Taiwanese American author Charles Yu’s National Book Award-winning novel, “Interior Chinatown,” lept off the page, literally—he adapted it for television. The pilot, episode one of 10, show-run by Yu himself and with direction by Taika Waititi, closed out the Boston Asian American Film Festival program with a screening at Emerson’s Paramount Theater on Oct. 26. As of yesterday, the full series is available for streaming on Hulu.
CHINATOWN—being “Kung Fu Guy” isn’t exactly everyone and their mother’s cup of tea, unless you’re Bruce Lee—or, in Yu’s proxy neighborhood buried in Port Harbour’s fictional city—“Older Brother,” who, in the book, isn’t exactly just Willis Wu’s big brother; he’s more like the golden child trope personified: six-pack abs, daddy’s favorite, academic weapon, etc.
And even though everybody loved him more than Willis, no one loved him like Willis—the little brother who wanted to be like him so badly he still practices kung fu every day, waiting for the moment when he might get “Older Brother” back because he’s been missing for years—which Willis finds unacceptable. But being “Kung Fu Guy” simply stood out too much, and his mysterious disappearance might be why most Asian people living in Chinatown aren’t interested in fighting, settling instead for nondescript roles like “Delivery Guy,” “Invisible Man,” or in Willis’ case, relegated to “Generic Asian Man.”
It’s not like Willis can’t stop being a caricature, it’s more like something beyond his control won’t let him stop. He keeps repeating his lines at the Golden Palace restaurant—and while his co-workers would rather not hear him out, his best friend, Fatty Choi, played by senior correspondent to The Daily Show Ronny Chieng, who’s committed to his role as “Lowlife Oriental,” begrudgingly does. As the latter smashes buttons over a rickety Street Fighter-esque arcade console called “Neighborhood Rumble” in the break room, Willis, played by Hong Kong American comedian Jimmy O’Yang, locks in to the crime procedural on TV.
The show he’s watching, “Black & White,” parodies “Law & Order,” tailing two detectives, Miles Turner, the Black one, and Sarah Green, the white one. In these shows, Asian people are either victims or witnesses—so it seems like fate when Willis sees a woman get abducted while taking out the trash and Miles and Green happen to be investigating her case the next day, identifying a local nail salon worker found dead—who’s actually been alive this whole time because the cops were never Chinatown experts. As a result, Chloe Bennet’s character, Lana Lee, joins the duo as their “Chinatown Expert”—only she isn’t either, but she knows Willis is.
And suddenly, the generic Asian man in the background of someone else’s story became a lead character, breaking every rule about Asians in the media. Because for the longest time, we only had one seat at the table and Bruce Lee sat in it—he was the only guy who could look like me and also be cool because people thought kung fu was cool.
So we all grew up wanting to be “Kung Fu Guy”—Yu recalls going through the motions in his living room with the VHS cassette tape on TV before him—I’m not sure what he was training for then, but we agreed it’s bigger than the both of us now.
But “Kung Fu Guy” celebrates Asian Americans for our “successful assimilation” by confining us to the loneliest pedestal ever, reinforcing the idea that we should be seen but not listened to, succeed but not triumph, fight but not win—and that we should be grateful to even be Americans.
Willis realizes this isn’t what he really wants, it’s a myth. Especially when his dad, who plays “Sifu,” or kung fu teacher, though never the role of “Asian Father,” reveals how unlike “Older Brother,” he specifically trained Willis to lose, it’s safer that way—he’s not there to win, Willis is there to make the other guy look good. And that broke his heart.
“That became my dream, to be that guy, the Kung Fu Guy, and now you’re telling me to not be that guy? What am I supposed to be?” Willis’ voice breaks and “Sifu” does not apologize—he fulfilled his role perfectly.
The answer—be more.
For decades, Yu’s Chinatown was seemingly at the epicenter of crime in Port Harbour—a detail he noted while researching media coverage of American Chinatowns in the ‘70s: Back when newspapers portrayed them as hubs for gang activity, and the police, who read the white press, believed it.
“Black & White” is no exception—Turner and Green always end up sensationalizing Chinatown, but because the story gets told from Willis’ point of view, it’s confusing when it happens. Chinatown is not an exotic, freaky Friday foot-massaging destination for boba drinking, karaoke singing, and lo mein lunch specials—people live here just like everybody else, and they’re not foreigners either. But to white people, Willis is invisible, and the only time “Black & White” acknowledges Chinatown’s residents is when they fit the white narrative—either as informants, or when they’re actively being arrested.
The procedural embodies Dr. Claire Jean Kim’s Racial Triangulation theory, putting Asians on the backburner of racial equity because we’re already the model minority, so we might as well be equal—news flash, we never were.
Yu’s first short story, titled “Third Class Superhero,” was about a superhero applicant named Moisture Man who keeps getting rejected from the big leagues, a self-insert character for him back when his mailbox used to be full of rejection letters from literary magazines.
“That was one of my first stories,” said Yu. “I was writing from personal experience of feeling like I was trying to get into a system that doesn’t really want me.”
And it’s not like “Interior Chinatown” happened overnight either, especially with its author so involved in writing, shooting, and post-production. Yu emphasizes showing up and supporting Asian American projects—there were many times when he had to explain why certain details were kept the way they were in mostly white meeting rooms.
“I got to show run this project because there are more Asian producers and executives now—they’re like gatekeepers who can help me make things and open doors,” said Yu.
Like when Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan at HBO hired him to write for “Westworld”—back when Yu was still in between careers as a lawyer and a novelist. Or when author Jim Gavin let him in on his writer’s room for AMC’s “Lodge 49,” which was an adaptation of Gavin’s own short stories—and Yu recalls the experience as a helpful retrospective for making his own show after watching another writer do it firsthand
BAAFF director Susan Chinsen says stories often become Asian American ones because they’re about those people who look the part, but that should go without saying—the most important thing about showing media like “Interior Chinatown,” is about showing people’s lives who were meant to exist in the margins, and make them, well, interior.
