Finding Her Creative Voice

I was in Singapore a couple of weeks ago for the launch of February Flowers, a novel by Fan Wu. The book is the launch title of Picador Asia, a new imprint under the Pan Macmillan umbrella.

I interview Fan Wu and the story appeared in Star Mag on 24th September 2006.

Finding her creative voice

Byline: DAPHNE LEE

ONE of the first things Fan Wu did when she arrived in California was to go to the library at Stanford University and flip through a copy of Playboy magazine.

“That’s how sheltered she was and she was 24,” says Toby Eady, Wu’s literary agent. “She was desperate to know about sex because her life in China didn’t allow for that.”

Sexual repression, very much part and parcel of life in China, is one of the themes of February Flowers, Wu’s debut novel, which has been picked by Pan Macmillan to launch its new Picador Asia imprint.

The book charts the slow and painful sexual awakening of Ming, a shy and serious 17-year-old girl who attends university in the city of Guangzhou. Ming is befriended by Yan, an older, extremely passionate and infinitely more experienced girl, and as the pair grow close, Ming experiences feelings that shake her very core and forces her to question everything that she is.

Said the 33-year-old writer who, with Eady and her publisher Daniel Watts, was in Singapore recently to launch her novel: “Ming, like many, I would even say most young Chinese in mainland China, is ignorant about sex. I was ignorant about sex at that age and many years after that.

“In China, it’s common to have a huge problem with your first sexual experience. Living in America made me see sex in a different light. Before that, when I was growing up, it was something that you didn’t mention. It was a taboo subject and for many it still is.”

Wu said that she had not intended to focus on her character’s sexuality when she first started writing February Flowers. “My characters developed that way and I realised I had something to say on the subject.”

She started writing the book in 2002, five years after moving to the United States. “When I first left China I read a lot but did not write. When I finally started writing, it was because I was inspired by Waiting, a novel by Ha Jin. Later I attended some writing workshops and finally completed my first novel.”

Wu believes that being in a foreign country played a part in freeing her creative voice. “Living in another country is life-altering, in so many ways. It changes how you see things, how you see others, and yourself, and your country and culture. When I first came to America, I struggled with the language, I was lonely – it made me long for my past and my roots. It made me nostalgic for my former life.”

Wu grew up on a farm with four brothers. “Despite China’s one-child policy, I had the privilege of growing up in a large family. I think it’s because we were living in a farming community, and people there were more understanding of the practical need for more offspring.”

When she was 11, her parents moved to Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province. She lived there until she went to Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, where she majored in Chinese Language and Literature. A series of jobs followed graduation, but none inspired nor excited Wu. Finally, a scholarship to do a Masters degree in communication at Stanford University led her to leave China and, eventually, discover her true calling, as a novelist.

Wu set February Flowers in the university that she attended and drew on her own experiences and various aspects of her life to flesh out her characters and to present a realistic picture of life in modern-day China.

“When I completed the book, I approached American agents and publishers, but they felt it was too subtle. They wanted the relationship between Ming and Yan to be described more explicitly. But it’s not the Chinese way to be explicit, especially when it comes to sex and relationships.”

Wu said that she felt that the American publishing industry was also not ready for a Chinese novel that addressed current issues and situations.

“They are used to memoirs about the Cultural Revolution, but I feel that China has moved on. I think there are many things to explore. The past is important and it is reflected in the present, in the way we live our lives, and interact with each other. It affects the way we see ourselves and the way others see us.

“For example, when I moved away from China, I realised that the Chinese are not seen as individuals, but as a product of China. The China of the Cultural Revolution has played such a significant part in shaping the world’s view of the country and its people – we carry the shadow of it wherever we go, whether we want to or not. It is what foreigners see when they look at us.”

Wu is interested in writing about the conflicts between China’s past and present. “I want to explore how people are struggling to reconcile traditional and modern values. I want to tell stories about ‘now’, but I’m not saying that I want to forget or ignore the past. Understanding yourself is not just about understanding your own life at that particular moment. It’s about knowing what happened before, the things that shaped the people around you and which, in turn, shaped you.”

She is intrigued by how modern China is developing and the repercussions of the modernisation of the country. “I want to see how the changes will affect people. I want to explore issues like the widening gap between the generations, the rich and the poor, the rural areas and the cities.”

Most of all, Wu hopes to return to China and to write in Chinese.

“When I started writing in America, I chose to do so in English because I thought it would make me more proficient in the language.” However, Wu found that many passages in the book came more naturally in Chinese. “For example, I find it much more natural to write conversations in Chinese.”

Wu has since translated her novel into Chinese, but will continue to write in her adopted language because it challenges her.

“I have completed a novella and I’m working on a short story collection,” she said, “but writing in Chinese is important to me. I believe that you can go much deeper when you write in your own language.”

* Fan Wu’s short stories Year of the Monkey and Jade will be published in the prestigious Granta magazine and The Missouri Review, respectively, in October.