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Author Interview
Topic: Setting and Culture in Love and Other Moods
Love and Other Moods is based in Shanghai,
a city you had once lived and worked at. What’s your favorite thing about
Shanghai?
I love that Shanghai is a city of
contrasts. You can see its history and modernity coexisting everywhere in that
metropolis. There are ancient temples right alongside skyscrapers, traditional
food stalls outside of fancy restaurants. It’s a city that attracts people from
every walk of life, from all corners of the globe.
There are many, many delicious Chinese dishes
mentioned in your novel. Do you have a favorite?
In Love and Other Moods, one of the
characters is a magazine food editor, one is a restaurant and bar owner, and
one cooks as a hobby. Naturally there are many gourmet meal scenes in the book!
Here is a sampling of some of the dishes that appear in the novel: Shanghainese
truffle-flavored xiao long bao dumplings, Chongqing style liangfen spicy
noodles, glutinous zongzi rice stuffed in bamboo leaves, lotus root pork bone
broth, sticky niangao rice, Taiwanese oyster pancake, Peking duck and hairy
crab. My favorite would be xiao long bao dumplings!
An author who has influenced your writing?
Chinese author Eileen Chang. Eileen Chang
would've turned 100 years old in 2020. She is one of the most influential
Chinese writers of the last century. Although her tales transport you to the 30s
and 40s era of Shanghai and Hong Kong, her stories are still immensely relevant
for every type of reader today. Maybe because aspects of her life are relatable
for many: she was from a broken family, she came-of-age in a politically
turbulent time, she suffered debilitating illnesses and was quarantined for
awhile, and later, she was a refugee and immigrant. It's fitting that one
character in her Chinese name is "Love," because she was a keen
observer of romance. Under her pen, Shanghai and Hong Kong became an amorous
playground, and at times a battlefield, for those searching for love, which is
all of us. In Love and Other Moods, I included one of my favorite Eileen
Chang quotes:
"You meet the one...amongst thousands and tens of thousands of people, amidst thousands and tens of thousands of years, in the boundless wilderness of time, not a step sooner, not a step later."
Love and Other Moods is filled with
Chinese expressions. Any Chinese idioms you particularly like?
“Nan de hu tu" is an expression first
coined by a Qing dynasty magistrate. Loosely translated, it means “ignorance is
bliss,” although this version doesn’t capture the depth of the original
meaning. A friend in China explained it to me like this: rather than
calculating every step, innocence—or naivety—is sometimes the wiser way. The
beauty of Chinese idioms is that usually one interpretation doesn’t suffice,
and the same expression can elicit varied understandings. Years ago, clueless
and in my mid-twenties, I had moved to Shanghai with a broken heart. In that
city I had stumbled, grieved, loved, healed. Personally, “nan de hu tu” meant
wisdom could be found in seeing the bigger picture, and in letting it be. It’s
a lesson in love I still carry with me today.
There are many cities and locations outside of
China mentioned in Love and Other Moods. What are some of them, and do
you have a favorite city?
The majority of the settings in my novel is in
Shanghai. However my characters also travel to a wide range of destinations.
Here are some of them:
- Albrecht statue in Vienna
- Osaka Castle in Japan
- Paphos in Cyprus
- Houhai Lake in Beijing
- Broken Bridge in Hangzhou
- Legion of Honor in San Francisco
- Shifen and Pingxi in Taiwan
- East Village in New York
- Yebisu Garden Place in Tokyo, Japan
My favorite cities in the world besides
Shanghai: Taipei, Venice, Singapore.
Which films do you think readers of Love
and Other Moods would enjoy?
I've been told by some of my readers that the
mood of my book evokes the following titles: The Farewell meets Lost
In Translation meets Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong. Another reader
said it was like an Asian version of Emily In Paris and The Devil
Wears Prada, but set in Shanghai. I'm grateful for these comparisons
because I'm a fan of all of these visual stories, especially the film Already
Tomorrow in Hong Kong.
Here are some fiction and non-fiction
books set in China that I had enjoyed!
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