Reflection on Interior Chinatown Eli Miland Asian Am 240 April 7, 2024.
I chose to read the book Interior Chinatown, a novel by Charles Yu published in 2020. This seemed the most interesting to me when I read the initial book options. The book is separated into 7 acts, which is fitting as it is in the unique format of a screenplay about the main character Willis Wu, an Asian American with Taiwanese ancestry. Willis narrates the script in the second person about himself. Throughout the book he describes a TV show he is filming but it intermingles into his real life, leaving some things up to interpretation on if they are a part of the show or Willis’s perception. Willis is in a family of actors who live in Chinatown. He is limited to being …show more content…
Yu writes this many times in the book and I think a great example is in a dialogue in Act IV. This dialogue is between Willis(Very Special Guest Star) and Karen(Attractive Officer). They are on a show called Black and White, starring a Black male police officer and White female police officer. ““Hey,” you say, he said. “Attractive Officer.” “Very Special Guest Star,” she says. “Here we are.” “Surprised to see you here,” you say. “Why would you be surprised?” “It’s Black and White,” you say. “Thought you’d have a bigger part.” “Asian men aren’t the only invisible people around here, Willis. Look around.” You see what she means. A bunch of Asian dudes and Black women, nibbling on bear claws, stirring powdered creamer into paper cups. “We should do our own thing, someday,” she says. “Black and Yellow.” “You’ll be, what? Ex-CIA?” “Slash supermodel”? Slash, mother of four,” she says. “Their dad takes care of the kids.” “And I’ll be?” “Whatever you want, man,” she says. “A guy can dream,” you say. “Cheers to that.” You touch your small coffee cups to each other’s, a toast to something you both know will never happen”(Yu 78). It took me a while to get used to, but I am not quite intrigued by Yu’s writing style in this book. In the first part of this dialogue, we see how he portrays the dynamic. While the White people and Black men have …show more content…
Willis says, “You have done this before, all of it. Do your best to become Americans. Watched the shows, listened to the tapes, eliminated your accents. Dress right, do your hair, take golf lessons. Encouraged English at home, even. You did everything that was asked of you and more. Until your father realizes that, despite it all, the bigger check, the honorable title, the status of the show, who he is. Fu Manchu. Yellow Man. Everything has changed, nothing has changed”(Yu 96). This explicitly states the efforts Asian American families go to in hopes of assimilating into our culture. He then states that it “worked” when his father got bigger roles and the honorable titles, but they are still not satisfied. He says that everything and nothing has changed, meaning that their roles and status in the American societal eyes has progressed, but they are still just chasing what seems like an impossible goal of truly assimilating. Another example he says illustrates how they try to assimilate is, “You celebrate by frying up a steak, the three of you eating happily and washing the greasy meat down with a two-liter of Coke. A toast to not being other people anymore”(Yu 96). This statement prefaces the previous quote but is intentionally ironic; it says they toast to becoming new people but celebrate with an obvious American meal. Throughout this novel, Charles Yu cleverly depicts the
I chose to read the book Interior Chinatown, a novel by Charles Yu published in 2020. This seemed the most interesting to me when I read the initial book options. The book is separated into 7 acts, which is fitting as it is in the unique format of a screenplay about the main character Willis Wu, an Asian American with Taiwanese ancestry. Willis narrates the script in the second person about himself. Throughout the book he describes a TV show he is filming but it intermingles into his real life, leaving some things up to interpretation on if they are a part of the show or Willis’s perception. Willis is in a family of actors who live in Chinatown. He is limited to being …show more content…
Yu writes this many times in the book and I think a great example is in a dialogue in Act IV. This dialogue is between Willis(Very Special Guest Star) and Karen(Attractive Officer). They are on a show called Black and White, starring a Black male police officer and White female police officer. ““Hey,” you say, he said. “Attractive Officer.” “Very Special Guest Star,” she says. “Here we are.” “Surprised to see you here,” you say. “Why would you be surprised?” “It’s Black and White,” you say. “Thought you’d have a bigger part.” “Asian men aren’t the only invisible people around here, Willis. Look around.” You see what she means. A bunch of Asian dudes and Black women, nibbling on bear claws, stirring powdered creamer into paper cups. “We should do our own thing, someday,” she says. “Black and Yellow.” “You’ll be, what? Ex-CIA?” “Slash supermodel”? Slash, mother of four,” she says. “Their dad takes care of the kids.” “And I’ll be?” “Whatever you want, man,” she says. “A guy can dream,” you say. “Cheers to that.” You touch your small coffee cups to each other’s, a toast to something you both know will never happen”(Yu 78). It took me a while to get used to, but I am not quite intrigued by Yu’s writing style in this book. In the first part of this dialogue, we see how he portrays the dynamic. While the White people and Black men have …show more content…
Willis says, “You have done this before, all of it. Do your best to become Americans. Watched the shows, listened to the tapes, eliminated your accents. Dress right, do your hair, take golf lessons. Encouraged English at home, even. You did everything that was asked of you and more. Until your father realizes that, despite it all, the bigger check, the honorable title, the status of the show, who he is. Fu Manchu. Yellow Man. Everything has changed, nothing has changed”(Yu 96). This explicitly states the efforts Asian American families go to in hopes of assimilating into our culture. He then states that it “worked” when his father got bigger roles and the honorable titles, but they are still not satisfied. He says that everything and nothing has changed, meaning that their roles and status in the American societal eyes has progressed, but they are still just chasing what seems like an impossible goal of truly assimilating. Another example he says illustrates how they try to assimilate is, “You celebrate by frying up a steak, the three of you eating happily and washing the greasy meat down with a two-liter of Coke. A toast to not being other people anymore”(Yu 96). This statement prefaces the previous quote but is intentionally ironic; it says they toast to becoming new people but celebrate with an obvious American meal. Throughout this novel, Charles Yu cleverly depicts the