tevere: Yuletide story: This Sweet and Bitter Orange Mood (Inspector Chen series)

Ineke (

tevere) wrote,
@ 2010-01-02 12:40 pm UTC

Entry tags:

being chinese, inspector chen, my fiction, yuletide

Yuletide story: This Sweet and Bitter Orange Mood (Inspector Chen series)

Currently back in Saigon after a few days in central Vietnam-- more on that later!

So, for Yuletide this year I wrote a story for Liz Williams' Inspector Chen series: This Sweet and Bitter Orange Mood, which is about Inari finding her way home. I want to give special thanks to

the_grynne for her super-speedy help and beta services, and to

bantha_fodder for reading my initial draft and pointing me in the right direction!

I don't think the series is that well-known, and the only place I've ever seen any of the books in a bookshop is in New Zealand-- I had to resort to Amazon to buy the first in the series, 'Snake Agent'. The premise is fabulous: a world in which the Heaven and Hell of traditional Chinese belief are real, their demons and deities coexisting with the human world. Inspector Chen Wei forms a reluctant (and mildly slashy) partnership with his counterpart from Hell's Vice Division, Zhu Irzh, to solve supernatural mysteries and occasionally rescue Chen's demon wife, Inari, from Hell's clutches.

That said-- with no criticism intended of my Yuletide recipient, or of other fans of the series (including those who left wonderful, thoughtful feedback on my story), I have to say: as a mixed-race member of the Chinese diaspora, I find the series deeply, deeply frustrating. Don't get me wrong: I love the idea of fiction based on Chinese mythology, traditional beliefs and religion-- it's what made me hunt down the series in the first place and start reading with such glee. Fantasy novels! Set in Asia! About Chinese people!

...Except, as it turns out, not so much about Chinese people. I mean, I get it: it's hard to write characters from a culture you're not familiar with. But what really hurts me-- what makes me boggle-- is the fact that while the author has freely borrowed from Chinese myths and beliefs and religion (and again: fine with that!), she has clearly chosen not to make the effort to write characters who think, act, or even live in the same physical and cultural environment as actual Chinese people.

It hurts me, and it makes me angry, that when writing about us an author can so thoughtlessly overwrite our food and replace it with her own (kale, chocolate, chowder); who can replace our cultural and pop-culture references with her own (repeated references to dated American TV shows-- to the exclusion of any references to Asian literature or media); our language with her own (characters explicitly searching for and using Western proverbs and sayings, when Chinese equivalents exist); our names with those of her own creation (why use keymash constructions when Chinese demons traditionally have Chinese names, e.g. Yan Luo, Meng Po); who can randomly insert elements from other Asian cultures into a supposedly Chinese narrative (why does Zhu carry a katana rather than a jian?); who replaces our own bureaucracies with foreign structures and concepts (SWAT units, guilds, Seneschal, American police ranks e.g. Captain Su Sung); and who blithely makes statements that are just factually wrong and/or culturally inappropriate (Chen telling Ma that Hell is called the Yellow Springs because it's named after an actual yellow spring; "Little Pearl Tang, trussed like a sacrificial chicken"; "The thought of Tang's freedom chafed him like a yak-hair shirt").

Perhaps, with the feelings I have towards the canon, I shouldn't have offered this fandom in the first place. But at the same time-- isn't fanfiction the chance to at least try and make some things right again? I hope my Yuletide recipient enjoyed the story anyway, regardless of why I chose to write it.

If you are a fan of the series, or read it in the future, please just be aware that while it is a story about Asian characters (which is always fabulous to see in fiction, especially fantasy and sci-fi), those characters are seen very much through a white, Western, ~~American~~ lens. [ETA: Apparently she's British, which makes the constant Americanisms perplexing as well as infuriating.]

If you like Chinese tales of the supernatural, I love Pu Songling's classic Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. These tiny old-school stories are touching, perverse, instructional, and often have a surprisingly frank eroticism-- two of my favourites are the tale of a relationship between a young male fox-spirit and a human scholar, and a delightful and tender threesome story about a man who accidentally marries both a ghost and a fox-girl.

If you like Chinese crime series, I like Qiu Xiaolong's Inspector Chen series (yes, confusing; there are two Inspector Chens). These are smart, political crime novels set in Shanghai, and Qiu's modern verse translations of Tang and Song dynasty poems (scattered throughout) are wonderful. [ETA:

bravecows also thinks The Eye of Jade by Diane Wei Liang looks good.]

ETA: For YA fantasy based on Chinese myths and legends,

jonquil recommends Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon, and

holyschist recommends Laurence Yep's Dragon of the Lost Sea series.

jhameia recommends giving A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts by Ying Chang Compestine a try, if you don't mind some horror and gore, and

starlady says she loves Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (for the somewhat younger crowd).

Happy new year!

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kaigou
2010-01-23 03:23 am UTC (link)

the degree to which editorial intervention can distort a text and create, or amplify, elements of race!fail

Or any other kind of fail. I'd really call this a culture!fail, above and beyond a racefail. That's mostly, IMO, due to marketing pressures -- similar to what keeps pushing Bloomsbury to think it's perfectly fine to put a white person on the cover of a book that has a black protagonist; other folks have covered it better than my TL;DR version here (especially in terms of explaining what cover illustrators have to work with, mixed with a fundamental assumption of white=default) but under it, I think, is a fair bit of assumption that audiences "simply won't buy a book with X" (or if they do, they'll be horribly turned off due to not 'getting' it).

If you really believe that your Western audience needs to have the surname come last (which is problematic, but let's roll with it), at least make it the same throughout.

Whaddaya wanna bet the author did write it surname-given and the copy editor changed them all (but missed one or two)? Most Western authors are either willing to accept from the get-go that it's surname-given or they accept from the get-go that they'll adjust to a Western style (ie Barry Eisler's John Rain series). I've not seen/met/talked to too many authors with Eastern characters who're wishy-washy over that distinction, wait, I've not met any. Seeing flips like that makes my copy-editor-was-here radar go on high alert -- and it's much of the reason I disregarded a number of other bizarro-points, like 'rosary' and whatnot. Copy editors have been known to change stuff like that, too, and an author doesn't always get a say in it if the editor is also of the mind that a Western audience 'wouldn't get' the notion of prayer beads.

But I suppose what bugs me is that myths and legends need to be understood within the cultural context from which they arose.

That is possibly the hardest part of all, when it comes to writing a culture for an audience not of that culture -- and that can be even intra-culture (ie writing about a distinct region of your country when the mainstream culture is semi-ignorant, or worse, full of stereotypes; cf the Coastal southern Vietnamese stereotype, the Southern Swedish stereotype, the backwoods Vermonter stereotype, and so on.) I mean, sure, it's easy enough to say "you should not cut a mythology/mindset adrift from its cultural moorings" but it's damn hard to really keep it rooted, especially when so much else (like terminology) is already being mangled by editorial or marketing-dept pressures.

Which is why, to me, the 'Chineseness' of the Inspector Chen series felt pasted on and inauthentic.

Ignoring the second book (a mishmash), the first one had its moments, but it never felt -- to me -- like Singapore. That country/culture doesn't give me a sense of 'Chineseness', being such a marvelous mix of so many different cultures and influences, but has a feeling/sense of its own. It felt at times like what she was aiming for was something similar to what Bladerunner achieved, with its syncretic visuals of Tokyo, Beijing, and New York, but in Williams' case, more like a mashup of Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, with sprinkles of Bangalore and a dash of Osaka. That takes a really really deft hand, and I was willing to give her credit for at least trying, seeing how no one else has really tried all that hard -- others, like Gibson and Dick (and even Whedon), have slathered on a layer of Asian icing but the cake is almost always New York City underneath. (Or in Whedon's case, Montana.)

I guess it's one of those things where it's so damn difficult already that the author will just have to accept from the start that s/he isn't going to please everyone. Some readers will find it baffling no matter how many hints you give the cabbages, and others will be intrigued enough that the book could become a gateway-book to better/in-depth stories from that culture. Others who know enough to be dangerous will find the book uneven, and someone from the culture itself just might react with annoyance, even disgust. So the author has to decide who the audience is, and how much of the cultural lessons s/he needs to impart to get the story across, while still selling enough books to convince an editor to take a chance on more in the series.

Frankly, I was rather hoping the second book would expand/explore areas left murky in the first; I would've taken that as sign the author does know her stuff but had been hamstrung into cabbaging the book rather than make it too risky, marketing-wise. A proven seller, then, can lead into books that take more time/nuance with the culture... but that's not the second book of this series, sadly.

Me, I think I fell into the "know enough to be dangerous" category, seeing how I did a major double-take at the notion of a young demon-escapee from hell being named after an agricultural deity, and a Shinto agricultural deity at that. There's mention in the book about how the local Hell is Buddhist, I think, and the Xtians have their own hell, but then again, Japanese Buddhism and Shintoism are so mixed by now, I'd say to myself, and then: but still, would a demon really have the name of a likely (in the story's world) already-existent demon? If there'd at least been sign/hint that this would be explained in later books, I could've written it off as a teaser-point for later development.

(And after we convince Mr Copy Editor that "jian" != "katana", could we then move to "tanuki" != "badger" because I am getting REALLY sick of that mistranslation, ignoring the fact that a Chinese-hell demon would have a suitably Chinese-critter to accompany her, because it's not like China don't have no tricksters of its own. Sheesh.)

I think the book goes in the category of 'it's better than nothing' as befits an early adopter/introducer to Western SFF of the potential in Asian mythologies... but it's a book that will be surpassed as soon as someone comes along that a) can write deftly of the cultural nuances and b) isn't hampered by editorial and marketing pressures dumbing the text down to cabbage-level.

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tevere
2010-01-23 04:54 am UTC (link)

I guess it's one of those things where it's so damn difficult already that the author will just have to accept from the start that s/he isn't going to please everyone.

Hmm. I find myself resisting the understanding that the situation is so either/or. I do indeed agree that the publishing industry pushes in a certain direction -- the white, Western understanding of the world, regardless of what the author's initial vision was (of which the whitewashed covers are an excellent example) -- but at the same time: is it not possible to write something that is 'entry-level' enough for the Western mainstream (and acceptable to publishers) and yet not offensive to those from the culture depicted? I mean, I honestly found myself-- hurt, I guess, when reading parts of those books. The part of me that rejoiced to see Chinese SFF protagonists was left disappointed and angry to see that those Chinese protagonists were not, in fact, Chinese at the core-- they were white. I felt erased, and I resented that the author apparently gets to write her version of our culture for her chosen audience. Isn't that the act of consuming our culture-- isn't that cultural appropriation? If someone is such a 'cabbage' that they're never willing enough to step outside their comfort zone, why should they get spoon-fed some version of my culture that suits them?

I feel that the people who read, say, 'Snake Agent' and are intrigued enough to learn more about the culture-- they would cope well enough with an 'entry-level' book (which for example explains terms and concepts a little more) that nevertheless remains true to the spirit of the culture it depicts. Qiu Xiaolong's series that I mentioned earlier: the books are clearly written for a Western audience -- but at the same time I felt that nothing regarding the culture itself had been compromised. The Western audience in question is understood as being not familiar with the culture, but also as being willing to learn.

I do agree that it's difficult to write about a culture that's not yours, for the mainstream audience. And I understand the additional problems that working within the American/British/Australian/etc publishing industries can cause. But I demand better than Liz Williams' efforts here. Isn't it white privilege that allows her to write a book and say, "Well, I tried-- but it's hard and the publishing industry demands a certain product. I can't please everyone"? She's writing my culture for the benefit of people in her culture, and gets to dismiss the hurt to me as unavoidable. So can we say that she's doing me a favour by broadening awareness of other cultures in the mind of the Western SFF reader -- or is she merely promoting and participating in the consumption of exoticism?

So I feel that my opinion on the question of: "Snake Agent: better than nothing?" might actually lean more towards the answer of, "No. Either try harder to find a way to present our culture to your audience in a way that is acceptable to both your publisher and to people from the culture which you are depicting, or stand aside and let someone else do it."

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kaigou
2010-01-23 05:35 am UTC (link)

Oh, I agree. I'm just saying that I don't think an author can necessarily win, in some ways -- they're just plain never going to get it just right. Come close, maybe (for some), miss the mark by a mile (for others). I'm willing to at least give points for someone attempting it:

Either try harder to find a way to present our culture to your audience in a way that is acceptable to both your publisher and to people from the culture which you are depicting, or stand aside and let someone else do it.

But the problem is that no one else will even get to try, unless we have forerunners upon whom the cabbage-like editorial/marketing crew is willing to risk spending the money. It's entirely likely there are a host of good Asian-related stories out there, written by savvier folks with a defter touch, and they've been passed up over and over because the word is, "this doesn't sell, no one would ever want to read about a Chinese detective in China!"

Someone does have to break the barrier, and sadly, that someone is -- more often than not -- someone who doesn't get it right, who is writing from within the audience's mainstream population, who cabbages to some degree because of the author's own missing-the-nuance and to some degree because the author or editor or marketing says "this can be culled or dumbed down or skipped because the audience won't know better, and we're being risky enough as it is".*

Basically, in what I've seen of publishing, first you have to have a sacrificial goat (even a scrawny underfed misshapen goat) that can be slaughtered on behalf of the marketing/editorial biases, yet still manage to demonstrate the audience does have a taste for goat, even if all the markets swear that chickens are all anyone's ever bought and thus all they'd ever want. Once you get that first goat past, then it's easier to push for better-quality goats. Not because the first goat creates the subsequent goats -- but because the first goat proves to the damn money-people that goats can make money, too.

I don't mean the author gets a pass on offenses to the culture depicted; but I am willing to give the first book in a series a bit more leeway in its screwups, so long as the author tries, and if s/he falls short, to swallow the humps and try harder the next time. That, for me, is where Williams really failed. I'm willing to forgive idiocies in the first book -- but once it's been enough of a monetary success to warrant a sequel, then I'd expect the author to be able to start flexing some muscle, and give the copy-editor or main editor a bit more what-for on the intrusions.

So it was the second book where I came to the position you hit with the first book, because it seemed almost like she tried less hard, rather than more hard. Hell, like she stopped trying altogether about halfway through!

* I wouldn't necessarily call that 'white' privilege (unless you mean 'white' as default) but an even broader 'western/anglo' privilege -- because what's driving the dismissal isn't (only) skin-tone/racism but the greater issue of culturalism, with a touch of imperialism. Yes, that's racist, too, but I guess they're hard to separate; it just seems to me that it's not enough to stop at racism, but that the issues encompass that and a lot more.

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tevere
2010-01-23 06:11 am UTC (link)

Basically, in what I've seen of publishing, first you have to have a sacrificial goat (even a scrawny underfed misshapen goat) that can be slaughtered on behalf of the marketing/editorial biases, yet still manage to demonstrate the audience does have a taste for goat, even if all the markets swear that chickens are all anyone's ever bought and thus all they'd ever want. Once you get that first goat past, then it's easier to push for better-quality goats. Not because the first goat creates the subsequent goats -- but because the first goat proves to the damn money-people that goats can make money, too.

Ahaha, I love this analogy. And yeah, I do understand. It doesn't really assuage my frustration (it's unfair! why does it have to be this way! etc), but sometimes you have to subvert/change the system and its hierarchies of privilege from within, I guess. I do also want to give authors the benefit of the doubt; it's just that so often I see what feels like a lapse into laziness or thoughtlessness, and that hurts. (I agree that 'Snake Agent' was substantially better than 'The Demon and the City'. I actually read the latter first and was outraged, and was surprised to find the first was somewhat more coherent.)

And you're right: it's not merely white privilege (although it encompasses that, too), so 'Western-centrism' or Anglocentrism would perhaps be a more appropriate term.

I suppose there are parallels here to the depiction of GLBTQ folk in mainstream media. With regards to that, we're sort of stuck in the middle at the moment: there are GLBTQ people depicted, and it's substantially better than, say, twenty years ago. So give it another twenty years... (which is another twenty years of them feeling denigrated and under- and mis-represented and cariacatured and sidelined, but it seems like the trend is towards improvement, at least).

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