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The Language of Blood
Few authors venture to write in a language that is not their mother tongue. It’s hard enough to write. Why make it any more difficult by adapting a new vocabulary, grammar and syntax? Some might even call it a betrayal of country, home, blood. the chinese typewriter My grandfather wrote in English. Born and bred…
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Pig Knuckle Soup
My mother believes in soup. Whenever I was too sick to go to school, she would start a pot bubbling. I remember the reek of blood leaching out of bones. The suds that rise to the surface of the boiling water and the yellow pools of fat hiding below. When my mother wasn’t looking, I…
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The Good Immigrant
All across the country, people felt it was the wrong thing. All across the country, people felt it was the right thing. All across the country, people felt they’d really won. All across the country, people felt they’d done the right thing and other people had done the wrong thing.” This quote comes from Ali…
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Through the Looking Glass: An Asian-American Identity
Reading is a search for identity. We look for ourselves between the pages and sometimes we get lucky. For me, the first time was Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. It’s a mixture of memoir, Chinese myth and family tales of life in and outside of China. She called her style of writing talk-story: reminiscing about…
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Christmas Chinese-American Style
Christmas in Los Angeles is a contradiction in terms. The plastic icicles taped to the roof. The electrified snowman set among the cacti. But Christmas Chinese-American style takes weirdness to a whole new level. Not that my family was strange. We were like others at Christmas, Chinese-American or not. For Christmas Eve, we invited all the relatives,…
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Welcome to My Shanghai Noir Blog
From 2016 to 2021, I had a weekly blog called Shanghai Noir. I retired that blog during the pandemic but you can still peruse old posts in my Dead Letter Office. Why was I so obsessed with Shanghai? Read on. Shanghai: 2016 In 2016, Shanghai is a sprawling metropolis with an estimated population of over 24.1 million.…