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Public Affairs Television "Becoming American: Personal Journeys" Interview With Gish Jen

BILL MOYERS: Was education important in their scheme for you?

GISH JEN: I have to say that as the years went on, it became more important. But early on they totally did not care. I was a girl, and that was not what was important.

Quite the contrary, I was often told that I was too smart. Again, too smart to be marriageable. It was fine if I was gonna be smart as long as nobody knew. I definitely got the mixed message about education.

As a result, I have to say, there have been good things about it. Oh, I don't know. Today, when I look at these kids and how hard they work, I definitely never felt that I had to perform up to some level and I had to spend all of my time trying to get to that level or whatever. I had a great time and I paid no attention whatsoever to my school work. It did not seem to matter at all as far that I can tell.

And in a funny kind of way it might have fed my creativity that I had all this time. I was kind of on my own. Nobody really was paying too much attention to what I was doing.

BILL MOYERS: Did they applaud when you decided to become a writer?

GISH JEN: Oh, no. That was a disaster.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

GISH JEN: Well, by that time of course, they had begun to think that well, if nothing else I was going to have to have enough skills to support myself. I went to Stanford Business School for a year and dropped out to become a writer. I remember my parents were both very distressed about this.

My father said to me, "You have to have a meal ticket." And interestingly he said to me-- and this shows some evolution on his part too of course, he said, "If you don't have a meal ticket your husband will treat you badly." It was interesting. And so, you can sort of see their thoughts and how it had come quite a long way.

BILL MOYERS: And writing was not a meal ticket.

GISH JEN: No, it's definitely not a meal ticket.

BILL MOYERS: Did you call home and say, "I'm gonna decide who I am. I'm gonna write a novel?"

GISH JEN: Oh, yes. And now that I'm a parent I completely understand where they're coming from. People often ask me, "Well, would you want your child to become a writer?" And of course I would never prevent them from becoming writers, but I would start saving now. (LAUGHTER)

BILL MOYERS: So, you went to Stanford Business School?

GISH JEN: I did.

BILL MOYERS: Intending to get into business?

GISH JEN: I don't know. It's one of these things where I always say that I became a writer by process of elimination. I had already been pre-med and pre-law so that only left business school, one thing I had never been interested in at all.

And one thing about being able to write, you get into everything because you can write. But the minute I got there I was like, "What am I doing here?" I think I read 100 novels, and I spent the entire year taking writing classes. I never went to any of my business classes at all.

BILL MOYERS: What did your parents say when you told them this?

GISH JEN: Well, I didn't tell them that I wasn't going to class but by the time second year rolled around and it was just clear to me that I was-- I think I over- slept the first day of class and then I overslept the second day. I overslept the third day. And by the end of the week it was clear to me that I was never going to class and I should just drop out.

And of course my parents would be very upset-- very, very upset. My mother didn't talk to me for almost a year. My sibs also. Everybody was like, "Will you please stop this. Do you realize you're ruining Christmas? Just stop it?"

But it really wasn't me. For whatever reason I've never been able to do anything I didn't want to do. And I really didn't want to do it.

BILL MOYERS: And why did you decide on writing? You had to make a commitment at some point. Why did say this is the way?

GISH JEN: There did come a point where I was able to get myself into whatever other schools and it always seemed that I could do other things. But I don't know. One morning I woke up and I guess I realized that I was gonna be on my death bed someday. Someday, I'd be lying there and my parents would be long dead. And I realized that if I had not even tried to become a writer that I would be full of regret.

I mean, it sounds sort of morbid but it is true. And I think at that moment I realized like, "Oh, my God. My life is my own." And I just realized that yeah, I would never forgive myself. And at that point, I just had to try.

BILL MOYERS: You were glib about it but you did pass beyond the point when I asked you about your parents' response. I mean, this must have been somehow difficult for them to know that you were gonna become a writer. Because as I understand it, in the Chinese home there are expectations for the child. And they do expect you to fulfill those expectations. And for you to announce that you were taking this-- not reckless but uncertain path, that you were going out to do something that was foreign to them. This must have been a blow.

GISH JEN: Yeah, it was scary to them. And of course, looking back, when I see how much instability they had lived themselves--the loss of the country, their home, I mean everything. When we were younger we had no money, we drank powdered milk, you know, that sort of thing?

Bit by bit they had built up the family, they had gotten us into good schools. Their daughter had gone to Harvard and then she had gotten into Stanford Business School and I was gonna throw it all away and go onto who knew what. Yeah, they were very upset.

BILL MOYERS: And for them to cut you off. As you said, your mother didn't speak to you for a year?

GISH JEN: Yeah, for many, many, many, many months-- many months. I think they couldn't understand it. And it was also such an assertion of the self. It's so I.

BILL MOYERS: So American. I think it's so American.

GISH JEN: Yeah. I mean, besides the fact that I wasn't going to business school I was doing something which is so individualistic, that was very counter to their whole culture.

BILL MOYERS: Did they cut you off financially?

GISH JEN: Yes. Yes, that was also very difficult for me. It was a very difficult period. I myself wondered what I was doing. Like I say, I had this feeling like I had to do it. I had this feeling like I had no choice. You know what I mean? I kept on seeing myself lying there dead-- almost dead. And I just felt that I just couldn't live any other way.

BILL MOYERS: When did they change their mind?

GISH JEN: Well, slowly, slowly. First they realized-- Well, I think the first big step, in their accepting what I had done was when I married my husband who I have to say is the epitome of everything that they approved of. He had gone to Harvard. He had gone to Stanford Business School. He had a good job. So, when we got married I think a lot of their anxiety was greatly reduced.

BILL MOYERS: Was he an American of Chinese descent?

GISH JEN: No, he's of Irish descent.

BILL MOYERS: So, you were marrying an Irishman?

GISH JEN: Well, you've got to understand the circumstances. I think I alluded to how unmarriageable they thought I was. My father had said to me, "We'd be happy if you married a dog." (LAUGHTER)

BILL MOYERS: No comment.

GISH JEN: No comment. But they were just relieved that some nice guy was going to marry me. And really and truly my husband is a very, very nice man.

BILL MOYERS: I'm sure of that.>

GISH JEN: -- except that he had, you know, blue eyes and a beard.

BILL MOYERS: Here you were, you were becoming a writer and you were marrying an Irishman.

GISH JEN: Yeah, like I said they were just relieved. (LAUGHTER) They were relieved I was getting married at all.

BILL MOYERS: When you married "outside the Chinese-American community", how did they react?

GISH JEN: I think they could see it coming. I mean, I think that they could see that I didn't have a lot of Asian-Americans around me.

Today if you go to Harvard, there are tons of them, tons. But back when I went to school, we were still a very, very small minority. And the numbers were just against us. Plus, I think that my parents recognized, early on, that I was so far from the Chinese-American ideal. (LAUGHS)

I think they understood that early on, that I was never gonna be the sort of wife who made the soup just right and went and got slippers. And they could just see that. I don't think by the time I got married that this was any great shock.

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