About Lan Samantha Chang
ABOUT LAN SAMANTHA CHANG
Lan Samantha Chang 's fiction has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Story, and The Best American Short Stories. A graduate of Yale University and the University of Iowa, she divides her time between Northern California and Princeton, New Jersey. AN INTERVIEW WITH LAN SAMANTHA CHANG
Many of the families in Hunger have attempted to sever themselves from the past in order to build a future. Was this how your parents coped with starting over in America? What parts of Chinese culture did they celebrate?
My parents ' disconnection from China was never as deliberate or extreme as Ming and Sansan 's disconnection in "The Unforgetting." My mother and father spoke Chinese and ate Chinese food; they were proud of their Chinese background and taught their four daughters (I was the third) to be proud of it as well. But like the midwestern Hwang family in "The Unforgetting", we were geographically isolated; months would go by when we did not have contact with Chinese or Chinese Americans outside of our immediate family. This meant that my sisters and I gained most of our knowledge of China and Chinese culture from our parents, and there were many things my parents did not, or would not, talk about.
Like many Chinese immigrant parents, my mother and father had to make decisions about which parts of Chinese culture to preserve and which to let go of. In the case of our particular family, my parents made certain, first and foremost, that all four of their daughters valued family. We 're a close-knit clan, and we feel responsible for each other.
On a more practical level, we all learned to cook Chinese food (all of my sisters are very good cooks). We all celebrate Chinese New Year, as well as Christmas; and we usually stuff our holiday turkey with sticky rice and shitake mushrooms.
When I went to college I met Chinese American classmates whose parents had made different decisions. Some of them, like the fictional Hwangs, had cut out many aspects of
Lan Samantha Chang 's fiction has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Story, and The Best American Short Stories. A graduate of Yale University and the University of Iowa, she divides her time between Northern California and Princeton, New Jersey. AN INTERVIEW WITH LAN SAMANTHA CHANG
Many of the families in Hunger have attempted to sever themselves from the past in order to build a future. Was this how your parents coped with starting over in America? What parts of Chinese culture did they celebrate?
My parents ' disconnection from China was never as deliberate or extreme as Ming and Sansan 's disconnection in "The Unforgetting." My mother and father spoke Chinese and ate Chinese food; they were proud of their Chinese background and taught their four daughters (I was the third) to be proud of it as well. But like the midwestern Hwang family in "The Unforgetting", we were geographically isolated; months would go by when we did not have contact with Chinese or Chinese Americans outside of our immediate family. This meant that my sisters and I gained most of our knowledge of China and Chinese culture from our parents, and there were many things my parents did not, or would not, talk about.
Like many Chinese immigrant parents, my mother and father had to make decisions about which parts of Chinese culture to preserve and which to let go of. In the case of our particular family, my parents made certain, first and foremost, that all four of their daughters valued family. We 're a close-knit clan, and we feel responsible for each other.
On a more practical level, we all learned to cook Chinese food (all of my sisters are very good cooks). We all celebrate Chinese New Year, as well as Christmas; and we usually stuff our holiday turkey with sticky rice and shitake mushrooms.
When I went to college I met Chinese American classmates whose parents had made different decisions. Some of them, like the fictional Hwangs, had cut out many aspects of