novel, a finalist for the National Book Award, follows the fate of a baseball hit into the stands during a play known as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World"?
_________

Answer #18 and Trivia #19

2009-04-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

"Squinchy" Gudger was a pseudonym for "Squeaky" Burroughs, a member of one of the sharecropper families depicted in James Agee and Walker Evans' Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. It was written in 1936, but not published until 1941. It's one of those books with a million-and-one amazing passages, but this is one of my favorites:

Here at the center, is a creature: it would be our business to show how through every instant of every day of every year of his existence alive he is from all sides streamed inward upon, bombarded, pierced, destroyed by that enormous sleeting of all objects forms and ghosts how great how small no matter, which surround and whom his senses take: in as great and perfect and exact particularity as we can name them....
...yet one can write only one word at a time, and if these seem lists and inventories merely, things dead unto themselves, devoid of mutual magnetisms, and if they sink, lose impetus, meter, intension, then bear in mind at least my wish, and perceive in them and restore them what strength you can of yourself: for I must say to you, this is not a work of art or of entertainment, nor will I assume the obligations of the artist or entertainer, but is a human effort which must require human co-operation.

Score:
Donn:8
Philip: 7
Isaac: 5
Sean:4
Annie: 3
JC:2
Rob:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
Brian: 1
DaveyG:1
__________
Trivia #19

What Bronx-born author ditched his birth name Herman for his Hebrew name meaning "life"?

Answer #17 and Trivia #18

2009-04-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

Versus Bugs Meany? Good ol' Encyclopedia Brown!

Score:
Donn:8
Philip: 7
Isaac: 5
Sean:4
Annie: 3
JC:2
Rob:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
Brian: 1
DaveyG:1

----
Trivia #18
"Squinchy" Gudger is a figure in which Depression-era nonfiction work?

Answer #16 and Trivia #17

2009-04-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Claudia and Jamie were lost in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Score:
Donn:8
Philip: 6
Isaac: 4
Sean:4
Annie: 3
JC:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
Brian: 1
DaveyG:1
Rob:1
__________
NEXT QUESTION:

From Trivial Pursuit:

What youthful sleuth regularly locks horns with local bully Bugs Meany?

Burton Holmes Travel Stories

2009-04-02T15:51:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love about the old books (see previous post) is the looking back on the varying portrayals of Taiwan. This Burton Holmes Travel Stories: Japan, Korea and Formosa from 1924 just arrived today. At that time, Taiwan was a colony of Japan. Here is what it says:

Have you ever noticed that in this world the most beautiful things are often the hardest to manage? Can you, for instance, make the prettiest girl in school do as you like? Or can you take a tiger, whch is probably the most beautiful animal to look at, and tame it easily?

Our friends the Japanese have just such a problem to manage in the island of Formosa.

...For a great many years this island of Formosa was a terror that haunted all the Western sailors who sailed in those seas. The sea around it is the birthplace of terrible tropical typhoons, which spring up suddenly and sweep helpless ships onto the sharp cliffs, where they are dashed to pieces. And, before Japan tamed her tiger, if a few poor half-drowned sailors managed to land, they were usually captured by the savages who lived there and killed by them. Their heads were preserved as trophies and their bodies eaten, for these savages were cannibals.

...The entire island of Formosa contains nearly four million people, most of whom are Chinese and Japanese; for the savages are dying out as nearly all savages die when civilized man takes over their country.

This book, like all books, is a symbol of the liberty and the freedom for which we fight.

2009-04-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

I collect Taiwan-related old books. I started in 2002. My collection isn't huge, but I have quite a few rare gems. I picked up this one because of the title and then was pleasantly surprised by the ad on the back cover.

Disturbia

2009-04-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

Something's been gnawing at me the past few days and, after reading this post by the usually annoying Phil Bronstein of the SF Chronicle, I've decided to post.

As you know, two weeks ago, journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling were arrested/taken in North Korea. They are now being subject to "intense interrogation" and will be tried as spies, which could lead to sentence of ten years hard labor.

This seems like big news. Huge news. Two journalists, allegedly on the "right" side of the North Korean border, being detained and most likely tortured. Nary a peep heard from them since. You'd think it would be all over the news, like other journalists who run in to trouble in places that do not have as liberal a policy on freedom of speech.

Instead, this story has gone the way of the story Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist arrested in Iran early in March.

Why have these stories disappeared? I am reluctant to pinpoint it on race or gender, but there are strong similarities between the two cases: all three held journalists are young women of color. They don't fit our traditional conception of the rugged journalist in his flak jacket, his chin grizzled with five o'clock shadow. In the commentary I've read, people have said these women "deserve" to get caught for being places they shouldn't. They've been called "amateurs" "playing" with a video camera. Even their own organizations have been silent (Al Gore runs the media company behind Current TV).

I recall when Daniel Pearl disappeared, being where he "shouldn't have" (i.e. just like Laura, Euna, and Roxana and any other journalist who risks herself to bring us hard stories), his story was greeted with sympathy and huge coverage. What's the difference?

I'd like to think/hope that there is a reason behind the silence (like behind-the-scenes negotiations),but a gnawing in my gut tells me that this media blackout is more insidious.

Check out the facebook group that give tips and addresses of how to bring more attention to this case.

The amazing picture above of a North Korean highway is by Eric Lafforgue from this site.

Answer #15 and Trivia #16

2009-04-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

James Patterson was the Toys R Us jingle master!

Score:
Donn:7
Philip: 5
Sean:4
Annie: 3
Isaac: 3
JC:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
Brian: 1
DaveyG:1
Rob:1
______________

What famed Manhattan museum do Claudia and Jamie make their home-away-from-home in The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?

If you like word games....

2009-04-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

There's a hilarious one going on at The Leaf Blower. Even if you don't play, it's worth reading people's comments. :)

Answer #14 and Trivia #15

2009-04-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Tom and Ray Magliozzi are aka Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers of "Car Talk."

Score:
Donn:7
Philip: 5
Sean:4
Annie: 3
Isaac: 3
JC:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
DaveyG:1
Rob:1
_____________
Trivia #15
Who created the ad slogan "I'm a Toys 'R' Us Kid" before going to write thrillers like Hide & Seek?

(again, this from Trivial Pursuit)

Answer#13 and Trivia #14

2009-03-31T00:24:00.000-07:00

The TC Boyle work was Drop City.

No one answered this!

Scores remain unchanged.

--------------------
Trivia #14:
(I'm guessing this'll be a tip-of-your-tongue one...)

What name do radio's Tom and Ray Magliozzi go by, in books like A Haircut in Horse Town?

(thanks, Parker Brothers!)

Answer #12 and Trivia #13

2009-03-30T00:38:00.000-07:00

The city was Chicago!
From Wikipedia:
The Devil in the White City tells the story of the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 to commemorate Christopher Columbus's discovery of America. The book intertwines the true tale of two men: Daniel Burnham and H. H. Holmes. Burnham, the chief architect and mastermind of the Exposition (also known as the White City) inadvertently created a perfect setting for Holmes, one of America's first serial killers.
(And if you want to read something ver y scary, read the Wiki entry for H.H. Holmes.)

_________________
Donn:6
Philip: 5
Sean:4
Annie: 3
Isaac: 2
JC:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
Rob:1
_________________

What TC Boyle tale of a California commune was named for a real-life commune in Colorado?

(this question also from Trivial Pursuit)

Answer #11 and Trivia #12

2009-03-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The following is an excerpt from a 1975 Playboy interview:

Playboy: There is a minor character in Catch-22 named Scheisskopf. At one point someone refers to him as Shithead, with a capital S. Since Scheisskopf is German for shithead, it works like a pun, though it looks as if the capital letter were a typographical error. Was that intentional?

Heller: Yes, and you're the first one to comment on it. I've waited 14 years for someone to pick that up. I've blabbed it to a couple of people myself, but nobody's asked about it.

Playboy: Are there any more so-far-undetected jokes in Catch-22?

Heller: There is one more.
Playboy: Any chance you'll tell us what it is?

Heller: No chance at all.

(Thanks, Rob, for this tidbit!)
___________________

Current score:

Philip: 5
Donn:5
Sean:4
Annie: 3
JC:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
Rob:1
Isaac: 1
_________________

Trivia #12

What city's 1893 World's Fair and the serial killer who stalked it were dissected in Erik Larson's book The Devil in the White City? (this question thanks to our pals at Trivial Pursuit)

Answer#10 and Trivia #11

2009-03-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

In Jhumpa Lahiri's book The Namesake, Gogol Ganguli is named for the writer Nikolai Gogol.
Score:
Philip: 5
Donn:4
Sean:4
Annie: 3
JC:2
Amit:1
Arthur:1
Rob:1
__________________________
Trivia #11

What 1961 novel was populated by generals named Dreedle, Peckem, and Scheisskopf?

Answer #9 and Trivia #10

2009-03-27T00:01:00.001-07:00

Michael Cunningham is the author of A Home at the End of the World. He also wrote the more famous The Hours, which won Nicole Kidman an Academy Award.

Score:
A 3-way tie for first place!
Donn:4
Philip:4
Sean:4
Annie: 2
JC:2
Rob:1
__________________
Trvia #10
The namesake of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake is named for which Russian writer?

Words I Never Thought I'd Hear....

2009-03-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

...coming out of Director Ang Lee's mouth:
"Does she come?" '
Which he noted was (hu)mankind's eternal question.

This is my very late post on seeing Lust, Caution last week at Wheeler Auditorium. The screening (much better the second time around--having seen it in the theater last year, this time I spent no time piecing together the plot and all the time admiring the art...and Tony Leung) was followed by a Q&A with Ang Lee.

Berkeley professor Linda Williams ran the discussion, first by posing her own questions, then by opening it up to the audience. Professor Williams writes on porn. Her book is titled Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible," and, not surprisingly, she asked him detailed questions about the sex scenes that earned the film the NC-17 rating. She set up her questions by carefully describing in rich and joyous detail the scenes under discussion. And when she was done, we got to ask the really interesting questions.

Like when he would own up to being a Taiwanese American and make a Taiwan-focused movie (that was my question).

He feinted, saying he would when the "right material" came along. All I could do was smirk (mostly to keep from fainting--my eyes were going blurry as he spoke to me).

Afterward, he did not make it from stage to side exit. He was mobbed by eager undergrads, who pressed him to the wall and took pictures for nearly twenty minutes with their cell phones. It was all shades of ridiculous.

Answer#8 and Trivia #9

2009-03-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

What did William Carlos Williams eat?
Yes, plums, delicious, so sweet, so cold.

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

----------------------
Question #9
We are back to a randomly chosen question from Book Lover's Trivial Pursuit....
Whose debut book, A Home at the End of the World, led Salon to conclude he was trying to write "the Great Gay Novel"?

Answer #7 and Trivia #8

2009-03-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, Sam-I-Am, the answer is Green Eggs and Ham!
So the current score is:
Donn:3
Annie: 2
Philip: 2
Sean: 2
JC: 1
Rob: 1

It's not too late to join! Start by answering the question below! Remember to EMAIL your answer to shawnayangryan(AT)gmail--don't post it in comments. I mean, I trust all of you, but things are getting competitive!

William Carlos Williams wrote an apologetic poem to his wife for eating something she had been saving. What did he eat?

Trivia #7 and Answer #6

2009-03-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Answer #6:
The mother of Joy, Aranea, and Nellie is Charlotte from Charlotte's Web

"Joy! Aranea! Nellie!" he began. "Welcome to the barn cellar. You have chosen hallowed doorway from which to string your webs. I think it is only fair to tell you that I was devoted to your mother. I owe my very life to her. She was brilliant, beautiful, and loyal to the end. I shall treasure her memory. To you, her daughters, I pledge my friendship, forever and ever."

Question #7:
Name the book:
Say!
In the dark!
Here in the dark! Would you, could you, in the dark?

Answer #6

2009-03-23T00:01:00.001-07:00

Hazel is a buck rabbit who leads his community to a new warren in Richard Adams' Watership Down. According to Wikipedia, it is Penguin Books' "best-selling book novel of all time."

Score:
Donn:2
Philip:2
Sean: 2
Annie: 1

Trivia #7 (And New Rules)

2009-03-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

New Rules:
Rather than post your answers in the comments section, EMAIL your answers to me at shawnayangryan(AT) gmail (DOT) com. All correct answers will receive points (not just whoever answers first). I will continue to post the correct answer and running score each day!

Trivia #6:

Name the highly literate mother of these children: Joy, Aranea, and Nellie.

Answer#5

2009-03-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

Sethe, from Morrison's Beloved.

"I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms."
...
"What tree on your back?"
...
"Whitegirl. That's what she called it. I've never seen it and never will. But that's what she said it looked like. A chokecherry tree. Trunk, branches, even leaves. Tiny little chokecherry leaves. But that was eighteen years ago. Could have cherries too now for all I know."

Score:
Sean: 2
Annie: 1
Donn: 1
Philip: 1

It's not too late to join the game! There are over twenty-five questions still left!!

Trivia #6

2009-03-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

Hazel is the hirsute protagonist of which 1970s bestseller?

#4 Answer

2009-03-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

J.G. Ballard.

Current score:
Sean:2
Annie: 1
Donn: 1
Philip: 1

Trivia #5

2009-03-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

Which Toni Morrison character has a scar like a chokecherry tree on her back?

#3 Answer

2009-03-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Satanic Verses.

Current Score:
Three-way tie between Annie, Sean, and Philip.

It's not too late to join the game!
We have a month's worth of questions, and the prize goes to the person with the highest number of correct answers by April 17th!

Trivia #4

2009-03-19T20:01:00.000-07:00

Name the writer whose works range from science fiction to a WW II-era memoir set in Shanghai.

#2 Answer

2009-03-19T19:51:00.001-07:00

Bella, from Twilight. Her child with sparkly vamire, Edward, is named Renesme.

Annie=1, Everyone Else=0

Trivia #3

2009-03-18T19:50:00.001-07:00

What highly controversial 1988 book begins with the two main characters falling from an exploded plane?

#1 Answer

2009-03-18T00:06:00.000-07:00

What author committed suicide shortly after finding himself unable to compose a few sentences for JFK's inauguration?

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

Trivia Question #2

2009-03-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

Answers due by midnight, Wednesday. Again, no googling please!
The answer to Monday's question will be posted after midnight tonight.

Complete the character genealogy (i.e. line of descent: grandmother, mother, daughter):

Renee-->________--> Renesmee

Trivia anyone? Anyone?

2009-03-16T22:41:00.001-07:00

Ok, here we go.

Trivial Pursuit is my favorite game, but no one ever seems to be up for a game, even when I bribe them with cookies.
So my solution is this: I will post one question a day until April 17th. The respondent with the most correct answers will receive a first edition hardback copy of Water Ghosts! In the event of a tie, there will be a tie-breaking round.

These questions are all literature-based. Let's keep it honest--try to refrain from googling the answers! Answers must be received by midnight of the day after the question is posted.

First question (a warm-up):
What author committed suicide shortly after finding himself unable to compose a few sentences for JFK's inauguration?

(source credit: this question is from the Book-Lover's edition of Trivial Pursuit)

Ben Bernanke!

2009-03-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

Weekday mornings on Bart are quiet. Most people are reading, listening to ipods, or sleeping. Same with the return afternoon commute. But Friday night, the cars hum with conversation. Or sometimes erupt. People are dressed up for ballet, opera, plays, wearing clothes that shine in their fanciness. Or they are dressed up for clubbing, looking a little out-of-place against the grotty blue bart seats in their gold lame. And often, they are drunk.

On Friday, I was coming back from a ballet performance by the Napoles Ballet Theatre, which my friend Marika dances in, and two girls got on bart. They looked a little punk, with bleached streaks in their messy hair, tattoos, piercings, and dirty fingerless gloves. One was drinking beer from a bottle hidden in a paper bag.

And they were loud. But this is San Francisco, and true to the city's reputation, these weren't your ordinary rule-flouting, beer-on-bart drinking punk-rock ladies. Every few minutes, one of them would punctuate the air with "BEN BERNANKE!" and then they would continue on talking about the economy.

"The Federal Reserve was founded in 1913," one said in a pseudo-deep voice.
and then she said, "Obama got screwed! That motherfucker got fucked over! What a patsy!" She said this over and over to her friend's murmured responses.

"I got a letter from the Federal Reserve demanding money," said her friend.

"The Federal Reserve can't fucking demand your money. Was it the Franchise Tax Board?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"BEN BERNANKE!"

I learned a lot. One, the Federal Reserve really was established in 1913....

The Leaf Blower

2009-03-10T15:32:00.001-07:00

At the SF Writers Conference last month, I crossed paths with Brian Crawford, who has followed his dream (and the dream of many!) and quit his job to write! He runs a fun blog called The Leaf Blower, and he was kind enough to interview me for his blog. You can check it out here.

In other exciting book news, I just heard that Bay Area author Zachary Mason's book The Lost Books of the Odyssey, which I posted about nearly a year ago, and which was published by the indie press Starcherone Books, is one of this year's finalists for the Young Lions Award (the winner will be announced this weekend). Additionally, the book may be re-released soon by a bigger New York Press.

Rejection Letter, 19th Century Style

2009-03-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

From the preface to The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in which Washington Irving talks about his path to publishing the book:

Several days having elapsed without any communication from Mr. Murray, I addressed a note to him, in which I construed his silence into a tacit rejection of my work, and begged that the numbers I had left with him might be returned to me. The following was his reply:

My Dear Sir,
I entreat you to believe that I feel truly obliged by your kind intentions toward me, and that I entertain the most unfeigned respect for your most tasteful talents. My house is completely filled with work people at this time, and I have only an office to transact business in; and yesterday I was wholly occupied, or I should have done myself the pleasure of seeing you.
If it would not suit me to engage in the publication of your present work it is only becauese I do not see that scope in the nature of it which would enable me to make those satisfactory accounts between us, without which I really feel no satisfaction in engaging--but I will do all I can to promote their circulation, and shall be most ready to attend to any future plan of yours.
With much regard, I remain, dear sir,
Your faithful servant,
John Murray