All you want is for him to make that face, the one that looks like internal distress possibly of a gastrointestinal nature but actually indicates something closer to Deeply Repressed Secret Pride Honorable Father Has for His Young but Promising Son means Deliciously Bittersweet Pain That Comes from Knowing Honorable Teacher Is No Longer Needed. If you could only show him what you’ve become. To be honest though it can sometimes be hard to tell with Sifu, who is famously inscrutable. Which, if you know him, well, that’s a pretty big deal. Your kung fu is B, B-plus on a good day, and Sifu once proclaimed your drunken monkey to be nearly at a level of competence that he could perhaps at some point in the future imagine not being completely embarrassed of you. You are currently Generic Asian Man Number Three/Delivery Guy. In this excerpt, Willis Wu contemplates his relationship with his father Sifu.Įver since you were a boy, you’ve dreamt of being Kung Fu Guy. The event is organized in partnership with the Asian American Writer's Workshop and presented as part of the programming for the inaugural Asia Society Triennial: We Do Not Dream Alone. On May 20, Yu will host a virtual book club discussion of Interior Chinatown. The brilliantly inventive Interior Chinatown - which The Washington Post called a ' delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire' upon the book's release in 2020 - is a meditation on race, pop culture, immigration, and the roles that we're forced to play. His stated aspiration is to assume the role of Kung Fu Guy - which would be the pinnacle of his career. Every day, Willis sets off for work on the set of Black and White, a racially-themed police procedural, where Willis perpetually plays a bit part.

Learn moreĬharles Yu's fourth novel Interior Chinatown has as its protagonist Willis Wu - or, as he's sometimes known, Generic Asian Man, Background Oriental Making a Weird Face, and Disgraced Son. Charles Yu leads a virtual book club discussion of his novel Interior Chinatown on Thursday, May 20 at 6:30 p.m.

The interior chinatown