Belinda's Reviews > Interior Chinatown

“You’re here, supposedly, in a new land full of opportunity, but somehow have gotten trapped in a pretend version of the old country.”

Minor spoilers below! Major spoilers will be hidden!

4.5 stars. Metafiction at its finest, Yu earned that National Book Award. Written in second person POV the story is told in the format of a screenplay. Our protagonist, Willis Wu, is a Taiwanese-American who strives to go beyond his role of Generic Asian Man on the crime show Black and White (starring Miles Turner, a black man and Sarah Green, a white woman) that he may reach his dream of becoming Kung Fu Guy, the ultimate role for an Asian man. Sounds weird, right? Well it is weird, and the second person narrative makes it weirder. Second person POV is rare in literature. It’s a tricky form to write in because it forces the reader to be in the protagonist’s place and manipulates you into relating with the protagonist. Even if you, personally, have never experienced these things in real life a successful second person POV will make you feel like you have, and Yu’s masterful writing makes it work beautifully. He forces you to take a good hard look at immigration, assimilation, oppression, perpetuating stereotypes, and the American dream. Granted, this was probably easier for me to absorb since I’m an Asian-American as well and have experienced many of the things Willis and the others have. Of course, much of it is over-exaggerated because this is a satire, but it’s the subtleties hidden within that matter.

Willis has grown up believing that the role of Kung Fu Guy is the pinnacle of success for an Asian man. He’s lived in Interior Chinatown his whole life in a room above a Chinese restaurant, the Golden Palace, and does not know much of the outside world. He’s watched as his mom and dad, Dorothy and Ming-Chen, worked their way through different “roles” in the Golden Palace restaurant. We learn about how the two of them came to America and the ways in which they strived to make a living in their respective fields of expertise. However, the two of them face daily racism and microaggressions in America. Ming-Chen gets lumped together with his friends who are all different Asian ethnicities because “all Asians look the same.” Dorothy is frequently fetishized by American men and groped while at work. Willis doesn’t want to end up like his parents and so he acts in Black and White, which is filmed in the Golden Palace, so that he may one day become Kung Fu Guy and “make it” so he can finally escape Interior Chinatown.

The problem is, the better the role the deeper he’s trapped within Interior Chinatown. He goes to great lengths to get better roles, but they have consequences. And then he meets Karen Lee, another actress on the show, and a relationship blooms. For a time Willis isn’t consumed by his need to be Kung Fu Guy. He has a genuine connection with Karen, who encourages him to be himself, not just Generic Asian Man. (view spoiler)[However, when she’s presented with an opportunity to leave Black and White and thus, Interior Chinatown, Willis refuses to follow her due to his (very obvious) inferiority complex, and instead stays on the show because he’s so close to making his dream of being Kung Fu Guy come true. (hide spoiler)] It’s only when he finally reaches that pedestal does he realize just how lonely he is and how much he is truly trapped. How he’s the one who trapped himself. Yes, society plays a huge part in his emotional captivity, but he is also the one who plays into those stereotypes Instead of staying true to himself, his individuality, and his people he essentially became a sell out.

The book culminates within the last two acts when Willis realizes his mistake and seeks to rectify it. However, it’s not that easy to escape and eventually he must stand trial for his actions. With Older Brother as his defense lawyer, the trial commences. This is where I started getting emotional and crying. Older Brother’s defense causes Willis and the whole courtroom (that is filled with the residents of the Interior Chinatown SRO) to cheer because here is someone who finally had the courage and strength to say what everyone has wanted to say all along. Someone who is forcing Americans to confront their own prejudice. Who shows them that the world is not just Black and White. That Asian oppression should not be compared to Black oppression, but acknowledged as its own thing. That and Willis’ monologue encapsulated everything I have ever felt about being an Asian American. This passage especially hurt me:

“We’re trapped as guest stars in a small ghetto on a very special episode. Minor characters locked into a story that doesn’t quite know what to do with us, [Asians]. After two centuries here, why are we still not Americans? Why do we keep falling out of the story?”

In just four sentences, Yu managed to capture exactly how I’ve felt for most of my life. I grew up in a mostly white neighborhood and went to mostly white schools. Students and teachers alike assumed I was foreign and lesser just because of how I looked. One of my teachers tried to put me in ESL (English Second Language) classes even though I was at a higher reading level than most of my classmates. In fifth grade I even beat the popular white girl in the school spelling bee. That didn’t stop them from being surprised at the fact that my English was so good and that I had almost no accent. It was something I took pride in, knowing I was better than my classmates at something a lot of people assumed I’d be shit at, English. I excelled in the rest of my studies too and was considered a gifted child.

I realize now I was subconsciously feeding into the model minority stereotype and westernizing myself to fit in just like Willis. It was only in high school where I went to a more diverse school with a larger percentage of Asian students that I realized just how much of my culture I had lost. My greatest regret is not being fluent in my first language, Cantonese. I can still understand it perfectly, but speaking takes some effort, and it sucks to be so inferior at such an important part of my Chinese heritage. Willis also laments over his shitty Taiwanese when he says “The great shame of your life [is] that you can’t speak [Ming-Chen’s] language, not fluently.” Something so small but so relatable hit me like a punch to the gut. Willis realizing why he had disappointed his parents and the pride his mom showed when he stood up for himself reminded me of my relationship with my own mom, who has sacrificed so much so I could have the opportunities I received. His own strained relationship with his dad hit a little too close to home for me.

In the end Willis makes the right decision. (view spoiler)[He’s killed off on the show and stays dead. Kung Fu Guy is no more. Now he’s just Phoebe’s dad and Karen’s husband, and he couldn’t be happier. His family is what finally allowed him to move on from Interior Chinatown. (hide spoiler)] It’s an emotional ending, but it made me so fucking happy.

I’m sorry this review is so fucking long, but I just have too many feelings for this novel. The fact that I decided to read this during a time where hate crimes against Asian-Americans are the highest they’ve been in decades makes this hurt even more. Reading articles of old Asian men and women getting attacked and told to go back home when this is their home is painful. I wish I could throw this book at every racist and attacker and tell them to read it, but they’d probably be too stupid to get it.

There’s so much more I can say, but then I’d be staying up all night to write this and I kinda wanna sleep lol. Ok, I will say that the fight scene at the end was funny af and made me laugh after I cried. I can’t front, this book isn’t going to be for everyone. However, if you love literary fiction and want to read more unique writing and perspectives you should pick this up. It’s been a long time since a contemporary fiction has hit me this hard. Lemme end this with a few more memorable quotes.

“. . .the widest gulf is the distance between getting by and not quite getting by.”

“Unofficially, we understood. There was a ceiling. Always had been, always would be. Even for him. Even for our hero, there were limits to the dream of assimilation, to how far any of you could make your way into the world of Black and White.”

“There’s just something about Asians that makes reality a little too real, overcomplicates the clarity, the duality, the clean elegance of Black and White.”

“If black don’t crack then yellow just kind of mellows.”

“She says that telling a love story is something one person does. Being in love takes both of them.”

“But the experience of Asians in America isn’t just a scaled-back or dialed-down version of the Black experience. Instead of co-opting someone else’s experience or consciousness he must define his own.”

“This is it. The root of it all. The real history of yellow people in America. Two hundred years of being perpetual foreigners.”