Idylls of the Khan: Part III

Part I / Part II

I originally intended to write about orientalism the Netflix series Marco Polo. I had hoped to discuss the way it reduces Eastern culture to a realm that exists in opposition to the west and employs it as a backdrop for a western story. But I’ve said these things before about Invisible Cities, “Kubla Khan”, Siddhartha, and also Sprach Zarathustra. So I won’t talk about Marco Polo right now, especially at the tail end of April when there’s still so much poetry to discuss.

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Specifically, let’s examine the poem “Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?” by Calvin Trillin, published by The New Yorker at the beginning of this month:

Have they run out of provinces yet?
If they haven’t, we’ve reason to fret.
Long ago, there was just Cantonese.
(Long ago, we were easy to please.)
But then food from Szechuan came our way
Making Cantonese strictly passé.
Szechuanese was the song that we sung,
Though the ma po could burn through your tongue.
Then when Shanghainese got in the loop
We slurped dumplings whose insides were soup.
Then Hunan, the birth province of Mao,
Came along with its own style of chow.
So we thought we were finished, and then
A new province arrived: Fukien.
Then respect was a fraction of meagre
For those eaters who'd not eaten Uighur.
And then Xi’an from Shaanxi gained fame,
Plus some others - too many to name.
Now, as each brand-new province appears,
It brings tension, increasing our fears:
Could a place we extolled as a find
Be revealed as one province behind?
So we sometimes do miss, I confess,
Simple days of chow mein but no stress,
When we never were faced with the threat
Of more provinces we hadn’t met.
Is there one tucked away near Tibet?
Have they run out of provinces yet?

I like Trillin. I have loved his appearances on Prairie Home Companion and his past work in The New Yorker. He’s witty and observant and playful, and he seems to be trying to be all those things in “Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?” But like a class clown desperate for a laugh, Trillin takes his joke too far. It would seem that his experience with China is limited to his experience with Chinese food in America, and as a result he forgets the provinces he lists in his poem are real places populated by real people, and consequently betrays what Edward Saïd would call an Orientalist mindset.

But really, Calvin Trillin’s poem is inane. It’s stupid and unfair to China, treating it like a monolithic culture that only exists to satisfy the palate of a white American poet and his outdated sense of satire, and that’s bothersome, but it’s not insidious. The problems with this poem are insignificant when I consider them in comparison to the insidious saga of Yi-Fen Chou.

The story of Yi-Fen Chou was covered widely, including by excellent articles in the  New York Times, the Washington Post , and Jezebel. I won’t dwell on the story too long, but the short version is that the poem “The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve” was selected for inclusion in the Best American Poetry of 2015. Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that Yi-fen Chou was a white man writing under a pseudonym, saying that when he used his Christian name, his poem was rejected time and time again, but when he used his pseudonym, it was accepted and celebrated.

Interestingly, Yi-fen Chou’s poem makes no reference to the east. It does not appropriate Chinese folklore or cultural motifs and it does not take place in Asia. The only indication that “The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve” is at all a Chinese poem is the name of the author.

So what’s the big deal with a choosing a pseudonym? George Eliot was a woman. The Brontë sisters published under male names. I’ve heard tales of Irish writers choosing more English-sounding names or Jewish writers choosing more German-sounding names. The difference between these stories and the work of Yi-fen Chou is the relationship between privilege and otherness. If you were female, Irish, or Jewish artist who worked in a literary tradition dominated by privileged male, English, or German writers, then you are fighting against a system that suppressed your voice based on your identity. Changing your name thus became a way for your work to be accepted and to fight against a constructed sense of “otherness”.

I am reminded of character Gogol Ganguli, played by Kal Penn in the movie The Namesake. His peers mock his “funny sounding” same. He finds it hard to make friends, to go on dates, to be taken seriously at work. His family reminds him that his name connects him to tradition and to his identity as an Indian-American. But the pressure to fit in proves too great, and Mr. Ganguli begins introducing himself as “Nick”. 

I have heard it said that when immigrants settle in America, the first generation loses their language. Subsequent generations lose religion, holidays, a sense of history, traditional clothing, and folklore. I have heard it said that the last thing a family with an immigrant background loses it its culinary traditions, but what of a name? Look at my name for instance. “Meidlinger” speaks of my German heritage, and “Chin” of my Chinese. Our names mark us as members of certain cultural groups. Gogol Ganguli realized this when he adopted his nickname. The immigration agents at Ellis Island realized that when they changed the last names of perhaps your ancestors. 

Yet while the orientalist mindset coerces immigrants into shedding their identities, it also convinces writers of privilege that they can get away with appropriating “oriental” identities. It thus produces a great hypocrisy where on one hand it dismisses and reduces Eastern culture, and on the other fetishizes and appropriates it. On one hand, you have Calvin Trillin. On the other, you have Yi-fen Chou. Both are bad, but in this case I believe the latter is worse. Minority Artists have struggled and still struggle to make their voices heard. They struggle against an oppressive literary tradition discussed here and also here. All it takes for a white author to lay claim to a Chinese cultural tradition is to adopt the name “Yi-fen Chou”. But to do so makes a mockery of real people, artists, and cultures that need to be heard. For while Yi-fen Chou may be able to put on an “oriental” identity, an artist who is non-white – or mixed race like me – will struggle with a desire to veil their otherness, and ultimately find that they cannot afford to hide their identities. 

And this is why I have to write.

Read more of Vernon's work on Floodmark.