How Heritage Emerges in My Fiction

By Carol Van Den Hende

How autobiographical is your fiction?

I often get this question from readers!

The answer isn’t straightforward. As with most writers, my characters and conflicts come from a combination of observation, imagination and personal experience.

In the case of my main protagonist Orchid Paige, however, we do share an Asian ancestry. She’s half Chinese, just like my twins!

In fact, she experiences an insight about her Asian heritage that I learned first-hand.

You see, I worked in marketing for a large multi-national company and had the opportunity to take a two-year international assignment to China. Though it’s my ancestral country, I’d never been there until my work assignment came about. 

One aspect that I’d expected was a feeling that I would completely fit in, as opposed to being “other” or “exotic” as I sometimes experienced in the U.S. Walking along Beijing’s streets, I was surrounded by people with similar coloring and features as me. I’d scan the crowds to find a sea of dark hair and dark eyes. Even though I’d intellectually expected this reality, the lack of diversity felt startling.

But my biggest shock was that Chinese citizens didn’t interpret my Asian ancestry to mean that I was Chinese. One night, a pair of my coworkers burst my assumptions over dinner. We sat around one of the restaurant’s Lazy Susan tables, our multi-course meal rotating from one person to the next.

“How come you learned Chinese so much faster than the other expats?” my friend asked, her chopsticks plucking a tasty morsel from one of the porcelain platters.

I blushed, aware that I still had much to learn. “Well, they’re waiguoren,” I said, using the Mandarin word for foreigner, which universally indicated anyone not from China. “And I look Chinese, so I figured people would expect me to speak Chinese.

She swallowed her mouthful and put down her utensils, her eyes crinkling. “Silly you, of course you don’t look Chinese.”

“What? What do you mean? How could I not look Chinese? I’m 100% Chinese,” I said, thinking about my Shanghainese parents and the cobblestoned sidewalks where they’d played in childhood.

“Oh no,” she corrected me. “We’d never mistake you for Chinese. Never with that toufa, or with those clothes.” She pointed at the angled flip of my hair, and stylish black layers.

Our colleague chimed in, her ringed fingers jabbing towards me in good humor. “We can tell you’re Western from blocks away,” she laughed. “It’s your mannerisms. The way you carry yourself.”

Soon, they changed the subject, the observation obvious to them. But I remained floored.

I had thought this would be the one place where being Chinese meant I completely belonged, compared to the schools where I’d grown up being viewed as an ethnic minority. It was a strange paradox that at home, people’s surface judgement classified me based on my Asian appearance. Yet in the land where I thought I’d be assumed to be Asian, Chinese nationals illuminated that I was truly a blend.

In the Goodbye, Orchid series, Orchid Paige ponders her identity as well. She says “In the U.S., people don’t think I look American enough. In China, people don’t think I’m Chinese enough.”

So how autobiographical is my writing? There are certainly echoes of my life in Orchid’s but also, writing her story has deepened my insight into my own experiences. I realized that living in Beijing demystified the land my parents’ generation rarely mentioned. And after growing up trying to be more “American,” my time abroad helped me appreciate that there’s no either-or.

All told, fiction and life intertwine to illuminate new truths. The biggest truth I hope for is that over time, we will increasingly find ways that we have more in common than our superficial differences.

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Portions of this essay were first published as “Too Chinese for America, Too American for China” on Authorlink in November 2020 and on the rememberingshanghai.com blog in 2022.

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CAROL VAN DEN HENDE is an award-winning author, a public speaker, and MBA with 20+ years’ experience in marketing, strategy and insights. Plus, she works in chocolate (there’s no ‘sweeter’ job!) 

Her novels Orchid Blooming and Goodbye, Orchid series are inspired by wounded veterans and have won dozens of literary awards, including the American Fiction Award, IAN Outstanding Fiction First Novel Award, and Royal Dragonfly’s for Cultural Diversity and Disability Awareness. Buzzfeed, Parade, and Travel+Leisure named Carol’s books a most anticipated read. Glamour Magazine recommended her “modern, important take on the power of love.” 

She’s keynoted and presented at conferences like Writer’s Digest, IBPA, International Women’s Writing Guild, Rutgers Writers’ Conference, Sisters-in-Crime and Women Who Write. She’s also a regular contributor to DIYMFA, where she pens the Author Marketing Toolkit column.

Carol’s mission is unlocking optimism as a writer, speaker, strategist, Board member and Climate Reality Leader. One secret to her good fortune? Her fun-loving family and ridiculously cute kittens, who prove that love really does conquer all.

Find out more about Carol on her website https://carolvandenhende.com/

ORCHID BLOOMING

A childhood tragedy followed her into adult life. Will she ever claim real happiness again?

Kind and generous, twenty-seven-year-old Orchid Paige will never forget that day. Living as best she can after witnessing her parents’ fatal accident, the beauty industry marketer yearns to win a promotion to China to connect to her mom’s ancestry. But with competition fierce, she despairs she’ll never make the grade… until she meets an encouraging man who makes her feel safe despite her usual distrust.

After Orchid convinces the handsome entrepreneur to let her gain experience at his nonprofit project, she’s determined to keep their relationship professional and ignore their powerful attraction. But when working on his military ad campaign for veterans triggers her own unresolved PTSD, she fears her confident mentor may be too good to be true even if she could trust him with her heart.

Can she conquer her vulnerabilities before she loses her chance at forever?

Orchid Blooming is the captivating first book in the Goodbye, Orchid contemporary fiction series. If you like complex characters overcoming trauma, heart-warming stories, and compassionate connections, then you’ll adore award-winning author Carol Van Den Hende’s emotionally satisfying page-turner.

BUY HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing