{"id":300,"date":"2021-03-28T22:03:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T05:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/?p=300"},"modified":"2021-03-28T22:04:37","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T05:04:37","slug":"jessica-jie-ke-lees-two-trees-make-a-forest-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/2021\/03\/28\/jessica-jie-ke-lees-two-trees-make-a-forest-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica J(ie-ke) Lee&#8217;s Two Trees Make a Forest review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/IMG_3313.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-304\" width=\"563\" height=\"750\" srcset=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/IMG_3313.jpeg 750w, https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/IMG_3313-225x300.jpeg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 563px) 100vw, 563px\" \/><figcaption>If you are disturbed by the strand of hair, leave a comment.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve been reading Jessica J. Lee\u2019s <em>Two Trees Make a Forest<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The \u201cJ\u201d in Jessica J. Lee is probably not the same as the \u201cJ\u201d in Mary J. Blige.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fortunately, she clarified that it\u2019s Jie-ke, or \u674e\u6d01\u73c2. In Traditional Chinese, it would be \u674e\u6f54\u73c2. I am so glad I could read the scribbling from her mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/IMG_3315.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-305\" width=\"563\" height=\"750\" srcset=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/IMG_3315.jpeg 750w, https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/IMG_3315-225x300.jpeg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 563px) 100vw, 563px\" \/><figcaption>Some hellscript going on there. I&#8217;m guilty of writing terribly too. Rectangles as circles. A simple Z in \u4e4b. Jessica&#8217;s Chinese name is the last one.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The British-Canadian-Taiwanese author who grew up in Niagara Falls, Ont., is half-Welsh and half-Taiwanese, living in Germany now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">TL;DR book review<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Two Trees Make a Forest<\/em> has three distinct thrusts to it. First, it\u2019s about Taiwanese flora and fauna. Then it\u2019s about Taiwanese history. Then it\u2019s about Jessica\u2019s life in Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can tell that Jessica has put in mounds of effort in writing this. Apparently, she recorded her grandmother&#8217;s story 10 years ago and she travelled to Taiwan to speak to various sources as well as to go hiking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The flora and fauna part really didn&#8217;t interest me. It&#8217;s like me telling someone not interested in cars about CVTs, limited-slip differentials and LED headlights. And just like when I get rejected, I&#8217;m going to repeat a common refrain: it&#8217;s not you (i.e. Jessica), it&#8217;s me. I just don&#8217;t care about plants except thyme because it&#8217;s important for steaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jessica&#8217;s ability to chronicle her grandfather&#8217;s journey from China to Taiwan felt the most impressive of feats. From his time as a pilot in the Second World War and beyond to him getting sent to a care home in Taipei (more or less, awaiting death), she describes details as crisp and purposefully as every scene in <em>Breaking Bad<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, they came to Niagara Falls and her grandfather couldn&#8217;t get his pilot credentials recognized and therefore ended up as a cleaner. Quite a good reminder of a Toronto satirical joke, &#8220;How do you find a doctor? Just enter a taxi.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pedant in me did notice that although she\u2019s British and Canadian, <em>Two Trees Make a Forest<\/em> was completely in American English. Maybe it\u2019s a <em>maneuver <\/em>done by the publishers. Might is right in the realm of language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Piecing Together a Family History\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R7DL3dYslJs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>So where do I see similarities in her experiences navigating her Chinese identity and the people I&#8217;ve met?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Crappy Chinese language ability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Jessica described her Niagara Falls home, where she lived with her Taiwanese mother and maternal grandparents, as &#8220;an island unto itself.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It was the only place we spoke Mandarin; they were the people with whom [Jessica and her sister] explored that side of ourselves.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a theme repeated throughout some of my interviewees &#8212; Chinese at home and then English or Spanish outside of the home. It&#8217;s happened to <a href=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/2021\/02\/01\/three-generations-away-a-chinese-mexican-story-begins\/\">Eva<\/a> from Mexico, <a href=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/2021\/03\/06\/a-chinese-school-brings-family-from-taiwan-to-peru\/\">Eric <\/a>from Peru, and <a href=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/2021\/03\/25\/lily-kwok-one-of-the-4000-chinese-in-trinidad-and-tobago\/\">Lily<\/a> from Trinidad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jessica&#8217;s ability in Chinese isn&#8217;t very good, similar to the few overseas Chinese that I have interviewed and certainly my experience. You could compare my Chinese to fecal matter before I really put in some effort starting 2014. Say, have you <a href=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/2021\/03\/04\/will-overseas-chinese-lose-their-ability-to-speak-their-language\/\">read my piece about how we\u2019ll all inevitably lose our ability to speak our heritage\/ancestral language<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She went to Chinese school until she was eight, somehow dreading being the only half-Chinese kid in the classroom. Us &#8220;monoracials&#8221; really give them hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"680\" height=\"431\" src=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/monoracials-compilation.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-303\" srcset=\"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/monoracials-compilation.jpg 680w, https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/monoracials-compilation-300x190.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><figcaption>A compilation of complaints by mixed people against &#8220;monoracials.&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result, by the time she visited Taiwan, she described her Mandarin as &#8220;childlike.&#8221; The following quotes summarize her regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI hadn\u2019t done enough. Hadn\u2019t learned enough Mandarin, knew no Taiwanese at all, and hadn\u2019t taken enough of an interest. We had been too foreign for my grandmother, too Western,&#8221; she wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;My complacency, I know now, was a privilege afforded by distance, by the ease of light skin and features that passed for whiteness,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;Instead, I negotiated the world as a dual citizen of Britain and Canada, casting my life in those frames of reference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;For most of my life &#8212; until [her grandfather&#8217;s] Alzheimer&#8217;s, until his death &#8212; I gave it little thought.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Estranged familial relations overseas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I ain&#8217;t got no clue of anyone who&#8217;s related to me who still lives in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/roberto\">An interviewee, Roberto, also told me something similar<\/a> &#8212; that he knew he had cousins in China, met them a few times, but felt rather estranged from them. It echoes what Jessica wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Having only ever known our grandparents, my sister and I never learned those names,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;Like so many children after 1949, she&#8217;d grown up without extended family.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Associating with people from the same culture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Birds of the same feather flock together and so do people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jessica mentioned that she met a Taiwanese-American cinematographer who grew up in Los Angeles and Taipei. Her paragraph on what she saw in Charlene felt rather difficult to really rationalize, but here&#8217;s my hot take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She said that she felt &#8220;drawn to her as if she holds some knowledge my family lacks.&#8221; At the same time, Jessica seemed to have an affinity with Charlene because of similar North American origins and therefore &#8220;traces of body and language that come from a life overseas.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I suppose if somebody were to say &#8220;ain&#8217;t nobody got time for that,&#8221; a set of gestures must follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most poignantly, I had <a href=\"http:\/\/4000\">a conversation with Lily Kwok from Trinidad<\/a>, which I omitted in my final copy, where she told me that when she went to graduate school in Connecticut, she found herself being really close to a Jamaican PhD student because they could go full Caribbean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I suppose it&#8217;s the same with me. When I meet someone from Malaysia or Singapore, we&#8217;d have much alike because we grew up in similar environments and have the same slang, swear words, gestures and mutual understanding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A half-Taiwanese, half-Welsh writer explores her Taiwanese identity. How similar is it to the overseas Chinese experience?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farfromchina.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}