Ep. 312 Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu — The Stacks Book Club (Elise Hu)

Written By Cherie Marquez

Flawless author Elise Hu returns to discuss our March book club pick Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. We talk about the satirical novel’s themes of assimilation, the performance of imposed identity and the myth of the model minority. We also ask, who gets to be “American”?

Be sure to listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our April book club pick will be.


 
 

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TRANSCRIPT
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Traci Thomas 00:00:09
Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host, Traci Thomas, and today is The Stacks Book Club Day. We are joined again by the wonderful author of the book Flawless, Elise Hu, to discuss the New York Times bestselling and National Book Award winning novel Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. It’s a satirical novel written in the style of a screenplay that follows Willis Wu. He hasn’t yet taken the main stage in his own life when he is thrown into unexpected action and adventure. It’s a book that deals with racial stereotyping, the performances we all do, and what it really means to assimilate. Elise and I talk about all of that and more on today’s episode. And yes, there are spoilers. Listen through to the end of today’s episode to find out what our April book club pick will be. Quick reminder, everything we talk about on each episode of the Stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. All right, I am joined again by the wonderful journalist, author and my newest friend, I would say, Elise Hu. Elise, welcome back to The Stacks.

Elise Hu 00:02:08
I am so excited to be back because I loved this book.

Traci Thomas 00:02:11
And this book that we’re talking about is Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. It came out in 2020. It won the National Book Award. Uh, it was a national bestseller. And I’ll give you guys a quick rundown about it. We will spoil the book. So if you haven’t read it yet, you should stop and read it and come back. We’ll be here. Um, but the premise is Willis Wu is a background actor on a show called Black and White, a cop procedural, and he wants to be a kung fu guy, I should say. This book is a satire. It’s written like a screenplay, and it’s a commentary about Asian people in media and America and assimilation and sort of the performances that people, Asian people specifically. But I think all of us sort of fall into, um, in the pursuit of the American ideal, or Americanness.

Elise Hu 00:03:09
Which is coded as whiteness, or American dominant culture, which tends to be coded as whiteness.

Traci Thomas 00:03:15
Right, right, yes. Americanness as in, like, the preconceived notion of America, which is white, and not necessarily Americanness, which is actually all of us.

Elise Hu 00:03:24
Right.

Traci Thomas 00:03:26
Um. Okay, let’s start where we always start, generally. What did you think about the book, Elise?

Elise Hu 00:03:31
I thought it was such a delight to read. It’s pretty fast paced because it is written as a screenplay, so what a cool format. I loved the way he played with form here. Um, Willis Wu is a character, as you described in this procedural. Um, so during the screenplay parts of this book, where you see the dialogue and you see the shots described, like interior and exterior and moving shots, where if you’ve seen a screenplay form, obviously, and I’m assuming most of, um, the listeners have, each shot has to be described because a film is a visual medium. And so that part moved very quickly. But in writing it as a screenplay, um, the author, Charles Yu, actually got to step out of the story, sometimes step out of the cop procedural black and white, and narrate what was going on in Willis Wu’s head and his commentary about asian american history in America and what it means to feel kind of invisible in the US. So I overall just really loved it. It’s a blazingly fast read. I don’t know how much time it took you. I know you tend to have to power through a lot of books. So how long did it take you to get through?

Traci Thomas 00:04:44
I think I read it in two days. I don’t know. Yeah, it was a pretty fast read. Maybe three. Um, I generally liked the book. I overall had a really fun time. I think the questions he’s asking about assimilation and all of that stuff, I’m really interested in. I’m black, and so I was coming to this book with sort know. I think generally, and we can get into this more, the conversation around assimilation for black people is really different in America because many of us were brought here and our ancestors were brought here. And so it’s not the same thing of like, I gave up my life to come to this country, which is like, sort of the immigrant narrative. Right. And so I’m always interested in thinking about how black people are positioned in these kinds of conversations. And I think that that’s, like, a really interesting part of this book for me, personally. I know that’s like a very me centric read. But that was something I was thinking about a lot with the character of Turner, but also with the ways that Willis Wu was thinking about and talking about the black character. So that was really interesting to me. And then I also was just thinking about a lot about the rules of the world, sort of like speculative fiction. Right. It’s not exactly just straight up. Willis is an actor, and he goes home and he’s not on set anymore, because the whole thing is written like a screenplay, not just the like. So I was really interested in that. I found it to be really interesting formally, and I was excited by it generally. I have some nitpicks later on.

Elise Hu 00:06:15
Okay.

Traci Thomas 00:06:15
But generally, a solid a of a book. I would say, uh, overall, really good.

Elise Hu 00:06:22
And my main take on this, and why I feel like I enjoyed it so much, is because it is a book about race and identity, and we have gotten really serious, or tend to be self serious when we talk about race and identity in America and sexuality and gender. And I understand why we take it seriously. Obviously, there can be occasionally fatal consequences when it comes to the intersection of these various issues. I understand the impulse to be really serious, but this book, um, shows us there are other ways to build empathy. There are other ways to talk about these kinds of issues and get people interested. And laughter and absurdity is one of those ways. And I thought the author did that very well.

Traci Thomas 00:07:04
Yeah, I think we should start there because this is a satire. And I was thinking a lot, again, about the formal elements of this book, because I think you can’t really read it and not think about it because it’s so in your face. Just like the courier font, like everything you’re seeing.

Elise Hu 00:07:19
The spacing.

Traci Thomas 00:07:20
Yeah. He’s telling you. I want you to think about the form of this book. That is his instruction to us. And I was thinking a lot about satire, and I feel like one of the things about satire that’s different than general comedy is that satire. I feel the author and the reader are having a conversation, and the reader has to be somewhat in the know. The reader has to be in community in some way with the author.

Elise Hu 00:07:45
Yes.

Traci Thomas 00:07:46
If there’s not a wink, wink, ha ha, irony situation going on, it’s not satire, and it doesn’t work. And so I think part of, to what you’re saying is not only is Charles Yu using humor to do a lot of the work for him, but he’s also using what I’m, see, what I’m getting at. The show is called black and white, and it’s about America. You see there’s no asian in there. Like, ha, I’m not in this story. And I think that that was so successful in this. Like, I think this is an extremely successful satire.

Elise Hu 00:08:21
What I liked was his constant referral of honor. Like, his characters, they all had to perform a kung fu feat or show filial piety or save face or all these ideas that have become really asian tropes. One of them in particular, of course, was like, I did it for the honor of my family, or something about honor. And it was so funny. If you already know that these stereotypes exist and those are tropes rather than necessarily reality.

Traci Thomas 00:08:51
Right. And he even does it on a really fine level with the language, especially early in the book. He talks a lot about so and so has lost the plot or like this. He is referring to film, I guess. What do you jargon turns afraid. Yeah, like, lost the plot or like, this thing about this character. And she was really off the page. She hopped off the page, and you’re just like, this is so, uh, wink, wink, nod, nod. And it really, normally I hate it, but it was so aggressively in your face that it really worked for me, because I think from the beginning, he’s saying to you, like, come on, I’ve got opinions. Don’t you want to hear them? And he’s not trying to create this sort of, like, it’s not subtle, and usually that doesn’t work, but it works.

Elise Hu 00:09:43
I completely agree. Until we get to the end. I don’t know if I’m supposed to jump to this.

Traci Thomas 00:09:49
Let’s jump. Because the end was where I struggled.

Elise Hu 00:09:52
Act six, Willis Wu is on trial, I think act six for what? That’s what was so confusing to me, because act six is called the case of the missing Asian or something like that, or the case of the disappeared Asian. And all throughout the plot of the book leading up to that point, the missing Asian was his older brother. But for whatever reason, by act six, his brother is his attorney.

Traci Thomas 00:10:20
He’s back.

Elise Hu 00:10:21
So his older brother is back to represent him, Willis, as the missing Asian. And I’m guessing this is a meta commentary about how Willis has disappeared his true self or something like that. But I got a little confused, and I think maybe that was the point of the trial itself, just to say, hey.

Traci Thomas 00:10:41
Yeah, well, okay, so this is how I pieced it together. Basically, this is what I did. Or, uh, this is what I was thinking. Because at the end of act five, Willis leaves. Remember, he takes a car, he leaves set. Right. So I think literally they’re saying that he, because he’s on trial for kidnap. For kidnapping an asian person, and that is he kidnapped himself. Okay, the question is, he is the missing Asian because he got it. The car off set. I must have ran away.

Elise Hu 00:11:09
That pivot.

Traci Thomas 00:11:10
Yeah. He’s the missing Asian at this point, but the other missing Asian was his brother, which is brother. And now he’s back. Of course, he’s a great lawyer because he’s older brother, and older brother is great at everything. And he is then on trial for kidnapping himself. But then also, he’s the victim of a kidnapping. And so if he’s guilty, that means he kidnapped himself, and if he’s not guilty, that means he did it. Okay, I get it was a little tricky for me at the end of that scene, I still wrote in my book, wait, what did he do?

Elise Hu 00:11:43
Okay. Clearly, I’m still thinking that, because I was like, this is where it lost me a little bit, at least the plot details of it. But it didn’t really matter that much to my experience of the book because of what the book was overall trying to say.

Traci Thomas 00:11:57
And because we’d gotten so absurd at this, like, it had gotten so crazy that it was sort of like, okay, let’s go with it. Okay. Before we get too far into the ending, I want to go back and talk a little bit about the plot of the book. Um, so Willis Wu, we meet him. He’s a background guy. We kind of learn that this is the part about the speculative fictiony stuff, like the world of the rules that I didn’t quite understand. There was clearly a script for the show, right. But you could, as an actor, inject yourself into the script, and then the other actors would just keep going. Right. That’s how Willis sort of gets his break to become background asian, or like, asian guy two and asian guy one was by being like, hey, he went that way. And then them, um, being like, what did you say? You. And where there was a script, but it was almost like reality tv, too, because sometimes Turner and Green, the two detectives, would also break from the script. Did you have any thoughts or feelings about that?

Elise Hu 00:13:00
I didn’t get confused that much when they were jumping in and out of it, because I thought that he did a good job at the very outset, establishing the rules of the hierarchy, that essentially he was generic man three and then he wanted to be generic asian man two and then generic asian man one, and then that the highest rung of the ladder was to be kung fu guy, which his father, who we should talk about a little bit, too, his father had finally achieved. And so in the scenes of black and white, once black and white were taken into black and white and this cop procedural, I got the sense that he was trying to find ways to elbow himself in in order to come up the hierarchy. So that wasn’t too confusing for me. Until the story gets farther along and we’re still in the procedural. And then I’m like, wait, are we trying to solve a case still? And it’s a case of the week, obviously, because black and white is supposed to be modeled after any procedural, like law and order or New Amsterdam or whatever. The ones that I can’t think of right now that are on.

Traci Thomas 00:14:05
Exactly.

Elise Hu 00:14:06
So I didn’t. That didn’t lose me, um, until we were farther along in the-

Traci Thomas 00:14:14
And then, so he’s on the show, whatever. He kind of makes himself important. And we learn that if you are killed off on the show, which ends up happening to Willis, you have to take a 45 day break. M you’re like, on furlough. You can’t work for 45 days because they have to be able to forget you enough. The audience has to be able to forget you enough, and then you can come back and play like anybody. We have to start at the bottom again.

Elise Hu 00:14:37
You can be a delivery boy, yes.

Traci Thomas 00:14:39
Which I also love that detail of, like, well, you can be back in a little bit because I’m a person who watches Grey’s Anatomy still.

Elise Hu 00:14:49
Season 20.

Traci Thomas 00:14:50
I know the new season starts next week, I think. Or this week. Thursday, maybe. Anyways, not important. Thursday, as we’re recording, as you’re listening, it’s already come back. Um, as a person who watches a show like that, I do think about. Or like law and order, like all the working actors in New York City who have been on an episode of law and order and then die as a dead body. That’s it. You’re done.

Elise Hu 00:15:16
Good luck.

Traci Thomas 00:15:16
Hope you had that. Nice. Um, the. This is all the plot of just Willis because there’s other stuff going on, but all of Willis. So Willis then eventually meets this woman who’s kind of like a high, uh, up, ethnically, um, ambiguous friend of the detectives. She’s, like, adjacent detective, but she’s not green or Turner. She’s like, other person who is something, but we don’t know, and she’s nice to him. And then they hit it off, and then they start dating, and then they fall in love, and then they have a kid, and then they fight because she has career opportunities to have her own show. But Willis really wants to become kung fu guy because he’s working his way towards his one big goal, which is to be kung fu guy, which means he’s made it as an asian. And I say asian because it’s very specifically not any kind of asian. It’s very generally. Right. Like, we know a little bit about Willis’s family, but as far as the show is concerned, it’s just like, Asian guy.

Elise Hu 00:16:18
He’s slotted into that.

Traci Thomas 00:16:20
Yes, it’s generally Asian.

Elise Hu 00:16:21
Right.

Traci Thomas 00:16:22
Um, so Willis is like, fuck you, Karen, my wife.

Elise Hu 00:16:26
Fuck you, kid.

Traci Thomas 00:16:27
I’m going to be kung fu guy and becomes a deadbeat dad. Kung fu guy. And then he runs away. And then that takes us the confusing.

Elise Hu 00:16:38
Trial at the end, because who was running or who had disappeared? Was it him? Was it his brother? Okay, so something that I wanted to point out was, just, as you mentioned, how he’s become deadbeat. There was an interesting parallel between how he abandoned his family in order to assimilate, or, um, not necessarily assimilate, but achieve this upper echelon of kung fu guy because his father very much did the exact same thing. He was largely alienated from his father, or felt alienated from his father because his father had, after immigrating to the United States from Taiwan, after seeing his own father get shot by taiwanese militia, he came to the United States and was studying like he was in grad school or something rather academic, but found that he couldn’t get past his forever foreigner status and wound up just playing into the idea of asian guy as kung fu guy and really became a kung fu master, which is called sufu in the story. Sufu meaning, um, which is how you address, um, somebody who’s teaching you anything, really, uh, in Chinese. And so it was interesting, a parallel between the father and son and how they both kind of became alienated from their kids. And then also, um, his wife, Karen. His eventual wife, Karen. It is revealed, I guess, after their romantic montage, which was a fun little interlude. I think that was my favorite part of the book, actually. It was revealed after their quick romantic montage that she was actually in the poster of the show as the third character, and then she reveals to him during their courtship that she can speak some taiwanese, and apparently she can speak taiwanese better than Willis himself. And he was surprised that she had this identity. And, uh, she was sort of like, this is a commentary on how it’s advantageous in many cases to appear ethnically ambiguous, because then you can get slotted into more roles as an actor. But also it shows how society tends to reward those that aren’t too foreigner looking, quote unquote foreigner. I’m holding up my marks, um, and have some sort of proximity to whiteness.

Traci Thomas 00:18:58
Well, right. And that ethnically ambiguous thing is, like, I feel like it’s one of those things that we’re always constantly told is in.

Elise Hu 00:19:07
It’s always in to not look too much of your race.

Traci Thomas 00:19:12
Yeah, exactly. Because in the beginning, remember, he thinks that she’s maybe, like, Latina. Yes. That’s how he described her originally. And I know. I think the performance of blank, whether that’s blackness for Turner or white, ladiness for green, and obviously asianness for most of the characters in this, is just so interesting to me. And I’m so obsessed with the idea of performance generally, but specifically with this book. Like, the whole performance of older brother.

Elise Hu 00:19:46
Uh, that he’s m the high achiever, the striver, the one that could do no wrong.

Traci Thomas 00:19:51
Right. And that he’s the one who disappears, that we’re all looking for, that the whole thing revolves around. Because he is the perfect asian man. Right. He’s just tall enough, but not so tall to be like Yao Ming. Right. Like, that’s part of it. And that he’s handsome and he can slam dunk, and he’s good at school and he’s a lawyer. And I find all of that because I think what’s interesting to me about performance is that as regular people, we play into it too.

Elise Hu 00:20:22
All the world’s a stage.

Traci Thomas 00:20:24
Yeah. And that there is even this book existing, and Charles Yu being recognized for it. And even that is performance. You know what mean? Like, I feel like it’s a little meta, but I just think about who gets to be the Asian, who writes the book that wins the National Book Award, who gets to be the Asian who is on NPR and does Ted talks daily, who gets to be the black girl who talks about books in a fun way. And why us? I think that that is a really interesting. I don’t know if interesting. That’s just something that I think about a. Yeah, yeah.

Elise Hu 00:21:07
It’s definitely worth unpacking, because I remember there were lots of things that this book then sort of reminded me of in the deep recesses of my know, um, when I first moved to Washington, DC to work at NPR. I was in line for a Starbucks. So this is all, I’m bringing this up all in the context of all this anti AApi hate that has happened in the wake of, um, coronavirus or after coronavirus emerged, and, uh, has never gone away. But we’ve just gotten a lot more attention for this anti asian violence that’s been happening. And I grew up in very white places, as you know, I grew up in suburban St. Louis and then suburban Dallas. And so I never really questioned my identity that much. I had run into various tinges of racism from other kids and things like that. But it wasn’t until, um, I was like, 29 years old and living in Washington, DC and, uh, in line for a Starbucks that an old veteran, I assume, came up to me and said, we won the war. Go home. And I was so taken aback by this. This sense that, well, first of all, he had confused me with the japanese people, right?

Traci Thomas 00:22:27
Oh, I was thinking the Vietnamese people.

Elise Hu 00:22:30
Because we lost that war.

Traci Thomas 00:22:31
Well, we did. But I feel I was thinking that he was, like, trying to write the record.

Elise Hu 00:22:37
Well, it could have been either way.

Traci Thomas 00:22:38
It could have been Korean. Who knows? History doesn’t matter.

Elise Hu 00:22:44
Yes, but just this notion of not belonging here. And I think that happens so often when marginalized communities are targeted by racism. And, uh, what got me thinking about this was the dad was the father, and then the mother, because they had done everything supposedly right. They paid their taxes, they went to college, they were productive citizens, or they tried to be. And yet, when he was in college, when the dad was in college. He was finally earning a salary more than he had ever earned and then more.

Traci Thomas 00:23:21
More than he would ever earn again, right?

Elise Hu 00:23:23
And more than he would ever earn again because he ended up, him and his cohort of other asian students ended up getting targeted by antiaging hate, essentially. And this notion of being able to try and do everything right and assimilate, play by the rules that you’re supposed to play by, um, learn the etiquette, learn the norms, and be here, in many cases, longer than a lot of european immigrants. Something that they point out in this book is the history of, um, exclusion of Asians and chinese migration to America. And despite being in America, in many cases longer than european immigrants, still being seen as people who don’t belong, um, people who can be the targets of casual jokes. It continues. I mean, we just saw Shane, what’s his name? Shane Gillis. Host Saturday Night Live or get invited back to host Saturday Night Live. Despite losing his job on the cast for all these anti asian and homophobic and anti semitic slurs. So there is a sense that the you don’t belong here idea continues to ripple despite, ah, everything else you do to try and be a part of dominant culture.

Traci Thomas 00:24:39
Right. And also in the father’s storyline, his friend Alan is beaten up. And, uh, the father lives in a house with, like, it’s like a multicultural house. There’s indian guys, there’s a korean, there’s a, like, just the general general restaurant. You know, it’s like a restaurant that serves like, thai food. And you’re just like, what’s happening? Sushi and pad Thai. Okay, go off. Um, and one of them, Alan, he is beaten to almost death. And, um, the father and the friends are like, it could have been any of us. And that’s the point. It was supposed to be. It wasn’t about Alan. It was about all of us. It was targeted at all of us.

Elise Hu 00:25:30
I really felt that way. And I felt that way in 2020, 2021, um, in the wake of the Atlanta shootings, for example. Um, but I should point out that this book was actually written before all of that before. So it’s an interesting, um, and very prescient book because I think it was written in 2019. Uh, I think it came out. It came out in 2020, but obviously written in four.

Traci Thomas 00:25:54
Yeah. And I think a thing that I learned in 2020 around anti black racism, um, not that I learned, but a thing that I think I definitely didn’t learn this then. But then a thing that I think is a reminder is none of this is new. And that’s why a book like this could be written in 2019 and reference violence that was happening, I guess, like maybe in the 60s or seventy s, I think. And that could feel just as prescient, uh, four years forward, because none of this is new. And the anti asian violence and the anti asian rhetoric and hatred that all it goes back, which is why he talks about the chinese exclusion act and all of that. And he even talks about the slurs that they’re called and how China man is like, he’s like, well, that one.

Elise Hu 00:26:42
Feels sort of also-

Traci Thomas 00:26:44
But also was like the worst one, right? That was one he was the most uncomfortable with. Even though he’s like, I am from China and I am a man. So at least versus when they call them Jap or something, it’s not really me.

Elise Hu 00:26:59
Right.

Traci Thomas 00:26:59
Um, so I did find all of that stuff with the dad story probably to be my favorite parts of the book. Like the parts of the book that I was the most maybe touched by. Yeah, I just found that to be really, like, I’m really good. I don’t know. It’s not a great descriptor, but that’s what I felt.

Elise Hu 00:27:18
It was good when they opened him up and we heard about the backstory of the dad, and this is actually one of my quibbles with the book. I loved the backstory and how much they developed the dad character, and I worry that it was at the expense of the mom character. I would have liked to have a little bit more mom character. They talk about how she was always, like, the pretty oriental girl or whatever. They described her as, like, the pretty Chinese lady, and that her looks mattered so much for so long. Until they didn’t, until she became.

Traci Thomas 00:27:51
But I think that was a choice, right? Like, the choice is to follow the male line, of course, older brother. And I think that that also follows with the stereotypes around asian women, which is like, they’re just pretty, and they just, like, I know, are nice, and they make delicious food, and they stand to the side and look beautiful and support their husband. So I think it definitely was at the expense of the mom character, but I think that was all.

Elise Hu 00:28:14
Yeah, it’s totally a defensible choice, um, in the service of the father son story. The father and the two son story, really.

Traci Thomas 00:28:22
Ah.

Elise Hu 00:28:22
And then also, we did get a lot. We got a real glimpse into their marriage, too, the mom and the dad’s marriage, which I also enjoyed. So not only did I like the romantic montage between Willis and Karen, I also really liked the backstory, um, when the dad and the mom sort of met working at the restaurant and ended up having to get married there.

Traci Thomas 00:28:44
I loved the wedding. Yeah, I did too. It was very cute. I could just totally picture that scene in a movie.

Elise Hu 00:28:54
Yeah, exactly. How did you read this book? How did you consume this book? Did you listen, or did you read it?

Traci Thomas 00:28:59
I read it with my eyes off of the physical page.

Elise Hu 00:29:01
Okay.

Traci Thomas 00:29:02
Yeah, just like a physical book.

Elise Hu 00:29:04
I didn’t love the audiobook experience that much. Maybe just because of the narrator.

Traci Thomas 00:29:10
Ah.

Elise Hu 00:29:10
I don’t remember who it was. I don’t think it’s some notable narrator guy, but it’s one of those things where some people who watched past lives who speak Korean were like, oh, I couldn’t get past Greta Lee’s korean accent, um, because it was so bad. Or I watched Aquafina in the farewell, and her Chinese. I couldn’t get past, um, and in this case, the narrator just messed up the romanization of a lot of the Chinese in there, and it just took me out of the story, I think. Um, and also I expected black and white, the scenes where we got into the cop procedural. I expected more play with scoring. Like, I wanted to hear the law and order duh dump. I wanted to hear it acted out. So I felt as though, as an audiobook experience, there was more opportunity to actually make it a play, like an audio play, but instead it was just this one guy.

Traci Thomas 00:30:09
Oh, interesting. That sort of sucks. Uh, I don’t like that.

Elise Hu 00:30:14
I know that you listen to a lot of audiobooks.

Traci Thomas 00:30:16
I do. I don’t usually listen to fiction because it’s harder for me, for whatever reason. Fiction is just hard, I think because of the dialogue and everything. Um, but I might go back and just listen to a little bit of.

Elise Hu 00:30:26
This just to see.

Traci Thomas 00:30:27
I know a lot of people in The Stacks Pack did listen.

Elise Hu 00:30:29
I thought they did a disservice to the author by not having, um, not doing more with the audio.

Traci Thomas 00:30:35
Um, to, can I ask you something about past life since you brought it up, or just say something? I heard that criticism of Greta Lee’s Korean, and obviously I don’t speak Korean, so I really don’t know. But wasn’t that sort of her character because she had left Korea, so her accent would be bad, or would they say, I guess she was old enough to probably still have a good accent.

Elise Hu 00:30:54
M so I guess the argument among at least my korean american friends is that she was supposed to have been born and raised in Korea until she was like twelve or 13.

Traci Thomas 00:31:04
Yeah. So she should have, right.

Elise Hu 00:31:06
She shouldn’t have spoken like somebody who was born in the United States and just spoke occasionally with. Their parents were at church. But this is such a quibble.

Traci Thomas 00:31:17
I mean, I don’t know. I can’t speak to it, but I’m sure that if I was korean or spoke korean or whatever, I would be annoyed out of it. Yeah, for sure. Um, however, as a non korean person, she was so good.

Elise Hu 00:31:30
Oh, I felt that movie in my soul, her acting.

Traci Thomas 00:31:33
She’s a really great actress.

Elise Hu 00:31:35
The line reads, when they first connected on Skype.

Traci Thomas 00:31:38
Yes.

Elise Hu 00:31:39
I felt it in every, uh, part of my body. I was just like, oh, my God. Beautifully done.

Traci Thomas 00:31:44
If you haven’t seen the movie yet, people, it’s on streaming now, so you can watch it. I think Paramount plus has it. Okay, we’ll link to it in the show notes.

Elise Hu 00:31:50
Okay.

Traci Thomas 00:31:51
I just watched it because the know, I tried to catch everything right before the. I want to talk more in depth about sort of the goal of assimilation or the idea, uh, of assimilation, because, as I mentioned, I think the black experience in America. Black american experience, not immigrant black experience. So people whose families were here, brought here during. From as early as the 15 hundreds through to the end of slavery, that experience. Assimilation, uh, is really different because, I guess, not assimilation, but the idea of choosing to be here or wanting to be american is different because.

Elise Hu 00:32:47
It wasn’t a choice.

Traci Thomas 00:32:49
It wasn’t a choice, but also, like, we built this country, and so it is a different relationship. And I do think that black Americans, who what I affectionately call slave black, which I know a lot of people don’t care for, but that’s how I distinguish it from other black Americans. Anyways, don’t sue me. Um, so you mean.

Elise Hu 00:33:09
Oh, you distinguish it from, like, Jamaican Americans?

Traci Thomas 00:33:14
Yeah. Because the problem with Blackness in America is, like, once you come to America, you immediately become African American or Black, even if your family is jamaican or if you are from Africa, like, you’re nigerian. But you come here, your experience is totally different.

Elise Hu 00:33:32
Right.

Traci Thomas 00:33:32
First generation Nigerian American is a totally different experience than someone like me, whose family has been here for I don’t know how long, but at least since the 1860s or, uh, whenever 1830s. And so I think we don’t think of assimilation in the same way. Even though there is a call to assimilate black people, there’s always been a call to assimilate into american culture, but it’s just different. There’s no. This is the american dream. I’m coming to this place for a better life for my family. Right.

Elise Hu 00:34:00
Yes, I totally get it.

Traci Thomas 00:34:01
And so I’m curious, sort of your thoughts about assimilation and how you think about it or how this book’s talking about it resonated for you.

Elise Hu 00:34:12
My thoughts on it have really evolved, because as a child, assimilation was a real matter of survival. I just wanted to fit in. I didn’t want to stand out.

Traci Thomas 00:34:22
Right.

Elise Hu 00:34:22
Um, I wanted to do whatever my white friends were doing and have the same food that my white friends were having and celebrate the same holidays and go to church. Despite the fact that my family wasn’t religious, I just wanted to fit in. As I’ve gotten older and really reckoned with my identity, I have come to think of assimilation as more a race that people of color can never win.

Traci Thomas 00:34:48
Right.

Elise Hu 00:34:48
It’s set up in a way that we have to kind of aspire to something that we’ll never achieve, which is being a white american right. And it forces this choice between success as it’s defined in America and then our actual souls and our emotional engines and our cultures and who we are. And I often, especially growing up in the places I grew up, I often had to choose success or whatever was deemed successful. And I think that the effect that it had on me was kind of turning down some parts of me that I would have otherwise wanted to express. Like I would have wanted to try more sports, for example. Um, but that was seen as something that asian kids didn’t do because asian kids played musical instruments or excelled at school. Even my big beef about a lot of asian stereotypes is the math one in particular, uh, because I could never live up to the math one. Um, but I have really come to reject assimilation because I see it as kind of rigged. And somebody who wrote an excellent book on this from the latino perspective is Julisa Arse. She wrote a book called you sound like a white girl. And it is an argument to kind of reject assimilation because of this notion of how it keeps people of color in a race that you can’t win.

Traci Thomas 00:36:23
Yeah, Julissa came on the show, we talked about it and I loved our conversation. I feel like part of what’s really interesting about assimilation when it comes know immigrant groups is that there’s all these stereotypes that are also part of assimilation. It’s like what you’re talking about of having to be good at math because you’re asian, even though that is the opposite of assimilation, because isn’t it that white people are just like regular at math, right? If you want to assimilate, you should just be like a b math student. That would be really moving towards the white me.

Elise Hu 00:36:58
But there’s this model minority myth, right?

Traci Thomas 00:37:01
That you have to be better, that you have to prove yourself and that then that’s how you’ll be accepted or whatever the logic is. But there’s a part in the book where he says, um, he asked to be treated like a white man. And I think more than anything, right, that is the goal of assimilation, is to be treated like, to have the powers and the abilities of white men.

Elise Hu 00:37:24
Yes, you remind me of a really important exchange in the book because I think one of the women, like maybe the white woman cop, even says to Willis, do you think you’re the only one who’s invisible? You’re not the only one who’s so. Which is to say white women can often be marginalized.

Traci Thomas 00:37:44
Um, yeah, let me just read it.

Elise Hu 00:37:46
There it is.

Traci Thomas 00:37:47
Exactly. That’s the exact sentence I’m talking about. So here’s what Green says. She says, what are you looking for? Do you think you’re the only group to be invisible? How about older women? Older people in general, people that are overweight, people that don’t conform to conventional western beauty standards, black women, women in general, in the workplace. Are you sure you’re not looking for something that you feel entitled to? Isn’t this a kind of narcissism? Are you sure you’re not asking to be treated like a white man?

Elise Hu 00:38:13
Yeah.

Traci Thomas 00:38:14
Right. And then older brother, in response, says he’s asking to be treated like an american, a real american. Because honestly, when you think american, what color do you see? White? Black? Mhm. Mhm. I mean, I would argue that when people say american, they don’t see black.

Elise Hu 00:38:34
No.

Traci Thomas 00:38:34
Even though I would also argue that black Americans are. We’ve been here just as long. Yeah.

Elise Hu 00:38:40
And the economy did a lot more. The economy of this.

Traci Thomas 00:38:45
Think, like. But I also find that argument from, like, I just think about white women feminism, and it’s a thing that I feel like I have experienced, and I’m curious if you’ve experienced it too, where you express a feeling or a feeling of frustration or wanting to be treated in a certain way, and then immediately a white woman comes in and says, well, what do you think? I am so pressed. Yes. Women, older women, ugly women, women who don’t conform to beauty standard. Like, okay, green, we’re not fucking talking about you right now. Can you just go be white in the corner for a second quietly, while we talk about whether or not I have kidnapped myself? I just find that, of course, to be so spot on, and she’s not wrong. But also, who’s on trial right now, right? Yeah. This is not your moment.

Elise Hu 00:39:39
Your house isn’t on fire right now.

Traci Thomas 00:39:41
Right?

Elise Hu 00:39:42
So we don’t have to put out those particular flames.

Traci Thomas 00:39:44
Right. And also, all of those groups of people that you’ve named, if they were asian on top of it, it would be worse for them.

Elise Hu 00:39:52
Hugely important point, right?

Traci Thomas 00:39:55
Yeah. I don’t know. I think I know the answer, but I just really wonder, when we talk about assimilation, is being a white guy really aspirational? When we think of all that white men have done and what that moral ethos is, or if you can even have one.

Elise Hu 00:40:17
Right. This is why the logic of assimilation doesn’t really make that much sense when you think about it too hard, because you’re not really wanting to be a mediocre white guy. You want the privileges afforded to a mediocre white guy. The way that they get the benefit of the doubt, the confidence that they have when they walk into a room despite being wholly unqualified. That kind of, uh, benefit of the doubt is what I think seems so aspirational to Willis in this book and to other marginalized groups often.

Traci Thomas 00:40:50
But actually being the guy, right.

Elise Hu 00:40:53
Is a different thing.

Traci Thomas 00:40:55
I think that what people who want to assimilate what they’re asking for, what they want, is to be seen and heard as they are. They don’t actually necessarily want to be white. If they could do it without conforming to whiteness, I think that they would not. Generally. I don’t know. I can’t speak to everybody. I do think that there are some people of color from all different groups who would like to be white.

Elise Hu 00:41:16
But what are you really wanting is what we’re trying to get at, right.

Traci Thomas 00:41:19
Uh, is that important? I think one of the things you hear a lot from kids, especially asian kids, is lunchtime. They bring food, and then other kids say racist shit to them. But if those kids could just fucking eat their food in peace and still not get made fun of, whatever, would they want to eat different food? Do you know what I mean? That’s like a really plain boring example. Uh, like, not a great analogy, but I think the question of assimilation is, if I could just live my life as I am and not get beat up for it and not get racist things said and not get paid a fraction of what other people get paid for it, would I actually want to be a white guy?

Elise Hu 00:41:55
No. And I think that the reason why then, is just the privileges that it affords you. The privileges to exist how you are and eat what you want and play the instruments that you want, or the sports or try the things. So the general sense of selfhood just existing, how you are.

Traci Thomas 00:42:13
Right. But of course, that’s impossible here because of the way the racism functions and all of our systems. Um, did you read minor feelings by Kathy Parkham? Yes.

Elise Hu 00:42:24
It was an essay collection, actually. I reviewed it, I think.

Traci Thomas 00:42:28
Did you? Okay. Um, I read it and I liked it. I didn’t love it in the way that a lot of people loved it. Um, I think the first few essays are really good and interesting, and I think it sort of lost me in the back half.

Elise Hu 00:42:41
There were some that were highly academic that I also got lost in, but there were some essays that spoke to me and also educated me a lot that I didn’t sort of know. So I thought overall, it was a good book. I gave it a pretty good review, except for the parts where I was.

Traci Thomas 00:42:56
Like, okay, this is what’s happening.

Elise Hu 00:42:58
This is getting too cerebral.

Traci Thomas 00:42:59
Yeah, I agree. But I think what the book has been sort of turned. What people think of the book now is like, it’s a conversation about being asian in America, in a black and white America kind of thing. Right? There’s not a space that exists in America for asian people, because America is so black and white. And I think that that’s obviously what he’s getting with, with calling the tv show black and white. Um, and he was on the nose on purpose. It’s so on the nose. I literally took a note. I was like, America equals black and white. And then they were like, cut.

Elise Hu 00:43:36
Okay.

Traci Thomas 00:43:37
Um, but I think that conversation is also really interesting to me because there’s another book that came out last year called Biting the hand by Julia Lee, and it’s a memoir and essays.

Elise Hu 00:43:50
It’s so good.

Traci Thomas 00:43:52
It is so really, I highly, highly recommend it. And I think it’s a perfect pairing for this book because she’s talking about being asian in a black and white America. She’s raised in LA, and she’s sort of old enough to be coming of age a bit during the LA riots, which she talks about. One of the best essays in the book is about the riots. Um, but I find that it’s a tricky balance to think about asianness and blackness, because so much of the asian american rights movement was modeled off of a lot of the work that black people did. But there is this tension between the two groups, and this book sort of gets at it a little bit. And I don’t know, I, uh, was thinking a lot about that stuff because I know that there is anti asian, black people have anti asian racism and asian people have anti black racism, but also the groups have worked in solidarity together. Uh, and, uh, so I don’t know, that was a thing that I was thinking about a lot.

Elise Hu 00:44:51
I think that the myth of the model minority is also about proximity to whiteness. And that keeps or has stopped a lot of people in my community for showing up in solidarity with black Americans, with Arab Americans and other communities. Because it’s this idea of like, oh, if we can just be accepted, if we can be part of the in group, then forget about everybody in the out group. We’ll just try and maintain our own safety within this cocoon of accepted culture, which tends to be white culture. And I think about that with respect to, um, OJ Simpson, a lot. You brought up the LA riots, which made me think of OJ Simpson. One of the most powerful pieces of culture I have seen in the last ten years was the OJ Simpson 30 for 30, made in America.

Traci Thomas 00:45:38
The made in America.

Elise Hu 00:45:39
The made in America Edelman documentary. So fuck about OJ. Yeah, because OJ is about everything. It ends up being about celebrity culture, freeways, McDonald’s guest houses, um, um, crime, but most prominently, race. Race and identity. And then there were instances, especially in LA, of asian versus black violence that had happened. Um, and made in America covers this. Uh, but OJ specifically for a long time was denying his blackness, especially within the Tony community of Brentwood in Los Angeles. He would say, I’m not black, I’m OJ. Believing that he had somehow transcended race. And I think that’s the way that the model minority works too. This notion that, oh, if you can be good enough, you can strive hard enough, and you can be accepted by white, uh, culture and whatever Tony community you’re living in, then don’t worry about everybody else.

Traci Thomas 00:46:43
Right. Well, and I also think what’s interesting about the proximity to whiteness is that that model minority asian myth only pertains to certain. Like it is. Aside from. Well, no, I mean, it’s mostly east asian and then indian and I guess pakistani to some extent. Um, but like, other asian groups, like southeast asian, Myanmar, like, yeah, it doesn’t pertain to them. And I think, yes, you’re getting at the right thing with someone like OJ. Um, there’s also a really large group of mixed black and white people who have famously said similar types of things. The current head coach of the Miami dolphins, who is one of my personal nemesis, because of what he said, he’s mixed. He looks white. People don’t know that he’s mixed. His dad is black. And people were like, oh, you’re black. And sorry. The history of this is that he took the job of this black coach who was fired, who then sued the NFL for racism. They hired this mixed kid and people were asking him about it and he was like, why do you keep asking me about this? Yes, my dad is black and I’m a human being.

Elise Hu 00:47:54
Oh, right, the. I’m a human being.

Traci Thomas 00:47:55
I’m a human being. And then there’s another famous black woman, mixed woman tennis player. Her name is Madison Key, right? She said, I’m just Madison. I’m not mixed, I’m Madison.

Elise Hu 00:48:06
What a privilege to be able to say that.

Traci Thomas 00:48:09
And also like, no, Madison, you’re black. I can look at you and see, um, I do, I do find this wanting to be close to whiteness is so interesting and also part of that model minority myth. Whiteness needs that because just like how the wealthy, this is a quick history lesson for those of you at home. Just like how the wealthy white slave owning class in the south needed poor whites to be white because otherwise they were outnumbered. And they knew if the poor whites and the blacks got together, the whole slavery thing was going to be over. They granted them privileges of whiteness. And that’s sort of what’s happened with that model minority class of Asians is that whiteness has allowed them in just enough to keep them loyal, but not enough to grant them any real humanity in any way. Um, but I think this book is so good because, like you said, it’s funny and all of that, but it brings up all of this stuff. It brought up all of this stuff for me, at least. And clearly it brought up a lot for me and I think for a lot of readers, we’re sort of running out of time. There’s a big final speech, um, that Willis gives. It’s on page 244 in my book.

Elise Hu 00:49:33
Um, okay, so by the time we are at this part in this podcast episode, we have solved the mystery of the trial, right?

Traci Thomas 00:49:41
Yes, I think so. I feel like we have, but someone’s going to tell me we got it wrong, and that’s fine. Just tell me.

Elise Hu 00:49:46
Just dm me.

Traci Thomas 00:49:47
Let me know how bad.

Elise Hu 00:49:47
I think what you clarified about what happens at the end of act five illuminated that for me. Okay, so I get it now.

Traci Thomas 00:49:55
Yeah, we get it now. And so then in the courtroom, he gets to give this big speech, and he talks about how he finally got his shot and he wanted to be a kung fu guy. And then I wondered why I even wanted it so bad. And Turner jumps in and he’s like, it’s because they used you guys against us and against big. I think the big line of the book is kung fu guy is just another form of generic asian man, that even the pinnacle of asianness is just a different version of stereotypical asian.

Elise Hu 00:50:33
Right?

Traci Thomas 00:50:33
You could be still a stereotype. Yeah, it’s still a stereotype. Um, and then he says, we’re all the same, aren’t we? Generic asian man. Maybe I’m kung fu guy at the moment, but I know as well as you all do that this is about half a rung above jack shit. M it sucks being generic asian man, um, internalizing the role so completely that I’ve lost track of where reality starts and the performance begins. So anyways, there’s just this huge speech that just feels like Charles Yu is like, hello, here I am. Let me just write my thoughts. And this is really it for me. And I do feel like this speech, while it’s really good and interesting for me as a reader, was a little too on the nose and a little too preachy. I felt like Charles Yu, in doing this speech, lost a lot of what was so great about the book was that he was doing a lot of this work without actually having to say.

Elise Hu 00:51:30
He was doing it with the form. We sort of got it from the way he structured this book all along.

Traci Thomas 00:51:35
Right. But he does eventually give in to.

Elise Hu 00:51:38
The Shonda Rhimes speech.

Traci Thomas 00:51:40
Yeah. However. Or the Barbie speech. The America first speech. However, I would like to probably just blame his editor for this. I love to blame an editor for something that someone does that I don’t like, so I’m going to blame his editor. Yeah, let’s do that. I don’t know who his editor is, but you failed us all. I mean, you failed us with this national book award winning book. What a failure this book has been. Damn it. Um, in each of the sections that start, there’s these quotes, and they come from Irving Goffman, Bonnie sue, and Philip Choi. And I looked up those people because I was like, who are these people? Um, so Goffman is a social psychologist, a very famous american white guy, and then sue is the author of a book called American Chinatown, and Choi is an architect who wrote San Francisco Chinatown. So those three people are sort of talking about the psychology behind the physicalness of the place and sort of the idea of the two places. Um, and of course, the quote that starts the book that I was like, oh, I love this book already, is if a film needed an exotic backdrop, Chinatown could be made to represent itself or any other Chinatown in the world. Even today, it stands in for the ambiguous.

Elise Hu 00:52:53
That was. That was a really powerful way to start the book. And I liked all the section heads, actually. I’m glad that you looked up who.

Traci Thomas 00:53:01
Yeah, I was just curious. I was like, who? Because usually, sometimes in books, the section heads like a different person each time. So it’s just like the quote, but it kept being the same people. So I was like, who are these people?

Elise Hu 00:53:10
Oh, people who write about Chinatown as a place. Yeah, we didn’t get to talk too much about Chinatown specifically. And then the kind of gangsters and things like the activity that happens in Chinatown, the gambling or the fronts for other businesses or like more nefarious businesses. And then like the, um, counterfeit bags and other tropes of Chinatown that we didn’t.

Traci Thomas 00:53:34
It’s like restaurants and then like seedy behavior. Right.

Elise Hu 00:53:37
The way that they set that up or the way that Charles.

Traci Thomas 00:53:41
And like tenement housing, of course.

Elise Hu 00:53:43
Exactly.

Traci Thomas 00:53:43
Yes. It’s like shitty housing, food, and then.

Elise Hu 00:53:49
Bad, like shady dealings, gambling and counterfeit bags.

Traci Thomas 00:53:54
Yeah, exactly. Like illegal activity.

Elise Hu 00:53:56
Yes.

Traci Thomas 00:53:56
Which is just so interesting that the place of Chinatown is. That’s the stereotype when the stereotype, I guess, I don’t know, I guess the stereotype of the people. But you would think if the stereotype really tracked with other stereotypes, there would also be like a math academy or, you know what mean? Like there would be other racist ideas about the physical space.

Elise Hu 00:54:19
Yeah.

Traci Thomas 00:54:20
Um, well, we should talk about the title. Um, and the COVID which we always talk about. You and I both have the paperback cover that has the sort of like temple. Yeah, it’s a pagoda. Right. With the, uh, pagoda with the roof.

Elise Hu 00:54:35
The classic roof. And the, um, framing the door. Or I guess this looks like kind of the wood paneling.

Traci Thomas 00:54:42
Yeah. And then there’s like clouds and it’s red and green and yellow and pink a little. Um. I love this cover. I actually like this cover better than the hardcover, which, um, I don’t know if you’ve ever.

Elise Hu 00:54:54
I haven’t seen it. Maybe we can pull it up.

Traci Thomas 00:54:56
Um.

Elise Hu 00:54:57
Oh, okay. The original one looked more like. It also has a kind of pagoda roof.

Traci Thomas 00:55:03
Yeah, it has a pagoda, but the original one has some chinese, chinese characters and it has a camera and then like a kung fu foot. And I don’t dislike this cover. Um, but I think the paperback cover has the courier, ah. On the COVID as well. So you kind of get a sense of what’s to be inside. Um, I don’t know. I don’t know that either of them, exactly. Tell me what I’m going to get. But I more just visually prefer the paperback cover to me. I think, uh, maybe the colors are working better for me.

Elise Hu 00:55:38
There’s certainly more color in the paperback cover.

Traci Thomas 00:55:41
The hardcover colors is yellow, white and red, which is, of course, like the Chinese. You know what, it sort of looks like the little bag for like lunar new year that they put that, the.

Elise Hu 00:55:53
Red envelope or a, uh, Chinese takeout container. Yeah, with the red and the white, the stark red.

Traci Thomas 00:56:00
So I like both. But I think I slightly prefer the paperback.

Elise Hu 00:56:04
I can also take paperback books around so much more easily.

Traci Thomas 00:56:07
So I prefer paperback. I prefer for logistic reasons, um, what did you think of the title?

Elise Hu 00:56:14
I thought it was clever because we talked about how in screenplays you have to write the shot. And the first thing when you write the shot is the log line, which is exterior or interior. It’s also how you describe character when you’re writing a screenplay, because you have to work out the character’s interior motivations and exterior motivations. So the title is working on all these different levels. It also takes place, literally in interior Chinatown. So much of this story. So I like a euphemism.

Traci Thomas 00:56:47
Yeah, I think it was good. It also comes up in the book in two spots, um, sort of in page 89. It’s not exactly the title, but it’s close enough for me to have noted it. Um, at least I saw it in the text, as opposed to like a stage direction. He says, uh, he is tired. He spent decades in this place in the interior of Chinatown. But then on 219, uh, um, older brother is talking. Said, I never left, not really. Not in the way that counts inside, in my mind. Another part of me is in a different place now. Interior Chinatown isn’t the whole world anymore. I had to leave in my own way, just like you tried to do. So it is also in the text, which I always love when it pops up in the text. Um, I hope that he writes a.

Elise Hu 00:57:38
Sequel from the perspective of older brother, just because there’s a lot of talk about oldest child energy and everything these days, and oldest child energy as it intersects with immigrant striving. Immigrant energy must be so fascinating to get into.

Traci Thomas 00:57:54
Well, and also because I would love that too, because Willis is striving towards the American dream. But as far as Willis is concerned, older brother has achieved it. So I wonder how older brother would feel about whiteness and assimilation if he is the one who has, quote unquote, done what needed to be done. Yeah.

Elise Hu 00:58:12
And that page 219 speaks to it a little bit about how he, uh, never really got to leave.

Traci Thomas 00:58:18
Okay, last thing we’re going to do is if they turn it into a movie, who would you cast?

Elise Hu 00:58:25
Oh, gosh, there’s so many great Chinese American, Taiwanese American actors out these days.

Traci Thomas 00:58:32
Um.

Elise Hu 00:58:35
This is always so hard because casting, once I say someone, it’ll be kind of the wrong person.

Traci Thomas 00:58:42
Oh, it’s okay. I say the wrong person all the time. And then people just dm me and they’re like, I can’t believe you didn’t say da da da. But what I can tell you guys today is I actually have cast the perfect Willis black and white. No, I don’t know, Willis. My black and white. My white, my green. Jennifer Lawrence. Oh, yes, I know. And my black. Jay Ellis. Yeah.

Elise Hu 00:59:07
Oh, my gosh.

Traci Thomas 00:59:07
That’s perfect. I don’t want to hear it from anybody, okay? I don’t want to hear a word from any of you people that I didn’t get that one right. Because the way that they describe her is, like, she would just go drink.

Elise Hu 00:59:20
A beer with someone.

Traci Thomas 00:59:21
She’s so beautiful, but also, like, so down to earth and a little breath. I was like, jennifer Lawrence. Bye. Um, so, you know, I, like, cast Charles Melton as older brother.

Elise Hu 00:59:30
Would you? Yeah. Because he’s so high achieving and he’s.

Traci Thomas 00:59:33
So hot and he’s big.

Elise Hu 00:59:35
And, uh, I. Yeah, I could totally see a Charles Melton. I wonder if there would be blowback because he’s half not.

Traci Thomas 00:59:42
Yeah, I would say he’s half right.

Elise Hu 00:59:44
Um, but you know who I like for Karen is there was a Disney star, like, on Disney, some sort of Disney Channel show named Dianne Doan. She would be really great for Karen. Or Leah, uh, Lewis, who was known for that, uh, did. Yeah, Leah Lewis did the half of it on Netflix. I could totally see her as a character. I guess I’m sort of casting young, and that’s why I’m having a lot of trouble with Willis Wu just because I imagine somebody who’s younger, um, because he’s coming of age or coming up in the acting ranks.

Traci Thomas 01:00:27
Right. Yeah. It’s hard because eventually he does get older, but.

Elise Hu 01:00:31
Yeah. How do you get somebody who transcends? There’s not enough asian leading men. This just speaks to how part of the problem asian leading men. I really like the Australian who was Henry Golding’s buddy who took him out on that bachelorete party, or. Sorry. Who took him out on the boat for the.

Traci Thomas 01:00:51
In the crazy.

Elise Hu 01:00:53
Right.

Traci Thomas 01:00:53
Yeah. I really like golding.

Elise Hu 01:00:56
You could always.

Traci Thomas 01:00:57
Henry Golding.

Elise Hu 01:00:58
You could always put in.

Traci Thomas 01:01:01
Yeah. Yeah.

Elise Hu 01:01:02
But, uh, now I feel like maybe he’s too big of a movie star.

Traci Thomas 01:01:06
No, we need a big.

Elise Hu 01:01:07
You want kind of an up and coming guy, right?

Traci Thomas 01:01:09
Yeah, that’s true. It’s a hard one to cast because you need to be able to do age and to be sort of unknown enough to do it. But I don’t know why.

Elise Hu 01:01:21
I’m going to land on Simulu for now. And please come at me, listeners. I’m going to land on Simu Liu for now because a, his physicality. So I think he could do the big kung fu set pieces really well because there’s kung fu set piece in this.

Traci Thomas 01:01:36
Right.

Elise Hu 01:01:37
And then, he used to be a star of stock photos. I don’t know if you know about this. He was a big guy in istock photos. What? Yes. And he sort of celebrates his previous roles as generic asian man in ice stock photos. And so I feel as though he could call back and call upon those days for this particular character.

Traci Thomas 01:02:01
I like this casting. Simu Liu. I’m still not convinced on Karen yet. Maybe one of those young girls. But if we cast him, that’s too young.

Elise Hu 01:02:08
Right.

Traci Thomas 01:02:09
Um, and then Jennifer Lawrence and, uh, Jay Ellis. Jay Ellis.

Elise Hu 01:02:14
Jay Ellis. So attractive.

Traci Thomas 01:02:17
At first I was going to do Michael B. Jordan, but then I read the text again and I was like, no, Jay Ellis is a perfect detective. The perfect detective. Because he’s, like, a little goofy too. Right. And then he does, like, the smoldering look. And he’s super tall.

Elise Hu 01:02:31
I think he is.

Traci Thomas 01:02:32
I’ve met him.

Elise Hu 01:02:32
Oh, you have?

Traci Thomas 01:02:33
Yeah.

Elise Hu 01:02:34
He seems super tall from television.

Traci Thomas 01:02:36
He was very nice. Unfortunately for me, I was like, oh, you’re a lovely person.

Elise Hu 01:02:41
I’m melting.

Traci Thomas 01:02:42
Yeah, it was a lot for me emotionally. Um, I’m still not over it.

Elise Hu 01:02:46
This was, like, a year ago.

Traci Thomas 01:02:48
Okay. I think we did it all. We didn’t really talk about the daughter, the next generation. I don’t know. Anything you want to say about her?

Elise Hu 01:02:56
Yeah, she was a precocious, young asian american girl. I don’t know. Do you have any thoughts? I don’t have any insights about her.

Traci Thomas 01:03:04
I think that I was the least interested in that part of the book. And so I think. I didn’t really think about it that much. I mean, he’s obviously saying something about this next generation, that she lives out in the suburbs, she’s outside of the interior of Chinatown, and, um, gets to have this perfect life and is emotionally available and understands and all of those.

Elise Hu 01:03:28
Things which she was serving a narrative purpose and less of a character that stood on her own. So I really don’t have any fully formed thoughts about her, to be honest.

Traci Thomas 01:03:37
Me neither. Me neither. Okay, well, sorry to you, Phoebe. We don’t really care about you, but better luck next time. Maybe in your.

Elise Hu 01:03:46
I don’t.

Traci Thomas 01:03:47
Uh, but you do. You’ve got three. You do love kids. Um, well, everyone, I think we did it. Aside from Phoebe. Uh, we’re done here. Listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our book club pick will be for April. And make sure you go get Flawless, which is Elise’s book. And, Elise, uh, thanks for being here.

Elise Hu 01:04:06
Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun. And sorry, Phoebe.

Traci Thomas 01:04:10
Sorry, Phoebe. Everyone else besides Phoebe, we will see you in the stacks. Thank you all so much for listening. And thank you again to Elise Hu for joining the show. I’d also like to say a huge thank you to Ilana Nevins for helping to make this conversation possible. All right, Drumroll, please. It is time to announce our April book club pick. As you all know, April is National Poetry Month. So here at the Stacks, we always talk about a poetry collection in April, and this month we’re discussing The January Children by Safia Elhillo. The book is a collection of poetry about home displacement, family, and coming into one’s own. We will discuss the book on Wednesday, April 24, and you need to listen on Wednesday, April 3 to find out who our guest will be for that conversation. If you love this show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com thestacks and join the Stacks pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to the stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you’re listening through Apple Podcasts, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks, follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram threads and TikTok and at thestackspod underscore on Twitter and you can check out our website, thestackspodcast.com. This episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Cherie Marquez https://www.cmediacollective.com/
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