钟宜霖在雅典(2017年7月)

 

 

Novel Chinatown Interview (Part 1/8)

Time: 16th February 2017

Venue: London

Interviewer: UCL Documentary Film student Shi Yi Han

Interviewee: Yilin Zhong (Author of book Chinatown)

Topic: Chinatown, the novel

Part 1 video length: 11'32''

 

Interviewer: (In Chinese) Shall we talk about the name, you name this novel ‘Chinatown’, do you think this is the real scene of Chinatown in your heart?

Yilin Zhong: The reason I named this book as Chinatown, I have said it in the postscript, that initially I couldn’t find what the main subject or theme of this book is, and that’s why although I had met those people two years ago before I started writing it, in the past two years, I couldn’t have written it, only because I couldn’t find a line, or the story line, or whatever you call the theme, to write about it. And the reason I wrote about it was (two years later) I met Amazon’s vice executive director in China (coming) for the London Book Fair, we had dinner at Leicester Square, just one street next to Chinatown.

During the dinner, I was talking about this topic, and then it seems that he couldn’t understand what I was talking about, those characters -- at that time they’re not characters, just my friends -- it seems that he couldn’t understand my friends, he couldn’t understand why they’re living here, illegally, and even being a prostitute just for surviving, rather than just going back home, where they have their parents, they have their family, they have the proper job, everything decent. Why would they survive here, rather than in China where they could have lived properly well. I felt if I wanted to explain the whole thing to him, that would be quite a huge topic to talk about, so I had to stop at the dinner eventually, and then when I came back home, I started to think: OK, it seems that in the mainstream society, there’s a lot of misunderstandings, or they couldn’t understand at all, for those kind of illegal group of people, which I didn’t realize at that time, I mean, before that dinner.

Then after that dinner, I realized it is an issue, it is a problem that I may need to explain to them. How do I explain to those people? The best way is just I write down their fictions or whatever, I write down their stories as fiction, then people may understand: Oh, I see, that’s why they’d rather living here in London or in oversea, not in their homeland, having this kind of very sad life, but they are still keen to live in this way, rather than living in their hometown happily, in mainstreams society’s views.

So, for that reason, I started to think of structuring this book, this novel. At the beginning, it was just random, there’s about twenty or thirty characters, or people from reality I have known, initially there were about thirty people. So I made a list of all each of (those) people in the reality, I knew, I met, and I knew all of them and their stories, maybe just ABCDEFG, but they all have their different stories, different respective views of life, and everything. They all have different backgrounds. So from those thirty characters, now I have to cut them off, for example, combine A and B together, or I just delete C, and then I may enlarge D by filling other stories into his story... By doing that, finally, I think after that, my list was shortened to about fifteen characters, and finally when you read this book, there’s about twelve or thirteen characters as the main story and the main characters, apart from the supporting roles, there are a few supporting roles as well.

So finally there’s fifteen characters, then for those fifteen characters and their stories, I began to think, OK, so how could I combine them all together? As one book, one story, rather than fifteen short stories. They are all separated, they are not knowing each other for sure, but I need to make them know each other, in some kind of way. Anyway I just need to find the link, to link all those fifteen characters, fictional or realistic, or whatever, I just want to link them altogether, like the necklace. There are fifteen pearls, and I need to link them together with a single line.

So what’s the line? What’s the story line? I was thinking about. I was thinking about it for two or three days, three days later, my friend, Amazon China’s Executive, he finished the London Book Fair already, and he’s going to leave, so he gave me a call when he was at Heathrow airport. He said: ‘How about your writing? I remember you told me last time, you want to write a book about it?’ I said: ‘Yes I’m still struggling to think, you know, I still couldn’t find that line.’ And he said: ‘Why don’t you just start to write? Maybe the line will appear itself?’

I said: ‘No no no, wait, I think I need to think about it carefully, before I write it. I need to figure out how do I connect all those characters together, then I could start to write.’ Then he said: ‘OK, I am looking forward to reading it.’

He said that in 2005, and then finally when this book was written and published in China properly, it was 2015, that’s ten years later, exactly. But I think both he and I, we never realized that it would take such long name, ten years to produce a book. Even though I wrote it in 2005, this book, but it couldn’t be released or published in China, for some reason, I don’t know, maybe because I was just being too lazy to find a publisher, also another main reason is, Chinese publishers, they don’t think this is a serious problem, they don’t see the value of this fiction at all, -- as we English will do. I’m not talking about I am English, I just say, usually, in England, maybe they are more interested in this subject rather than Chinese. Because at that time, you know, the Chinese main society, those publishers, those ones who live on the top range of the society, they can never imagine what important it is about the illegal immigrants, what’s the matter to do with them? They don’t see any point of me writing it, even. Now maybe they will start to realize, yes, they are such kind of people living there, but they’re never being aware of it before.

So I would say, happily, that finally one day, I found the line, the link, the theme, the theme will connect all those fifteen fictional or non-fictional characters, that’s Chinatown. That’s Chinatown. So basically, I invented the Chinatown, in this book. The Chinatown was never existing in this book, but I invented it as Chinatown. And in this Chinatown, complete fictitious Chinatown, there are fifteen characters, from all sides of London, all part of this society, they live in this fictitious Chinatown.

However, there’s another world of Chinatown, which we all know, is like a tourist point, the Chinatown next to Leicester Square in central London. That’s an official name of Chinatown; that’s exactly Chinatown in our reality. However, there’s another Chinatown which is complete fictional, fictitious, that’s inside my book, and all my characters living in this non-existing, fictitious Chinatown, even though all their lives, and all their stories are true.

Interviewer: So you created a world for them, but this world is completely imagined by you. Why do you want to put them into this world, whose world you think it is? Is this the Chinatown scene in your heart?

Yilin Zhong: There’s no such thing called Chinatown...(unfinished sentence, interrupted)

Interviewer: Like you as a foreign student, after coming to London, do you think the Chinatown at Leicester Square is not your imagined community of China, therefore you imagined another Chinatown?

Yilin Zhong: No.
(In Chinese): How do I answer your question? I need to answer your question with repeating your words first, right?

Interviewer: Yes.

Yilin Zhong: OK. I came to the UK, London, in 2002, of course as all Chinese will do, probably the first tourist point we will go to is Chinatown, and Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, all those points. When I firstly went to Chinatown in 2002, the first month or first week of me being in London, I went to Chinatown, and I saw all those Chinese restaurants, it’s a kind of tricky feeling, you know, it’s quite, er...how to say that, it’s quite tricky. Because clearly you know, this is not in China, but all these Chinese symbols are there, they have the Chinese restaurant, they have all the Chinese characters on the title, and the advertisement boards, and everyone walking on this street, some of them are tourists, some of them are English, and most of them are Chinese.

So you wouldn’t tell much difference, of course there are still some difference, of course, for example the architecture, the building style, everything is still British, but all those Chinese restaurants and all those passengers, those Chinese people walking along the street, you can tell it’s still part of China. You cannot see much difference between them, and when you actually get into a Chinese supermarket, or you get into a Chinese restaurant, and you sit down, having a meal, everything is the same. There’s not much difference between a Chinese restaurant in London, and a Chinese restaurant in China. Well, maybe there are some taste different, but there are still not much difference you could see. So it’s quite a kind of, er... how to say that, a kind of, you would find it fresh, you would find it excited, and you would find it something vivid, and recall your homesick. All those kind of mind telling.

But, it is Chinatown, but it’s not China; we all know that, everyone knows that. So, it is a real Chinatown, but it is not a real scene of China. It is exact a scene of China, but it is not a real scene in China. I hope you understand this paradox.

So even though this Chinatown is officially called Chinatown, it’s not really Chinatown, it’s not really China. It’s imagination of our, all our Chinese people or oversea(foreign) people, we imagined it as a China, as a Chinatown, as a part of China. So it’s complete an imaginary community, that’s what we know, it’s one of literary theories, the imagined community.

 

 

钟宜霖在雅典卫城(2017年7月)

Novel Chinatown Interview (Part 2/8)

Time: 16th February 2017

Venue: London

Interviewer: UCL Documentary Film student Shi Yi Han

Interviewee: Yilin Zhong (Author of book Chinatown)

Topic: Chinatown, the novel

Part 2 video length: 11'48''

 

Video link: https:///watch?v=mLFMyoaOLII

 

Yilin Zhong: (continued) So Chinatown is the best example of that (literary theory). Now that's the first impression Chinatown gave to me when I was just a student, and I was a tourist as well, at the first week I came over to London, that's the scene I have seen. So apart from I felt, oh, everything here is from China, that's so good! So I can have Chinese food, and I could meet Chinese people even in London, that's quite exciting. But apart from that, nothing more. Nothing much more. Because I only left China for about one week, there’s not much difference I would tell, at that point.

 

However, one year later, when I was trying to finish my degree, writing my dissertation, I went back London trying to find a property, or find a room to live, so I can finish my study in London, and then I met those illegal people by chance, just completely coincidence: I became one of them, they became my housemate and I lived with them. Everyday. Day and night, we talk, we're friends, we ate together, we slept all in the same house, we used the kitchen and bathroom in the same house, so twenty-four hours I was with them. I never imagined I would live with them, as I said in this novel, I wrote everything in detail, how I met those people, and how I ended up living with them. I never thought it would happen, however it just happened.

 

At that point I still never thought I would write a fiction about them one day, until in 2005, two years later, as I said, I had a dinner with my friend, and suddenly it inspired me, that, it tells me I need to say something for them. Because clearly, everyone in the main society, they don't understand them. They never understand they are living here, with us, because they are not existing. They are not existing in our society, they are not existing in our mainstream at all, media, social, everything, in any kind of respect, they are not existing at all. But they are here. So I need to write about them. I need to make people be aware that they are here, they are alive, they are living with us, they are part of us, they are part of our society even though they will never be accepted and recognized by our society.

 

Now, get into my book. Is this Chinatown fiction, fictional? Yes. Is this Chinatown fictitious? Yes. But, are those characters all fictional? Partly, not really. They are all very very genuine people I have met, and I have experienced, and that's why I could have collected so many stories of them. That's why I could know them in depth, because I had personal contact with them.

 

The only thing is, how could I make all those people in the reality become fictional characters, that's writer's job. That's what I have done in the whole process. However as I said, to create this book, I need to find a link between all those different characters, and that link is Chinatown. So in that sense, yes, the Chinatown in this book was invented by me, it was created by me, it was a pure fiction. However in another way, this so-called fictional Chinatown, is the real Chinatown. It is the real Chinatown in our society, in our reality, rather than the fictional fake Chinatown, the official Chinatown in London.

 

Interviewer: Can I say something. Because I feel the Chinatown you write about is just a part of the, er... not the physical Chinatown, just a literary Chinatown, this is just a part of it. Chinatown does not only have illegal people, they also has different lots of lives.

 

Yilin Zhong: (laughed) I understand. So in reality, Chinatown not only have the illegal people, but also have the legal people, for example, the Chinese students, and those Chinese employees working in British companies. Yes, that's 50:50 let's say, I don't know the population exactly, I don't know these numbers, but definitely, there are part of legal people living in the UK, and part of illegal Chinese people living in the UK, and the Chinatown I was writing about, was complete illegal people. Apart from me, I'm the only legal person there, OK, so I am the only one existing in this world, and all the rest fifteen or thirteen characters are not existing at all, they are all fictional in our reality. That's quite tricky. That's another thing I want to press here.

 

Yes, in reality, the Chinatown should have all those legal and illegal people altogether, however as I said, the link, or the theme of my book, of this fiction, is illegal people. Maybe yes, I'm writing a Chinatown about those illegal immigrants, but there are some part of this Chinatown maybe I was missing, is about the legal people. But as I said, because the theme of this book, of this story, of this fiction was those illegal people, that's why I didn't put the other people in. Maybe they will have other stories, all those legal people who work in the British companies, or they're students, mainstream Chinese, or every successful for example, the entrepreneur of this country, that's quite a lot of Chinese as well. The story is not about them. Because we can all see them. The thing I was trying to write is under the city, underground, those people we could not find out, we could not see, and that's the theme about this book. That's why, yes maybe I just wrote part of the Chinatown.

 

Interviewer: So my curiosity is why you titled this story of the fifteen characters with the name of ‘Chinatown’, instead of like, the invisible people in Chinatown, but use more general word of Chinatown? This is my question.

 

Yilin Zhong: That's a good question, because usually, before I wrote this book, OK, let's say, usually when you mention Chinatown, in London or in America or anywhere, worldwide, usually when you mention this word, how many percentage of people would be thinking of 'there are some illegal people there'? I would say probably 90% people would never be aware of there is some illegal population inside this society.

 

Interviewer: I know a lot of people living in London, they are aware of them, but they have little touch with them. They are aware of that.

 

Yilin Zhong: OK, but when I say a ‘Chinatown’ word to you, would you think of them? If I say: ‘Let's go to Chinatown, what would you think?’

 

Interviewer: Shopping, restaurant, eating, meeting.

 

Yilin Zhong: Yep. Is there any any little thing about those illegal people?

 

Interviewer: We don't go to Chinatown at night because it's very dangerous.

 

Yilin Zhong: Yes, that's the film, that's the American Hollywood film would tell you, but when I mention a ‘Chinatown’ word to you, or to anyone, would any of them, I would say probably less than 10% will be thinking of illegal people. Everybody will be thinking about everything on the surface, everything we could have seen, all these legal people, all these Chinese restaurants, all these people on the street, they are legal. We're assuming they are legal. Maybe they are not, we don’t know. We never check their identity.

 

Let's say, if I go to America, or if I go to Paris, and I said, OK let's go to Chinatown, would you think of anything of illegal people? No, I don't think so.

 

What I mean is, maybe because of the Hollywood film ‘Chinatown’, or maybe because of the media reports about Chinatown, and everything, when you Google the Chinatown word online, I don't think you will see anything illegal there. Everything comes out from the media, from people's mouth, from people’s thinking or imagination of Chinatown, everything, I assume or I believe, most of them will be thinking of those legal Chinese, however the illegal side, they may be aware of it ,but the only chance they would think or read about these illegal immigrants news, is when there is some tragedy happens, for example, in 2000 or 2005, I cannot remember, in the Dover harbor, there's a very sad tragedy, a lot of Chinese people died, and they are all illegal. They went there by paying lots of money, tens of thousands of dollars or pounds, just to get into this country, but they tragically died.

We only can read this kind of news when there’s something, bad thing, really really sad things happened, and it will be reviewed, however that was just very very little amount, very small portion of those illegal immigrants’ life, because the one you have seen is the one they have died. And there are thousands and hundreds of them, they actually succeed; they came over to this country, and they live here, but nobody could ever see them.

 

That's the thing I want to write about, because they are so, mysterious, or very interesting.

 

Interviewer: Maybe that’s interesting, but those kind of people, do you think they want to be exposed in the general, in the mass communication? In front of the audience.

 

Yilin Zhong: I don't think any of them would like to be exposed in any kind of way in public, unless they got their identity. But even if they got their identity, I mean, for example, the permanent residence, or green card, or whatever, even they got it, they don’t want to admit they were getting into this country initially by this way. Nobody wants to. That’s why it has to be a fiction. It cannot be a documentary, it will be so difficult for filming a documentary about them. You couldn’t find them at all, and (even if you find them,) they may refuse it.

 

So, that's the thing. That’s what literature do. We do write about things are not existing, or they’re supposed not to be exposed. That's what we do.

 

But by working out that, it requires a lot of work, and it requires a lot of chances as well. It's not many people have the chance to get in touch with them, and I was there, it just happened.

 

 

 

 

—— End of part 2

 

Written by Yilin Zhong

The full article please see: yilinzhong.blogspot.co.uk