On March 29th, Ida B. Wells received a visit as well as hosted a live broadcast of PBS: Think Out Loud with Dave Miller. “Think Out Loud” is an Oregon Public Broadcasting’s (OPB) daily conversation podcast covering numerous topics such as politics, culture and the arts. In this episode, Miller interviewed California writer Charles Yu, author of National Book Award Winner “Interior Chinatown,” as well as 2010 Time Magazine Best Book of The Year “How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe.”
Yu came to IBW to answer student questions from several English classes attending the live broadcast. These questions ranged from personal experiences to writing techniques used in his work.
Yu’s parents emigrated to the United States from Taiwan, which is where he receives much of his inspiration for his stories. Having two high school-aged children of his own now, Yu remembers his high school years like it was yesterday. “It was pretty scary, I remember spending some lunches where I would just walk around pretending I had somewhere to be, ‘cause I didn’t. I don’t know, I had friends but I was sort of always scared to go eat with them for some reason.”
“In some ways, it feels like things don’t change that much and I still see them going through the same kinds of things I did, you know; first crush, first relationship, first heartbreak, but also the excitement of things. Obviously, things are different in terms of culture and how much information they have access to, and how they connect with other people. So that’s very different, but I think that what it sort of does for me, is knowing what I know and being their dad, I try really hard not to impose kind of what I had to go through, and the mistakes I had to make, and I kind of just have to let them go through it because I think that is really the only way they are going to understand what it really means to grow up.”
Yu’s love for writing and storytelling began at a young age while he was exposed to numerous titles and genres at school such as “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky and other novels written by timeless authors. What really got Yu interested in writing were the science fiction and fantasy novels that were presented to him. “The things I really remember reading were science fiction and graphic novels,” said Yu. “I read Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ series.”, a popular science fiction series written by Asimov from 1942 to 1993 about a futuristic “galactic empire” where mathematician Hari Sheldon aims to prevent the collapse of the empire. “That’s the kind of stuff that got me excited to read.”
Yu’s book, “Interior Chinatown,” explores a fictional universe that is written and experienced as a screenplay. The story surrounds Willis Wu, a “typical Asian man” who thinks that his life is no different than any other. Whether it’s leaning into the stereotypes or breaking out of them, he learns to navigate the world that he was put into. Through these triumphs and errors, Willis learns more about others and himself, and the roles that he must play in order to be the protagonist in his own life.
One question particularly sparked Yu’s Interest during the interview. “How do you think Asian American representation has changed in Hollywood in the past few years? Do you think we are making progress in representation?” asked Kira Faber, a junior at IBW. “I think it’s changed a lot. Even from the time that I published the book four years ago, it’s changed,” said Yu in response. “To the point where there was a moment in 2018 when the movie ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ came out, I don’t know if any of you have seen it but it really felt like a big deal at the time because, I am of an age where I grew up seeing very very rarely a movie of that scale or a show of that scale that really broke through in the mainstream in a big way, and it felt like this might actually change things.” “Crazy Rich Asians” was a 2018 film directed by Jon M. Chu, which followed two main characters: one who is a Chinese-American professor, and the other who is the son of one of the richest families in Singapore. The movie is centered around the hierarchy and interpersonal dynamics and relationships between their families and Asian culture in general. The film grossed over $238 million on a budget of $30 million dollars, making it the highest-grossing romantic comedy film of the 2010s, along with receiving high praise for the cast, screenplay as well as design. With an almost completely Asian cast film, this was an incredible success for the Asian community.
Yu attended Columbia Law School and worked as an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell and Bryan Cave as a corporate attorney before his time as a full-time fiction and TV writer. After more than 10 years of practicing law, Yu realized that law was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. This change from legal work to a more creative and research-driven work changed his work ethic.
One of his most famous TV industry jobs was to write and story for the science-fiction western television series “Westworld.” According to Yu, much of his work with the “Westworld” series influenced his writing for Interior Chinatown. The screenplay format of the book, much like a show or movie, allows the reader to get a different experience than writing a typical paragraph-oriented novel. “Writing it in a script format gave me as the writer but also gave the reader a very easy visual distinction, when you’re in the story and when you’re not,” said Yu. “It gave me a visual and a conceptual way to distinguish between the two worlds.”
Not only did “Interior Chinatown” receive great positive feedback from readers, but during the broadcast, Yu revealed that his award-winning book is being adapted into a show, which will be released this fall.
