Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu is nothing like any book I have ever read before, in the best way possible. It is funny, heartfelt, and informative. It was honestly such a treat to read!
Yu’s writing style is incredibly clever. The book is entirely formatted as a screenplay. It is a combination of a metaphorical TV show of Willis’s life set in “INT. CHINATOWN” and the actual TV show Willis acts in. Yes, you heard me right- Willis is an actual actor in a popular crime show called “Black and White” and spends his life moving between roles ranging from “Generic Asian Man” to “Young Asian Man” to “Dead Asian Guy” to “Asian Dad” to “Older Asian Man”, yet never quite securing his dream role as the coveted “Kung Fu Guy”.
Kung Fu Guy is a trope frequently revisited throughout the book, which I interpreted to be a mockery of the model minority myth, or the idea that Asian Americans are the "perfect" minority and are socioeconomically superior to other minorities in the U.S., and therefore used as a point of comparison. This is an incredibly harmful stereotype for the Asian American community as it is a false understanding of the difficulties that come with being non-white in America, especially for the Asian community, and ignores the constant discrimination they face daily.
The way that Yu transitioned from Black and White scenes into real life scenes was both seamless and hilarious. It is a perfect satire of the TV industry, challenging common tropes for Asian actors and critiquing race and the model minority myth in the most quick-witted manner. Black and White is eerily similar to any crime TV show I have seen- and after reading this book I’m embarrassed to not have picked up on such clear racial stereotypes in the past. Yu’s storytelling hit me right over with head with the irony of it all.
Specifically, Willis’ characters, perpetually generic Asian men, are killed off time and time again in Black and White. 49 days later, the suitable amount of time for the audience to forget he was supposed to be a dead background character, Willis would be brought back onto the show as some other generic character, like a waiter or bus boy or just a dude on the street. This metaphor, for what it’s like to be an Asian American, was what hit hardest for me as a reader.
“To be yellow in America. A special guest star, forever the guest.” (119)
I want to note that this quote and the following quote are likely pretty jarring to read with such a blatant slur. I included them here because I think that Charles Yu’s reclaiming of such slurs in this story are what make quotes like the above and below so impactful.
I loved the parts of the story talking about the various characters living in Willis’s building with him in INT. CHINATOWN. Yu’s snippets of survival stories in a country where Asian people are treated like foreigners no matter how long they have lived here were both meaningful and bitter.
“This is it. This is the root of it all. The real history of yellow people in America. Two hundred years of being perpetual foreigners.” (238)
My absolute favorite scene was the karaoke bar, where Yu described an older Taiwanese man singing John Denver at a karaoke bar… “by the time he gets to ‘West Virginia, mountain mama,’ you’re going to be singing along, and by the time he’s done you might understand why a seventy-seven-year-old guy from a tiny island in the Taiwan Straight who’s been in a foreign country for two-thirds of his life can nail a song, note perfect, about wanting to go home.” (66) I can't say this one didn't leave me a little misty-eyed.
This book provided necessary and important information on the experience of Asian Americans every day in this country. And it did so with the most remarkable delivery. Especially in lieu of the recent tragedy in Atlanta, this book is a must-read. I will be recommending it forever and ever. Seriously, go buy it right now!
Rating: 5/5 Kung Fu references
xx, Lauren