Authors Interview Characters: Yang Huang

“Huang does an admirable job balancing Bao’s individual story against the canvas of China’s evolution using crisply drawn characters who reveal their layers as the story progresses. . . . A knotty, engaging novel of China’s recent history.”—Kirkus Reviews

When a handsome young gay American man walks into Mr. Cai’s small tailor shop in provincial China, he can’t help but have a brilliant idea – introduce this man, Jude, to his unaccomplished son Feng and help Feng get into an American college.

In MY GOOD SON (University of New Orleans Press; April 29 2021), award-winning author Yang Huang explores both the deep power and the profound burdens of parental love through the story of Mr. Cai and his only son Feng. Like many of his generation, Mr. Cai’s most fervent desire is for his son to succeed.  The scheme hatched between the older Chinese man and a handsome gay American ex-pat, exposes readers to the parallels and differences of American and Chinese cultures—father-son relationships, familial expectations, sexuality, social mobility, and privilege.

As in her previous novels, Huang’s writing abounds with sharp insights and a quiet humor, revealing the complexity of family relationships amidst two rapidly changing generations and cultures.

—Yang Huang Interviews Feng

Sitting on a park bench under a magnolia tree, I was waiting to meet Feng, the troublemaker in MY GOOD SON. What a treat to have been transported to the UT Austin campus in 1991 after the story took place! There weren’t many Asians on campus. I’d seen a handful passing the footpath in the last hour. No one suspected me as a Chinese American author, the only person from 2021. From the cast iron bench where I was sitting, college students from 30 years ago looked similar to the crowd on campus today. I could tell an overseas Chinese student apart from an ABC (American born Chinese): the former had a purposeful and urgent stride, bordering on being nervous, while the latter appeared more relaxed and confident.

Ten minutes after our appointed time, there was still no sign of Feng. He only granted me half an hour between his part-time job and night class. Did he hold a grudge against me for not making him the protagonist? I let his father, Mr. Cai, tell the story of his capricious son getting more second chances than he deserved. Surely Feng could vent his grievances with me rather than stood me up like a coward. Then I heard the grinding sound of roller blades.

A young man skated toward me, swinging his long legs awkwardly to keep his balance. A bellowing linen shirt and jean shorts draped over his willowy frame. Carrying a backpack and holding a bag of potato chips in one hand, he moved cautiously like a marionette.

“Feng?” I stood up to greet him. “How was your work?”

Standing on his skates, Feng appeared to be over six-foot-four. “You should know, Auntie.” He winked.

I had been born a few years after Feng, but in 2021 I was older than his father in the book. “Call me Yang,” I told Feng to drop the formality. “The joy of storytelling is to create characters strong enough to rebel against my design. You always surprise me, Feng.”

He held out an open bag of ripple potato chips toward me. “Want some, Yang?”

I would have preferred a warm handshake, but Feng always did what he liked. “Thanks.” I took a chip in order not to disappoint him.

“My supper.” He munched on a piece with his front teeth like a rabbit chewing a lettuce leaf. “Yummy, and it’s vegetarian.”

I returned to the bench, and he sat down beside me. I could tell him to read the ingredients of chemicals on the label, but that would be condescending. After all, I had lived on chips, cereals, and instant noodles to save money during my college years. Feng had a clear complexion and immaculate skin that made him look younger than his 23 years of age. Having been fed a healthy vegetarian diet most of his life, he could survive on junk food like I once had.

“Does your girlfriend cook?” I asked.

He shook his head slowly. “She’s very busy. We are both frugal.”

So they had not reconciled nor split up. It was cheaper for them to share an apartment. Feng had slept on the couch for four months and might have accepted his lot: he was being tolerated until she figured out how to live with his problem. Feng had to save every penny and offer his parents in China whatever assistance he could manage.

Feng bent down to take off the skates and put his socked feet on the lawn. Then he showed me varied sizes of bandages on his leg, arm, and wrist. “I fell the other day. Why does it look so easy for Americans?”

“They learned as kids. Are you doing this as an exercise or as transportation?”

“Neither, I just want to try them.” He pulled out a pair of sneakers from his backpack and put them on. “Look, these secondhand rollerblades cost me $50.”

So they were his indulgence. An ABC might turn to a psychiatrist for help with his relationship trouble, but a Chinese immigrant wouldn’t air his dirty laundry to a stranger, even if he could afford it.

“You can talk to me.” I reached out a hand but drew back before touching his thigh. I was attracted to his volatile mind and entranced by it—Feng was my muse and brain child. “I know you can’t say everything to your parents. They will worry about you. But your secret is safe with me.”

He kicked a skate and made it fall into the grass. “You know, sleeping on the couch has given me a lot of time to reflect. I’m ashamed of the way that I broke up with Little Ye.”

“Will you go back to China—and return to her?”

“It isn’t that simple. I couldn’t be the man she wanted me to become in China. I relied on her and my parents. Here I am my own person. Although I have nothing to my name, I am studying hard for the first time and love working with the fabrics.”

“You know she’s willing to join you in the States.”

“But I have a girlfriend now.” He stooped down to hold his forehead in his hands. “At least I think so.”

I put a hand on his shoulder, and Feng didn’t move. I was in part responsible for his heartache, not as a way to punish him, but led by Feng’s own choices.

“You know the worst part?” There was a forlorn smile on his face. “I desired her, more than I was willing to admit.”

I knew whom he meant. “You told Little Ye the opposite.”

“I lied, because I was afraid of her. I will always desire her, unless I turn gay.”

“Are you joking?” I pushed his shoulder harder than necessary. How could Feng spring this on me after all that had gone down?

He gave me a cutting look. “Don’t be narrowminded. I find beauty in all people, men and women alike. Anything wrong with that?”

No wonder I had suspected him of being bisexual. With Feng there was always more than met the eye.

Feng fetched the skates and propped them against the bench. “I used to act out on my sexual impulse because I had no other way of self-expression. If I could have studied fabrics and fashion design, I might have poured my energy into my studies instead.”

“Are you saying the sex with Little Ye wasn’t good?”

“On the contrary, sex was the best when it was just about intimacy.” He pressed a hand on my shoulder emphatically, a rather bold move, but I pretended not to notice it. “Once sex is about family and children, it feels more like . . . work.”

“You are a rascal.” I patted his hand over my shoulder. “I should have made you suffer more consequences.”

He took hold of my hand and pressed it in his warm, fleshy palms with surprising force. “But you have mercy to leave me be. Now I am on my own, half a world away from home, without a safety net. This must be how helpless Little Ye felt when we first met.”

We looked into each other’s eyes in silence. All around us cicada screeched in the naked heat. Fireflies floated and darted in the rising dusk. When the bell chimed, Feng collected his skates and put the Velcro straps from both skates together.

“You gave me half a chance,” he said. “Thank you for that. I won’t let you down.”

He carried the pair of skates by the strap in his elbow, and then headed for his night class toward the lecture hall. From the back he appeared to be eating the chips. If Feng and his girlfriend would stay together, next time I would take them out to the best Chinese restaurant in town.

—

YANG HUANG grew up in China’s Jiangsu province and participated in the 1989 student uprisings. Her novel MY GOOD SON won the University of New Orleans Press Publishing Lab Prize; her linked story collection, MY OLD FAITHFUL, won the Juniper Prize for fiction; and her debut novel, LIVING TREASURES, won the Nautilus Book Award silver medal in fiction.

Her essays, stories, and screenplay have appeared in Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, The Margins, Eleven Eleven, Asian Pacific American Journal, The Evansville Review, Futures, Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine, Nuvein, and Stories for Film. Yang lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and works for the University of California, Berkeley.

—
MY GOOD SON

Winner of the University of New Orleans Publishing Lab Prize
There are few things as universal as a parent’s love for their child–and the heartache that can accompany it.

In MY GOOD SON, award-winning author Yang Huang explores both the deep power and the profound burdens of parental love through the story of Mr. Cai, a tailor in post-Tiananmen China, and his only son Feng. Like many of his generation, Mr. Cai’s most fervent desire is for his son to succeed. He manages to get Feng to pass his entrance exams, and turns to an American customer, Jude, to sponsor his studies in the States.

This scheme, hatched between the older Chinese man and a handsome gay American ex-pat, exposes readers to the parallels and differences of American and Chinese cultures–father-son relationships, familial expectations, sexuality, social mobility, and privilege. Huang’s writing abounds with sharp insights and a quiet humor, revealing the complexity of family relationships amidst two rapidly changing cultures.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing