R.F Kuang’s Taipei Story reads like a travel blog, if that travel blog also contained extensive musings on the depth of language, diasporic existence, and national identity. In writing a fictional account of a Chinese American’s language learning summer experience, it would be so easy for a less courageous writer to defer to commonplace reflections on the inadequacies of language as an Asian American. Indeed, there are times when Kuang’s writing does veer towards such platitudes — not that there’s anything wrong with such reflections — but Kuang surprises her readers time and time again by delving into the more complicated, the not necessarily taboo, but the less accounted for. Kuang herself has written that with Taipei Story, she sought to move away from “Asian American cultural production that only frames distance as guilt, and lack of fluency as moral deficiency.” It’s an apt way of describing the popularized conception of Asian Americans and a conflict-ridden relationship with language.
At the same time, Kuang doesn’t entirely reject that idea she describes. There’s a reason why efforts to learn the language of one’s heritage are associated with the narrative of “finding oneself,” as if “heritage” is merely a missing puzzle piece that can be solved with more vocabulary words memorized and fluid responses in the language of a far-away homeland. And with more fluency, there’s the implicit assumption that you’re somehow repairing yourself. An absence of cultural knowledge must somehow equate to the prioritization of one Westernized side over the other, the classic East vs. West dichotomy. It’s not entirely wrong, this idea that to be a better Asian American means to be a better speaker of an Asian language. But maybe homecoming isn’t so much about fluency. Maybe, as Kuang states, Taipei Story is about failing to be fluent.
The novel produces a hard-hitting analysis of what a “homecoming” narrative really is. It’s the kind of narrative that unearths complicated feelings about identity, and takes pride in doing so. Taipei Story’s protagonist, college student Lily Chen, spends the summer on a language learning program in Taiwan for a Mandarin immersion experience. But rather than a conventional narrative of finding oneself, Lily finds herself moving farther away from security in her Chinese identity. She wants to feel like she belongs, but she’s constantly reminded that she doesn’t through her mistakes. She feels disoriented in a city where she can’t read the signs because they’re in a different language.
There are details about Taipei, big and small, that show Kuang’s observational strengths, like the humorous use of the English language everywhere and the overwhelming humidity making laundry never fully dry. Even a small nod to the shrink-wrapped English-language books in an Eslite bookstore bring Taipei into focus, giving it more depth beyond the land where bubble tea originated — although bubble tea lovers will delight in the fact that yes, bubble tea does make a frequent appearance (as it should).
Then there’s all the insular drama that comes with a residential summer program. It’s admirable the accuracy with which Kuang captures social dynamics. Lily’s roommate, Anna, for example, constantly snipes at Lily in passive aggressive ways that build up over the course of their program. In public, this takes the form of degrading remarks, particularly concerning Lily’s desire to blend in with Taipei locals and not come across so much like an American tourist. At the same time, Anna’s never a caricature of a mean girl; she feels undeniably real, the way her negative comments about Lily are never obvious enough for others to understand her malicious intent and just understated enough to make Lily out to be the one with the problem. It’s frustrating to be put in that kind of situation, and just as Lily begins to feel suffocated in Taipei because of all these combined social and linguistic factors, so does the reader.
One such complicated social situation leads to Lily visiting the Beitou Hot Springs with popular student JC, and the awkwardness of the aftermath contributes to Lily’s feelings of isolation. She receives the news her grandfather has passed away, and becomes wracked with guilt that she can’t go to the funeral on the mainland; she was so preoccupied with her studies and exams in America that she didn’t apply for the visa. The emotional state Lily finds herself in may resonate with those across the diaspora — you’re so tied up with things in your own life that you miss out on important family events elsewhere, and you wonder if your priorities make sense. As Lily points out, she thought her grandfather would stay frozen in time, ready to communicate with her once her Mandarin was good enough.
She begins to question her decision to come to Taiwan to communicate with her grandfather when she has no concrete connection to the island other than the vague conception that perhaps a language immersion program in Taiwan can be considered an entry-level experience to mainland China, where her heritage stems. There’s a complex cross-Strait political history there that Kuang, to her credit, explains in depth. Yet, also to her credit, there’s no clear stance she takes. Everything stated is to give more visibility to Taiwan, rather than assert whether or not it deserves to exist as a sovereign nation — often a polarizing topic of discussion in the media.
But that’s the media. It’s not the focus of Taipei Story. Taipei Story is really about how maybe it’s okay to think about learning the language of one’s heritage as connecting with one’s relatives, and maybe that’s what one might think on the surface level. But, as Lily reveals, there are also memories of complaining about summer trips back to the supposed homeland when there’s so much you’re missing out on at home. Of not having anything to talk to your grandparents about because they don’t really know you and you don’t really know them; you’re just an American from abroad, your time there is limited, and your difference makes it so that maybe you’re less worthy of building a relationship with. Of evolving to become no longer the cute, palatable child, but a hormone-ridden teenager that naturally receives less love from judgement-bearing relatives. Because diaspora isn’t only about distance, but distance is a critical part of it.
So maybe it’s cliché to think about learning language as a kind of homecoming, just as it might be clichéd to go abroad to find oneself. In Taipei Story, finding oneself isn’t about seeking belonging by traveling to learn a language. It’s traveling around language to find it in a place where you don’t belong. In that place, you learn about yourself. Maybe that’s what should be in the syllabus.
