Belinda Huijuan Tang, A MAP FOR THE MISSING
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[0:54]Belinda Huijian Tang is the author of a map for the missing a novel
[1:02]She's a 2021 graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop where she was a Truman Capote fellow and recipient of the missionary
[1:09]Copernicus Fellowship
[1:10]She held a BA from Stanford University and was a 2019 work study fellow at the Middlebury
[1:15]Breadlove Writers Conference
[1:17]She lived in China from 2016 to 2018 and while there she received an MA from Peking University in Beijing
[1:23]She currently lives in Los Angeles
[1:25]Welcome, Belinda. Thank you so much for coming on Mobs. Don't have time to read books
[1:29]I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure
[1:33]Tell listeners, please about a map for the missing
[1:36]So map for the missing begins when Tony Tien receives a call from his mother back home in China that
[1:44]Tells him that his estranged father has gone missing
[1:47]Tien is currently a professor in the United States and he and his father have not spoken and over 15 years
[1:54]So the story follows Etienne is he travels back to China
[1:58]and looks for his father and it also unfolds the story of their original estrangement
[2:03]Which happened back when Etienne was growing up in a village in rural China at the very end of the cultural revolution
[2:10]And why why did you write this story?
[2:12]So stories based on something that happened to my own father when he was growing up a lot of the elements from a map for the missing are
[2:19]Drawing on my own family's history
[2:22]It's based in the village that my family is from an end-point province and my father grew up there
[2:27]He was the first Miss family to leave the village to go to college and
[2:33]When he got into college the summer before he was supposed to go to the city to start his own grandfather went missing and
[2:40]His grandfather like Etienne's grandfather in the book had been the one who had really raised him and inculcated this love for education and learning in him
[2:49]And so my dad spent that summer writing trains around the province trying to find his grandfather and they never actually
[2:56]Were able to find him and so that was a story that I'd grown up with
[3:00]Hearing a lot about but obviously I knew it's like something that was really difficult for my dad to
[3:05]Kind of touch and talk about and so for me writing the book was a way of exploring the story that always like wait heavily on me
[3:12]And I could tell wait heavily on my family
[3:15]Do they have any guesses as to what happened to your grandfather were there any clues?
[3:19]Not really so my grandfather hit my great grandfather my dad's grandfather. So you're good to your dad's grandfather
[3:25]Yeah, he was old about this point for me to say what happened to him in real life might spoil some of the book
[3:31]So I won't know about it, but yeah, they they really never found out much information is a different time. It was like
[3:38]1982 I think so there just wasn't you know like a set up system for looking for people
[3:48]How does your dad feel about the book and and even the fact that you were writing the book about his family and is it something
[3:56]He was okay talking about or something he preferred to keep sort of shoved down
[4:00]It was interesting because I also had trouble talking about it with him and in a way our
[4:05]Our relationship in real life is like mirroring aspects of the book because the book is in a lot of ways dealing with like a family
[4:12]Is failure to be able to communicate
[4:14]Yeah, able to talk about their love for one another and I also really struggled to talk to my dad about this book when I was writing it
[4:21]I wrote it really actually without asking him much about his his own story and I wrote it based on my memory of things
[4:28]He had told me and it was only really at the very end after the book had sold and after I
[4:33]Like finished a revision with my editor that I felt really like my just shows book to my dad because it's based so much on him
[4:39]And I it was like very emotional if I only have that moment
[4:43]And like you told me pride and he wrote me like a letter based on you know
[4:47]What it actually happened and we actually like we still haven't talked about it very much after that
[4:52]But we did like have that major moment around it which which felt important
[4:57]Wow crazy. I mean what if he had what if he had said no
[5:02]Like what if what if after you go with all the edits and you should have done
[5:05]He's like I don't want this out there. Yeah, that would have been interesting. I never thought about that
[5:10]I think I mean, I know it's I know it's fiction. I know it's fiction. I know it's fiction
[5:14]Like you need permission
[5:15]But yeah, I felt common that fictionalized enough that it wouldn't feel like tongue's hand is my dad
[5:22]And then I think the other thing is that like I really tried hard throughout the course of the book to like give it tongue
[5:28]He and moments where we could see his closeness with this family and at the end of the book to make this like feel like a story of
[5:36]Growth for tongue each and that he can really something at the end of the book that this journey has put him through that
[5:41]Allow him to realize that you know, he didn't start the book with at the beginning so
[5:46]Through my love for that character
[5:48]I would hope my dad would not have said something like that, but I don't know what I would have done had he been
[5:54]Give the money back, you know, the book is not
[5:58]Oh my gosh, so I saw you into Iowa
[6:00]Writers workshop is did you work on this there?
[6:02]Or tell me about when this started and how you got into writing to begin with?
[6:06]Yeah, so I started the book probably about half a year before I got to Iowa
[6:11]I finished the draft in Iowa
[6:13]And it was a really like important time because I was in a workshop that was all people that were working on novels
[6:18]And I got a tremendous amount of really great feedback
[6:21]So that was when I finished the book and revised it and sent it to an agent
[6:26]So that was I at Iowa. I did the biggest chunk of work on this book
[6:29]I would say I had started thinking about the story probably
[6:34]Maybe four or five years before I even before I started actually writing it and I knew kind of like
[6:40]When I started writing creatively at all that I wanted this to be the very first
[6:46]Novel that I wrote but for a long time I felt like the story is so important to me
[6:49]And I know I'm not ready yet like I don't have the skills to write this story
[6:54]And even when I actually did start I wasn't sure like I'm ready to write this yet
[6:58]It just felt like okay, this is you know time to start
[7:01]I didn't start writing until after I graduated from college
[7:04]I'd never written creatively until like my very last semester in college
[7:08]And I took a class like on a whim because I was about to graduate and I just loved it
[7:13]But I also I think because for me I felt like I'd started kind of later compared with everyone else
[7:18]I had a lot of hang-ups of feeling like I'm not ready. I'm not good enough yet
[7:22]And that's why it took me a long time kind of I was writing alone in my room
[7:27]I was really like practicing before I felt ready to start writing this novel
[7:32]Wow, so what was your plan? What were you gonna do? Had you not taken that class after college?
[7:37]I had major economics and I worked in economics research for a couple years actually right after
[7:43]I graduated and I wasn't at that point sure at all like I'm gonna become a writer
[7:47]I didn't actually really even think about it until it was at my first job and I was like
[7:51]You know experiencing what a lot of people feel when they start working
[7:55]Which is like wow, this is really not for me and this is
[7:59]I was sitting in my cubicle every day like I can't believe I like majored in this and thought
[8:05]That I was going to like do my life in this field and that was when I was like well
[8:09]What else do I like I really enjoyed that writing class and
[8:14]I started writing more on my own and to kind of
[8:16]Staking a little piece of land for myself there
[8:19]So you started writing a little bit on your own, but then when did you
[8:23]Like were there intermediate steps or did you just apply to Iowa?
[8:27]Like I'm always interested of how people get up there and you know
[8:30]There were intermediate steps. I'm like I wanted to do
[8:33]I like I said I had this really big feeling like I'm not good
[8:36]And I'm not writing and so I really want I was like I need to get skills
[8:40]So I like took a couple community writing classes both in
[8:44]San Francisco and had Stanford through continuing education and like I really recommend that for people who are like
[8:50]I'm interested in writing because it's like a nice way to really explore or not feel like I'm blowing my life up
[8:56]You know, I still have my job is still doing all the other things that like
[9:01]I could do if this doesn't work out and I don't really like it as much as I thought and after I take in a couple of those classes
[9:07]I felt more certain and it was at that point that I left my job and I went and moved to China for a couple of years
[9:14]And I went there to do a master's degree, but also I had an
[9:18]Opportunity to do a fully fun and master's degree
[9:20]So I thought let's do it but also because I felt like I was writing so much about China
[9:25]And I really wanted to spend time there
[9:28]And so for me that felt like the first time that I really made a decision to say like I am going
[9:33]I want to be a full-time writer and I'm going to actively
[9:36]You know change up my life so that I could pursue that and where did you go in China?
[9:41]I was envisioning for two years
[9:44]Wow amazing did that I mean that must have colored how you wrote about everything right
[9:49]I mean how you must soaking up all the culture and everything
[9:53]Stupid observation, but I mean
[9:56]I still really changed the the tenor and the depth
[10:00]of the narrative.
[10:02]It was so important to like how I wrote
[10:06]and how I saw the world and generally for this book.
[10:08]I mean, I think the biggest thing I left China with
[10:11]was like a sense of, it's like a cornea say,
[10:14]but I felt like a strong sense of belonging
[10:16]to my family there, you know, like I'd grown up
[10:18]in an immigrant family in the US.
[10:21]And we might, my dad was the first in all his family
[10:24]and on both sides of my family that ever moved to the US.
[10:27]So we really didn't have any relatives
[10:28]and I kind of grew up accustomed to one way of life.
[10:32]And when I went to China, it was just amazing.
[10:35]I had so many relatives and I just felt this sense of like,
[10:38]wow, this is what it feels like to have family around
[10:41]and just what it feels like to have a strong sense
[10:43]of belonging and to feel like there are people
[10:46]always looking out for you.
[10:48]I thought it's like incredible that people grow up
[10:51]at this sense and have this feeling.
[10:53]Not to say like my family life was impoverished or anything,
[10:56]but we really, you know, didn't have a sense
[10:58]of community in that way.
[11:00]And it really made me think like how amazing it was
[11:03]that my parents decided to leave this
[11:06]when they decided to immigrate to the US.
[11:08]They decided to leave this place where they had
[11:10]all this community and belonging.
[11:13]And what a weighted decision that must have been.
[11:15]And that really I think influenced the story
[11:19]in the book very strongly.
[11:21]And where did your mom fit into all this?
[11:24]My mom's story is a little different
[11:26]because she didn't grow up in rural China.
[11:29]So the book is really about rural China, I think.
[11:32]But my mom does have a little a part of her life
[11:34]has been written into the book.
[11:36]And that was around China's college entrance exam,
[11:39]which plays a huge part in the book.
[11:41]So the college entrance exam in China,
[11:43]it's a huge deal.
[11:44]It's like I described as like the SAT on steroids
[11:47]has only offered once a year and set the end
[11:49]of everyone's senior year of high school.
[11:51]If you get a good score, you're into college
[11:54]and if not, you're kind of screwed.
[11:56]And so it's just like so much as writing on this one exam
[12:00]when my mom was in high school and like back in the 80s
[12:04]when my parents were in school, it was even harder to pass.
[12:07]Like now, I don't know, I think maybe 70% of people
[12:10]are able to pass, but then it was like in the single digits.
[12:13]There's so much pressure on this exam
[12:16]and my mom like failed it year after year after year
[12:19]for three years.
[12:21]And it just got harder and harder for her to take.
[12:23]I think because, you know, I'm an anxious person,
[12:26]anxiety around it kind of snowballed.
[12:29]And that story in the book makes it to Henwin's character
[12:33]because she's someone also who like,
[12:36]she has all the tools, she's smart
[12:37]and she just for some reason cannot pass this exam.
[12:41]And then it really comes to reverberate throughout her life.
[12:44]That's how I feel about my driving test.
[12:46]I just kept my legs over and over again.
[12:49]Did you pass eventually?
[12:51]Yes, now I drive, but it took a little bit.
[12:53]And it's like, what's wrong with me?
[12:55]Why could everybody else do this?
[12:57]Yeah, yeah.
[12:58]Planning like, I'm gonna drive out of here.
[12:59]Oh, no, I'm not.
[13:00]I'm not gonna drive out of here at all.
[13:01]I'm gonna have to go back and practice
[13:03]and like the parking lot again.
[13:04]Yeah.
[13:05]Totally different scale.
[13:06]No, can barely be compared by, you know.
[13:11]Yeah, life changing failures always fun.
[13:14]So what was it like having the book finally come out
[13:18]and all of that had been a debut novelist and everything?
[13:22]It was a really exciting time.
[13:24]I think being a debut novelist is so hard
[13:26]because I mean, it's not hard in comparison
[13:29]to other things that are much harder, but in a way
[13:32]when it is something you care about a lot,
[13:33]it does feel hard because you really have no idea
[13:36]of what to expect.
[13:37]And I think you feel a little bit like the process
[13:39]is very opaque.
[13:41]You know, you don't really know what's going on.
[13:43]My publicist sometimes sends me stuff
[13:46]and then other times, you know,
[13:47]you don't hear anything for a week or two.
[13:49]And you're like, what's happening?
[13:51]And I've spoken to a lot of people
[13:53]who had their first books come out the past year
[13:56]and I think we all experienced some version of that
[13:59]and I'm just feeling anxious and nervous
[14:03]and kind of in the dark.
[14:05]In the midst of that, I would also say it's like been
[14:07]really rewarding and I think, you know,
[14:10]once again, I appreciate a say,
[14:11]but the most rewarding thing has been to meet readers
[14:15]and to have people tell me what the book means to them
[14:17]because it was such a personal story for me.
[14:20]It was so rooted in my own family's history.
[14:24]And because of that, I was obviously nervous
[14:26]about writing it in a way because I was
[14:28]more reading our people than I think
[14:30]this is supposed to represent all of Chinese history
[14:34]or is this, you know, are people going to be mad
[14:36]when they feel like I'm not representing
[14:38]their family's story or their own version of events.
[14:42]And instead it has been really, really meaningful
[14:45]for me to have like, you know, Chinese immigrants
[14:49]and the children of Chinese immigrants,
[14:51]like I am coming to me and say like I felt so much
[14:54]about the story of this novel reflected like a life
[14:57]that I knew or the life that my parents
[14:59]told me about and it helped me think about those things.
[15:02]It's amazing to be able to connect with people that way
[15:05]and I don't know any other way that, you know,
[15:07]I could have done that besides writing a book.
[15:10]So that feels really special to me.
[15:12]Oh, it's amazing.
[15:14]Are you working out anything now?
[15:15]I am working on something now and it's really different.
[15:18]It's set contemporaneously and it's about kind of like
[15:21]a rogue scientist.
[15:23]So yeah, it feels really different
[15:25]and I'm drawing a lot less on on personal family histories
[15:30]and doing much more like kind of research
[15:33]in historical figures.
[15:34]And so it's putting me in like much different skill set
[15:38]and it's a new set of challenges.
[15:40]Are you ever gonna weave your economic background
[15:42]to one of the narratives?
[15:44]Do you think?
[15:45]Yeah, I think I might one day just because when I quit
[15:49]economics, I was like this field is so boring
[15:51]and I don't know how people do this for their lives.
[15:55]And now that I'm a few years out,
[15:57]I think, okay, there's a lot of interesting ways
[16:00]that I find it really interesting
[16:02]how people really rely on economists
[16:04]to tell them truths about the world.
[16:07]It's so interesting to me that in the White House,
[16:10]there are so many economic advisors
[16:12]and we really trust them.
[16:13]And I haven't been in that field.
[16:15]I think that trust is kind of misplaced.
[16:18]And I know how much guesswork is involved
[16:21]in all the advice that they give
[16:23]and all the theories and predictions that they run.
[16:25]And so I would be interested in writing a character
[16:28]that kind of explores that that would be fascinating to me.
[16:32]And yeah, I hope that everything in my life
[16:35]will eventually make it into my writing
[16:37]and serve it in some way.
[16:39]Well, now I have a whole new bucket of things
[16:41]to worry about, just the liability
[16:43]of all economic projections and data
[16:47]in the entire country, but that's okay.
[16:48]Great.
[16:49]It's okay.
[16:50]I needed something new to worry about.
[16:51]My older age is very getting really boring.
[16:53]So I'll throw this one in the mix.
[16:55]Yeah.
[16:55]Why worry about your personal life
[16:57]when you can work about the entire country?
[16:59]Yeah.
[17:00]I mean, I already worried about the country,
[17:01]but this is just a particular slice I had
[17:04]worried about.
[17:04]I had taken for granted so, oh well.
[17:06]Okay.
[17:07]So tell me about what you like to read
[17:10]and what you're sort of hoping for the next year
[17:14]and all of that.
[17:15]Yeah, it's so interesting.
[17:16]I think historically like I love to read short story writers
[17:20]and I love to read really quiet and understated stories.
[17:24]Some of my favorite writers are Alice Monroe
[17:27]and I love Edward P. Jones and William Trevor
[17:31]and these kinds of writers.
[17:32]Right now I'm in, I do a part-time job
[17:35]where I lead book clubs for no way.
[17:38]Yeah.
[17:39]It's really interesting.
[17:40]And so because of that, obviously they are always reading
[17:43]contemporary fiction.
[17:44]So I'm reading much more contemporary fiction
[17:46]than any point in my life.
[17:48]And part of it is, I like, I enjoy it.
[17:50]I find it really readable.
[17:52]And then I'm also seeing like a new value
[17:54]to reading really contemporary things
[17:56]because like all of these books are commenting
[17:59]at many of these books,
[18:00]as they are trying to comment on some moment
[18:02]in our contemporary society.
[18:04]And I find it really interesting
[18:05]to be engaging through fiction in authors' ideas
[18:08]of like what are the problems in our society?
[18:11]How do we write them?
[18:13]Write about them in a fictionalized manner.
[18:15]And it's also really helping me grow my own writing
[18:18]because I'm interested in engaging with those questions
[18:21]as well.
[18:22]Like I wrote this first book that is very much historical fiction.
[18:25]And you know, I had one agent asked me like what is the
[18:30]relevance of this to the world now?
[18:32]And I was like, I don't know.
[18:33]This is a family story.
[18:35]And like maybe it's irrelevant.
[18:37]I don't know if that's the role of this story.
[18:39]And now I'm very much trying to write a book.
[18:41]I think that comments in some way
[18:43]on contemporary life.
[18:45]And it's really interesting for me
[18:46]to be also engaging with all this fiction
[18:49]that is doing the same.
[18:50]Wait, so what book clubs do you work for?
[18:53]And tell me where about that?
[18:55]Yeah, it's through an organization
[18:57]actually an L.A., a company called Literary Affairs.
[19:00]And so you know, you know, Julie Robinson.
[19:04]So she's my boss.
[19:05]Oh, no way.
[19:06]That's definitely been doing this in L.A.
[19:08]I think for almost a couple decades now,
[19:11]I've been hearing some groups that have been meeting
[19:13]for like 20 plus years every month, which is crazy to me.
[19:18]So yeah, I have clubs through that.
[19:21]Wow, that's great.
[19:23]I'm opening a bookstore in L.A.
[19:25]Yeah, yeah, he should come back with this.
[19:27]In Santa Monica.
[19:28]Okay, cool.
[19:29]What's it gonna be called?
[19:31]It's called Zebi's Bookshop.
[19:33]Okay, awesome.
[19:34]Do you know what?
[19:34]Like what?
[19:35]Streep in Santa Monica.
[19:36]It's going to be 11th in Montana.
[19:38]Okay.
[19:39]Yeah, I would love to stop by.
[19:41]Do you have a we're having it?
[19:43]Yes, we're having opening weekend, February 18th and 19th.
[19:47]If you're around, do you should come?
[19:48]I'm trying to organize a bunch of author sightings
[19:50]and stuff if you want to.
[19:51]I would love to come.
[19:53]That sounds amazing.
[19:54]Yeah.
[19:55]Well, after this, just like send me what time slot
[19:57]because I'm making a whole schedule.
[19:58]We want to like make it signed.
[20:00]I want to be like a festival,
[20:01]that mini festival in this tiny little store,
[20:03]which is like the size of this room,
[20:04]but that's okay.
[20:06]So we'll see if we can get that excited to come see it.
[20:09]Do you have a store in New York already?
[20:11]Nope, this is the first one.
[20:12]Whoa, why did you choose LA?
[20:15]We have a place in the Palisades.
[20:16]My husband's a producer and his company
[20:19]is like based out there.
[20:20]Okay.
[20:21]So we go back and forth and when my kids are with my ex,
[20:25]here I go out with my husband there
[20:26]and my nieces and nephews are all there.
[20:28]And yeah, it's like our happy place.
[20:29]And I thought people would really appreciate it.
[20:31]There, which they are already doing.
[20:33]And if I opened one here, nobody would even care.
[20:36]I looked at spaces here first and the rent was so crazy.
[20:39]It was like, I don't know how any store stays
[20:41]in business in New York City, honestly.
[20:42]So I got a much better situation in Santa Monica.
[20:45]That sounds great.
[20:46]There is just kind of like a low density of bookstores
[20:49]in LA compared with New York.
[20:51]I think so that's really exciting.
[20:53]Yeah, I can't wait.
[20:55]So that's great.
[20:56]Well, so I'll see you at like three weeks.
[20:58]Amazing.
[20:59]Well, congratulations on your book.
[21:01]I'm sorry again that this was so delayed even,
[21:04]I mean, for you and me and both and whatever,
[21:06]but it's been really interesting to chat.
[21:08]And I was just wondering before we go,
[21:10]what advice you would have for aspiring authors?
[21:12]I think I would say something I try to tell myself
[21:15]a lot of time is just to be comfortable taking your time
[21:18]with writing and with the work.
[21:19]I think writing really is like, it's so different
[21:22]from a lot of other practices in modern life
[21:25]that we try to speed up and try to force.
[21:28]And I think I find like my writing really
[21:31]resists that in a lot of ways.
[21:32]And I have to a lot of times like fail through multiple drafts
[21:37]in order to get to the right thing.
[21:38]And that can feel really frustrating
[21:40]when you're used to operating at a different pace
[21:42]and everything else.
[21:43]So something I've been trying to tell myself lately
[21:46]is just to trust the writing and trust the process of that
[21:49]and not rush things.
[21:51]I love that.
[21:52]OK, well, thank you for coming on.
[21:55]And I hope your cat gets used to do well.
[21:57]It's done.
[21:58]Thank you for that.
[21:59]And I'll see you soon.
[22:01]Yes, thank you.
[22:02]Bye, good.
[22:03]Bye-bye.
[22:03]Good evening.
[22:04]Bye.
[22:06]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't
[22:08]Have Time to Read Books.
[22:09]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebioans,
[22:13]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:15]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[22:17]and sign up for my virtual book club
[22:19]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[22:21]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[22:24]for the Sound Editing.
[22:25]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[22:27]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.