June 17
I am rooted, but I flow. // 我扎根，却也漂流。
June 18
中资互联网巨头的手里都沾满了鲜血。兔死狐悲的感伤并没有用，糟糕的就业环境和工作体验，即便在海外也难逃。
June 23
Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic.
虽然对于Rebecca Kuang在江湖上早有耳闻，可惜她广受好评的 Babel 是本大部头，不太适合最近忙碌的我，于是在今年儿童节，给了自己一份礼物 — 买了本 Paper back Yellow Face来看一看。
她与我同样大的年纪，从出道以来就屡获大奖，出生在中国，成长在美国，擅长辩论，文笔老辣。23年最红的小说家莫过于她，她简直是自己笔下的Athena Liu！
从这本小说本身来说，读起来真的很爽，大概花了三个周末，就已经全部读完。笔触非常流畅，尤其是主人公的心理描写非常老练又辛辣，用词到位。《扮黄脸》听说最近在台湾出了中文版，不知道如何，但是这本书叙述的方式和英文用词很考究，还有作者本人的观点其实都值得细细思考和回味。
塑料友谊，偷窃，6位数的版税；
推特揭秘，崩溃，2本书的阴影。
这本书让我重新认识了小众的出版行业的另一面，也在种族议题上给我重新上了一课。这本书让我重新反思：白人来写亚洲人的历史，真的就罪不可恕么？谁拥有叙述的主体权？作家的种族是界限吗？传统基于经验的写作标准是否也是一种歧视性框架呢？
//
Yellow Face marks my first completed English-novel reading over the years since graduation.
This book described a story about jealousy, cheating and plagiarism, while this book also provokes a stunning question, which is, should Asian stories only be narrated by Asian-rooted writers? Do white people deserve a chance or a try on Asian-history based novels?
Before reading this, I only had superficial recognitions on the racial nuances people confronted in the States. Racial expectations are everywhere. Strands of stereotypes, the general expectations of tones you’ve adopted for speaking, reactions shown for misbehaviors, so on and so forth.
Being a writer is lonely. This book also opens me a new world about how fierce the competition is in this so-called marginalized industry, which echoed the recent movie Civil War, also directed by an ivy-league recent graduate to reveal the other presentations of journalism in the eyes of front-line war reporters. Journalists are never different from writers, their career life span solely depends on how rare the source information is and how much attention that they can attract.
The protagonist was in hunger for attention. In her second novella, she was strongly driven by the motivation to acquire more spotlight to shine on her, while she was haunted by Athena that she could not get rid of the shadow of her passed-away fake friend. Instead of writing a 100% original one, once again, she chose to take out some excerpts from the papers she stole. Coincidentally, the excerpts were unpublished workshop efforts back in 2018 by her friend, though not circulated in the press, there were someone who recall the same paragraphs being adopted in the first paragraph of the Mother Witch.
The story feels fucking true. When writers finish their debut project and launched it, no one will stay uncurious about how readers perceive it. They will be like vultures hunting for compliments and mean judgements on Goodreads. The narratives and social media snippets always remind me of what critical role twitter has played for literary circles & academia world.
All in all, Rebecca’s nitpicking language is extremely spicy. When June was talking about Taylor, she describes her as the white supremacist Barbie. After Candice beat her to the EMT, she mocked the whole tragedy as “riding the diversity elevator”. The sewing needle of plots are never the books, the publishing, the lies, indeed it’s the racial assumptions and mindsets that are key for progression.
It is my first time knowing how the publishing works: advances, 6-figure royalties, and countless marketing strategies for sales. It turns out the same as hypes for Hollywood stars, no attention from the public, then people will forget about you, which means you need to sit in the corner and wait the hotter and younger ones to replace you. Classics are rare. The industry is full of gossip, competitions, under-paid assistants and unhealthy rewarding systems. It is not fair at all.
