When I was seven years old and still young enough to see my parents as infallible, my mother told me something I still remember today. “Just because somebody didn’t come to America for graduate school,” she said. “does not mean you should respect them any less.”
My friend Lin is the closest a Midwest girl like me gets to “The Old Country” without actually having to live there. Sure, my parents were from China, but that was thirty years ago; they’re frozen in the sepia-toned amber of the ‘80s. Lin is from the realistically-colored China of today. She moved to New […]
Continued from Untitled Fairy Tale: Part 2 and Untitled Fairy Tale: Part 1 The Village Pub was not the only pub in the village, but the name helped establish that distinction. After all, if you tell your friend you’ll meet at the village pub and you show up at The Village Pub and he shows […]
First, she cut out his eyes. Buried them halfway across the world. She couldn’t stand the way he looked at her. Like he had all the time in the world to just look at her.
EXT. TYPICAL AMERICAN MIDWEST FIELD OF WHEAT/CORN/SOYBEAN/CANOLA TRUMP SIGN IN FOREGROUND. AMERICAN FLAG WAVING ABOVE IT.
INT. RESTAURANT ANN and FANG, both in their early twenties, sits at romantic restaurant table dressed for a first date. FANG is a bit overdressed –vest and tie, but classic instead of hipster. Old couple, RUPERT and BETTY, sit at adjacent table.
Jeju Island, South Korea December 2010 Palm trees line the streets of Old Jeju City, swaying in the cold Pacific wind. Many years ago, the government transplanted them from their natural habitat so that this mild-weathered island would look tropical in brochures. They were supposed to give the place an identity and, hopefully, tourist dollars. […]
INT. BRUNCH RESTAURANT AIMEE, a woman in her late 20s, arrives at a table where her friends BECKY and CLARISSA are having brunch. AIMEE Sorry I’m late! I was with the new boy and I think this one could be serious. BECKY Ooooh so he hasn’t seen you without makeup yet?
The majestic silver trees lining the streets of Shanghai were imported from France over a century ago. They stand like pillars along the newly paved roads and old cobblestone sidewalks. Between their mottled trunks, colorful flags of blankets and old ladies’ underwear waved in the shade. A middle-aged woman leaned out of a second story window […]
Hello! For the past few weeks, I’ve been working with a friend of mine on a podcast called Philosophy in the Bedroom. If you would like to listen to a writer and an art historian grapple with life’s existential questions on a weekly basis, check out our website here . Don’t worry, I’ll still be posting my writing on this […]
Beilin Ye 