Disorientation

I enjoyed this satire of White Western attitudes toward Asian people and cultures. Written from the perspective of a Taiwanese American permanently stuck in code switch mode, humor ranges from laugh out loud to cringe. Certain reactions from white characters and their motivations may seem outlandish, but I have heard most of it, even the main twist, in person.

29 year old PhD candidate Ingrid Yang is in the 8th year of her dissertation on the late Xiao-Wen Chou, colloquially known as the Chinese Robert Frost, with his accessible poetry about rivers and teacups whose quotes adorn the walls of middle-class homes and ornate tea boxes.

Things are not going well for Ingrid. She's facing mounting school debt, a likely ulcer, aggressive eczema, a growing addiction to her allergy medication and the chilling realization that she's just not that into Chou's body of work.

Things take an abrupt turn when she discovers a strange note in the Chou archives. Shenanigans ensue. A lot in fact. And while it's clear it's satire, we've come to a place where truth is stranger than fiction. Most of the wilder plot points are based on actual events and half the fun is uncovering their real world origins. Disorientation does feel like a debut in that it can't help but throw an entire universe of ideas onto the page.

Yellowface, red-pilling for profit, cultural appropriation, MRAzns, weebs, internalized racism, campus politics, performative wokeness and more. Sure there are inevitable hits and misses but I'm here for the often messy, sometimes contradictory, and regularly weird nature of a second generation Asian's racial awakening. Satire is hard, and your results may vary, but I am here for Elaine Hsieh Chou's Ingrid Yang.