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Downloaded from
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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[birds cawing]

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Right. It's that.

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Where is her photos?

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Where did I put them?

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I used to have this
all organized.

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And now--

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Okay, let me see.

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This is my mother as a young
woman with her friends.

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This is the back of the mansion

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00:01:02,916 --> 00:01:05,583
where she lived,
just out of Shanghai.

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Okay, so--

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In my office
is a time capsule.

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Seven large,
clear plastic bins

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00:01:21,083 --> 00:01:23,125
safeguarding frozen moments
in time,

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a past that began
before my birth.

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During the writing
of this book,

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I delved into the contents--

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00:01:34,291 --> 00:01:38,333
memorabilia, letters, photos,
and the like--

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00:01:38,416 --> 00:01:42,500
and what I found had the force
of glaciers calving.

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I am not the subject matter
of mothers and daughters,

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00:01:48,125 --> 00:01:50,875
or Chinese culture,
or immigrant experience

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that most people
cite as my domain.

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I am a writer compelled by

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a subconscious neediness
to know,

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which is different
from a need to know.

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00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:05,875
The latter can be satisfied
with information.

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00:02:05,958 --> 00:02:11,083
The former is a perpetual
state of uncertainty

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00:02:11,166 --> 00:02:13,541
and a tether to the past.

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[lively piano music playing]

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♪♪

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♪♪

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00:03:23,625 --> 00:03:30,625
♪♪

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00:03:55,750 --> 00:03:57,041
You know, when you're writing,

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I think you're naturally
going through

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some kind of subconscious
philosophical construct,

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00:04:04,291 --> 00:04:05,708
your own cosmology,

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00:04:05,791 --> 00:04:08,208
how the world is put together,

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00:04:08,291 --> 00:04:10,500
and how events happen,

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00:04:10,583 --> 00:04:13,083
and what's related,
what's coincidental.

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00:04:13,166 --> 00:04:14,583
Okay.

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00:04:16,625 --> 00:04:19,500
It's not as though I want
to change the past.

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00:04:19,583 --> 00:04:21,166
It's really trying
to understand

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00:04:21,250 --> 00:04:24,291
how these things come together
to bring you where you are.

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00:04:24,375 --> 00:04:26,041
If you want to visit
the overflow crowd

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00:04:26,125 --> 00:04:27,791
or if we've hit your time where
you need your down time--

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-Whatever you want.
-No.

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00:04:29,041 --> 00:04:30,708
It's whatever you want, actually.

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00:04:30,791 --> 00:04:33,583
I often think I'm just
dreaming my life.

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00:04:33,666 --> 00:04:35,666
You know, I've really--
there've been so many times

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I've nearly died--

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00:04:37,166 --> 00:04:39,250
car accidents or whatever.

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00:04:39,333 --> 00:04:41,458
Maybe something
really happened,

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00:04:41,541 --> 00:04:44,000
and I've been unconscious
or in a coma all these years,

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00:04:44,083 --> 00:04:45,791
and I've dreamt this life up.

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Please join me in welcoming
Amy Tan.

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00:04:50,750 --> 00:04:53,750
[cheers and applause]

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00:04:54,833 --> 00:04:56,291
What I'd like
to do tonight

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00:04:56,375 --> 00:05:00,500
is tell you what kind of
experiences went into me

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00:05:00,583 --> 00:05:03,708
to propel myself into writing.

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00:05:03,791 --> 00:05:06,625
A lot of people think,
well, you know from the--

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My father was the oldest
of 12,

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and he became an engineer.

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00:05:23,041 --> 00:05:26,375
Being the oldest, my father
had the most responsibility,

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but as it turns out,
he was also the most handsome,

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00:05:29,333 --> 00:05:32,666
the most articulate,
the best English.

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Many women
would have loved him,

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00:05:34,791 --> 00:05:36,291
but he chose my mother.

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00:05:37,875 --> 00:05:40,625
This is 1959.

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00:05:40,708 --> 00:05:43,333
Here we are
having a carefree moment.

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00:05:43,416 --> 00:05:46,125
The family goes off
into the future.

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00:05:47,250 --> 00:05:49,416
In this shot,

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that's my little brother,
and that's me.

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00:05:51,750 --> 00:05:53,958
[piano music playing]

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00:05:54,041 --> 00:05:57,125
I have fond memories
of my mom playing piano.

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00:05:57,833 --> 00:06:02,458
She would play Mozart,
Beethoven, Bach.

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00:06:02,541 --> 00:06:04,458
She was brilliant.

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00:06:04,541 --> 00:06:06,333
They really wanted us to be

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00:06:06,416 --> 00:06:09,583
engrossed in
the American values,

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00:06:09,666 --> 00:06:11,666
and that's why I don't have
an accent.

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00:06:11,750 --> 00:06:15,875
They really wanted
to be perfect Americans,

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00:06:15,958 --> 00:06:19,916
but I know later in years,
they also wanted

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00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:21,916
to make sure that we understood

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where the Chinese culture
came from,

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00:06:24,583 --> 00:06:27,833
our heritage,
and what was respected.

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This is me
on my fourth birthday.

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She's my best friend
to this day,

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00:06:36,541 --> 00:06:38,416
the one at the end, Sandy.

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00:06:38,500 --> 00:06:40,333
Her mother and father
were members

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00:06:40,416 --> 00:06:41,958
of the original
Joy Luck Club.

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All my parents' siblings
were in China,

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so I always considered Amy and
her siblings to be my cousins.

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[laughter]

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The Joy Luck Club was formed
by a few couples,

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00:07:00,250 --> 00:07:02,208
all Chinese,
who decided

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00:07:02,291 --> 00:07:04,791
they wanted to be
an investment group.

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00:07:04,875 --> 00:07:07,166
They would pick stocks,
review them,

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00:07:07,250 --> 00:07:10,500
and then they would
socialize afterwards.

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Mostly women played Mahjong.

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00:07:13,583 --> 00:07:16,541
The men preferred
to play cards.

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Then, about midnight,
they would have a feast.

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We would love it as children,

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you'd get to stay up late,

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00:07:24,208 --> 00:07:25,916
get to see our aunties
and uncles.

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[indistinct chatter]

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What I remember is
there's this comfort level

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of being with like people,

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especially for my mom
who grew up in Shanghai.

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00:07:40,333 --> 00:07:44,041
Auntie Daisy, Amy's mom,
was also from Shanghai.

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00:07:44,125 --> 00:07:47,750
I can imagine how comforting
that would feel.

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I loved Amy's dad, Uncle John.

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He had a really warm smile,

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really warm and welcoming
demeanor.

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00:08:01,083 --> 00:08:04,958
My father's avocation
was the ministry,

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and it was my mother
who made him quit the ministry

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because it was a life
of poverty.

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He went back to
his former occupation

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in engineering.

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He worked seven days a week.

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My mother worked as well.

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He also was
going to school

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and getting
a master's degree,

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and in his spare time,

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00:08:26,125 --> 00:08:29,083
he was still substitute
preaching.

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00:08:31,041 --> 00:08:33,666
Auntie Daisy was a spitfire.
[laughs]

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She was small,
she spoke rapidly.

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I could hear her voice,
like, "Amy, ah--"

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00:08:42,083 --> 00:08:44,250
with this furrowed brow.

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This is a mother who would
tell me things like,

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"You should never
let anyone tell you

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who you should be
or what you should do."

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"You should never let anyone
talk down to you."

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00:09:02,708 --> 00:09:05,750
"You should never feel
you have to get married

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00:09:05,833 --> 00:09:07,958
if you don't wanna
get married."

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00:09:08,041 --> 00:09:10,750
"And no one should tell you
you must have a baby,

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00:09:10,833 --> 00:09:13,125
not your husband,
not your mother-in-law,

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00:09:13,208 --> 00:09:15,500
not your friends."

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00:09:15,583 --> 00:09:18,000
She said, "But you should
have a good job

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00:09:18,083 --> 00:09:21,083
because if you do get married
and your husband is mean,

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00:09:21,166 --> 00:09:24,500
you can leave him immediately
without a question."

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00:09:24,583 --> 00:09:25,625
[laughter]

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00:09:25,708 --> 00:09:28,416
My mother had other advice
like that,

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like crossing the street.

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00:09:30,333 --> 00:09:32,791
A lot of parents
look both ways, you know.

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00:09:32,875 --> 00:09:34,541
My mother did
the look both ways,

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00:09:34,625 --> 00:09:37,833
but she said, "You don't look,
maybe a car comes,

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00:09:37,916 --> 00:09:39,166
smash you flat like a sand dab,

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00:09:39,250 --> 00:09:41,208
both eyes on one side
of your face."

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00:09:41,291 --> 00:09:42,333
[laughter]

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00:09:42,416 --> 00:09:44,541
You never forget after that,

152
00:09:44,625 --> 00:09:47,041
you never forget.

153
00:09:47,125 --> 00:09:53,375
I remember
this fear of shame.

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00:09:53,458 --> 00:09:56,291
When it was my birthday,
I was so afraid

155
00:09:56,375 --> 00:09:57,958
my mother would do
something like

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00:09:58,041 --> 00:10:00,208
bring Chinese food.

157
00:10:00,291 --> 00:10:01,708
And I remember
being relieved

158
00:10:01,791 --> 00:10:05,041
when she brought
the requisite cupcakes.

159
00:10:08,166 --> 00:10:10,291
My father was an amateur
photographer

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00:10:10,375 --> 00:10:13,583
and he liked to pose people.

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00:10:13,666 --> 00:10:16,166
Posed, posed.

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00:10:16,250 --> 00:10:18,291
He was a good photographer.

163
00:10:18,375 --> 00:10:22,583
See how they loved
my older brother,

164
00:10:22,666 --> 00:10:24,708
the golden child.

165
00:10:24,791 --> 00:10:28,083
They were constantly comparing
me and my brother, Peter.

166
00:10:28,166 --> 00:10:29,708
He was always doing well.

167
00:10:29,791 --> 00:10:33,250
He skipped a grade,
he was independent,

168
00:10:33,333 --> 00:10:34,958
and polite, and behaved.

169
00:10:35,041 --> 00:10:38,791
And they would say, why can't
you be more like Peter?

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00:10:38,875 --> 00:10:41,666
I loved my brother, Peter.
He was my hero.

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00:10:41,750 --> 00:10:44,458
He was the person who taught
me so many different things.

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00:10:44,541 --> 00:10:47,916
And he never made himself
to be superior.

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But I really sensed it,

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00:10:50,041 --> 00:10:51,833
especially from my father.

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00:10:54,708 --> 00:10:56,083
This past year,

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00:10:56,166 --> 00:10:59,291
while examining the contents
of those boxes,

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00:10:59,375 --> 00:11:02,583
I was gratified to learn that
many of my childhood memories

178
00:11:02,666 --> 00:11:04,541
were largely correct.

179
00:11:04,625 --> 00:11:07,250
But there were also
shocking discoveries

180
00:11:07,333 --> 00:11:08,916
about my mother and father,

181
00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:13,541
including a little white lie
they told me when I was six.

182
00:11:15,083 --> 00:11:16,791
When I was in the first grade,

183
00:11:16,875 --> 00:11:19,708
the woman came to our school,

184
00:11:19,791 --> 00:11:21,250
took me into this little room,

185
00:11:21,333 --> 00:11:23,000
gave me, I don't know,

186
00:11:23,083 --> 00:11:25,250
she probably called them
puzzles or something

187
00:11:25,333 --> 00:11:27,916
because I was a little kid.

188
00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:30,208
About a few weeks later,

189
00:11:30,291 --> 00:11:31,375
I came home from school,

190
00:11:31,458 --> 00:11:33,666
and there she was
in the living room,

191
00:11:33,750 --> 00:11:36,291
and she was talking
to my mom and dad.

192
00:11:36,375 --> 00:11:38,500
And then the woman left.

193
00:11:38,583 --> 00:11:41,958
And my parents said to me, they
were all excited and they said,

194
00:11:42,041 --> 00:11:45,291
you know, you took this test,
and the lady said

195
00:11:45,375 --> 00:11:49,291
to us you are smart enough
to be a doctor.

196
00:11:49,375 --> 00:11:51,625
You are going to be a doctor.

197
00:11:51,708 --> 00:11:54,083
So that's how my career
was decided,

198
00:11:54,166 --> 00:11:55,625
on the basis of a test.

199
00:11:55,708 --> 00:11:57,375
Now I was gonna be
a doctor

200
00:11:57,458 --> 00:12:01,666
and a concert pianist
on the weekend.

201
00:12:01,750 --> 00:12:03,708
A lot of people think
I'm joking,

202
00:12:03,791 --> 00:12:06,166
but this truly was
the expectation.

203
00:12:06,250 --> 00:12:09,166
[piano music playing]

204
00:12:09,250 --> 00:12:11,250
♪♪

205
00:12:11,333 --> 00:12:13,208
When I was nine years old,

206
00:12:13,291 --> 00:12:15,333
my mother's version
of believing in me

207
00:12:15,416 --> 00:12:17,875
was believing that
I could be anything,

208
00:12:17,958 --> 00:12:20,541
anything she wanted

209
00:12:20,625 --> 00:12:24,541
the best piano prodigy
this side of China.

210
00:12:24,625 --> 00:12:26,416
I resented the piano.

211
00:12:26,500 --> 00:12:29,916
It was a little slave master,

212
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:32,000
you know, where I had to get
everything right.

213
00:12:32,083 --> 00:12:34,041
You know, the right rhythm,
the right fingering,

214
00:12:34,125 --> 00:12:36,333
the right notes,
the right expression.

215
00:12:36,416 --> 00:12:39,333
So I didn't really get a chance
to enjoy music,

216
00:12:39,416 --> 00:12:43,166
as my mother would have hoped.

217
00:12:43,250 --> 00:12:45,708
I was getting ready
for my first recital,

218
00:12:45,791 --> 00:12:49,500
which was a talent show
at the church.

219
00:12:49,583 --> 00:12:51,916
And you can see
I have on patent leather shoes,

220
00:12:52,041 --> 00:12:54,000
and this beautiful,
violet dress.

221
00:12:54,083 --> 00:12:56,583
[applause]

222
00:12:56,666 --> 00:12:58,666
I had memorized a piece--

223
00:12:58,750 --> 00:13:02,208
Bach, a simple minuet.

224
00:13:02,291 --> 00:13:03,875
I started playing.

225
00:13:03,958 --> 00:13:06,875
[playing piano]

226
00:13:06,958 --> 00:13:13,291
♪♪

227
00:13:13,375 --> 00:13:18,083
And I got stuck
about five measures in.

228
00:13:18,166 --> 00:13:20,625
I started over again,

229
00:13:20,708 --> 00:13:22,583
and I got stuck
in the same place.

230
00:13:22,666 --> 00:13:27,291
I did it over and over until
the audience started to clap

231
00:13:27,375 --> 00:13:30,458
and I knew
I was being sent away.

232
00:13:30,541 --> 00:13:32,958
-[stops playing]
-[laughter]

233
00:13:33,041 --> 00:13:34,375
I told my mother

234
00:13:34,458 --> 00:13:38,541
I did not want
to play the piano anymore,

235
00:13:38,625 --> 00:13:43,458
and she said, "Okay, fine.
Why you listen to me?"

236
00:13:43,541 --> 00:13:47,125
"No play piano, go outside,
play there."

237
00:13:47,208 --> 00:13:48,958
"Don't have to listen
to Mother

238
00:13:49,041 --> 00:13:53,333
because maybe soon,
I dead anyway."

239
00:13:55,416 --> 00:13:57,666
But she was not a tiger mom,

240
00:13:57,750 --> 00:14:00,666
she was a suicidal mother.

241
00:14:00,750 --> 00:14:03,875
And that's very different
from simply being

242
00:14:03,958 --> 00:14:07,208
a demanding mother who wants
that kind of perfection.

243
00:14:07,291 --> 00:14:10,916
It was, if you don't feel
the way that I do,

244
00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:12,791
I might as well kill myself.

245
00:14:12,875 --> 00:14:14,583
Very different.

246
00:14:14,666 --> 00:14:19,041
♪♪

247
00:14:24,875 --> 00:14:27,708
There was a Sunday
when it was my birthday,

248
00:14:27,791 --> 00:14:28,875
we all went to church,

249
00:14:28,958 --> 00:14:31,916
my mother decided to stay
behind.

250
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,541
I don't know why, but when
we returned home,

251
00:14:34,625 --> 00:14:37,541
I had been expecting a cake

252
00:14:37,625 --> 00:14:40,958
and instead, the furniture
was turned upside down.

253
00:14:41,041 --> 00:14:42,708
All the chairs
in the living room,

254
00:14:42,791 --> 00:14:46,000
the coffee table was
just as though

255
00:14:46,083 --> 00:14:48,166
she had thrown everything.

256
00:14:48,250 --> 00:14:50,458
There was gonna be no cake,

257
00:14:50,541 --> 00:14:54,166
and no lunch, and no dinner.

258
00:14:56,458 --> 00:15:00,791
My father took me up that day
and we went up to a hill,

259
00:15:00,875 --> 00:15:03,000
and he took some pictures.

260
00:15:03,083 --> 00:15:06,291
My father posed me
and told me to look at him

261
00:15:06,375 --> 00:15:08,500
and I wouldn't
because I was crying.

262
00:15:11,166 --> 00:15:14,750
♪♪

263
00:15:14,833 --> 00:15:16,791
I know that the situations

264
00:15:16,875 --> 00:15:21,250
that would cause her
to become...

265
00:15:21,333 --> 00:15:25,125
almost insane
is if you did not,

266
00:15:25,208 --> 00:15:27,083
in her mind, respect her.

267
00:15:27,166 --> 00:15:29,125
So she might have
said something

268
00:15:29,208 --> 00:15:30,708
and you just ignored it,

269
00:15:30,791 --> 00:15:33,250
or you said something critical
about her

270
00:15:33,333 --> 00:15:35,500
in front of somebody else,

271
00:15:35,583 --> 00:15:36,583
that was suicide.

272
00:15:36,666 --> 00:15:38,791
That was gonna trigger suicide.

273
00:15:38,875 --> 00:15:42,083
She had no way of coping with
anything like that.

274
00:15:47,416 --> 00:15:49,500
"The girl and her brothers
are sitting

275
00:15:49,583 --> 00:15:51,375
on the backseat
of the car,

276
00:15:51,458 --> 00:15:54,500
coming back from church."

277
00:15:54,583 --> 00:15:58,416
"Her mother turns to her father
to say something,

278
00:15:58,500 --> 00:16:01,791
and right away,
she knows it's bad."

279
00:16:01,875 --> 00:16:04,458
"Her voice is broken, squeaky,

280
00:16:04,541 --> 00:16:08,458
then jagged, as words scrape
through her throat."

281
00:16:08,541 --> 00:16:10,833
"'That what you want?
You want to go?'"

282
00:16:10,916 --> 00:16:13,833
"'Then go, or I go first.'"

283
00:16:15,166 --> 00:16:17,625
"Her father reaches
for her mother's hand,

284
00:16:17,708 --> 00:16:19,875
but she snatches it back."

285
00:16:19,958 --> 00:16:21,708
"It's getting worse,

286
00:16:21,791 --> 00:16:23,208
and just as she thinks that,

287
00:16:23,291 --> 00:16:26,666
her mother grunts something
that sounds like,

288
00:16:26,750 --> 00:16:30,041
'Mm-hmm, maybe
I'll kill myself right now,

289
00:16:30,125 --> 00:16:32,291
then everybody happy.'"

290
00:16:33,833 --> 00:16:36,666
"She hears the car door creak,

291
00:16:36,750 --> 00:16:38,708
it's cracked open."

292
00:16:38,791 --> 00:16:42,083
"The car swerves one way
and then the other,

293
00:16:42,166 --> 00:16:45,541
her mother puts her right leg
out the car door."

294
00:16:45,625 --> 00:16:47,333
"The road grabs her mother's
right shoe

295
00:16:47,416 --> 00:16:49,916
and it's gone in an instant."

296
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:52,916
"Her mother leans
her whole body out."

297
00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:54,791
"Then the car swerves again

298
00:16:54,875 --> 00:16:58,291
and she feels the tire slip
and go off the road."

299
00:16:58,375 --> 00:17:01,375
"And soon she hears the sound
of crunching gravel

300
00:17:01,458 --> 00:17:05,041
until they stop."

301
00:17:05,125 --> 00:17:07,083
"When she sits up, she sees

302
00:17:07,166 --> 00:17:10,458
her mother is still
in the car."

303
00:17:10,541 --> 00:17:12,791
"Finally, her mother gives up

304
00:17:12,875 --> 00:17:16,583
and says in a howling
kind of voice,

305
00:17:16,666 --> 00:17:19,583
'I want to die.'"

306
00:17:20,791 --> 00:17:24,041
"And then the girl
feels her cheeks,

307
00:17:24,125 --> 00:17:26,958
she's crying,

308
00:17:27,041 --> 00:17:30,916
and she doesn't know
when it started."

309
00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:34,333
"She just wants
everything to be over."

310
00:17:41,708 --> 00:17:47,083
At that time, I wrote.
I wrote stories.

311
00:17:47,166 --> 00:17:51,791
Writing was almost like
letters to myself,

312
00:17:51,875 --> 00:17:55,000
and often they had to do
with angry feelings

313
00:17:55,083 --> 00:17:56,875
I had, say, with my mother,

314
00:17:56,958 --> 00:17:59,541
or something I was
frustrated about.

315
00:17:59,625 --> 00:18:01,875
So it was like
a confident, in a way.

316
00:18:01,958 --> 00:18:04,541
But it never occurred to me
that I could be a writer.

317
00:18:06,750 --> 00:18:08,666
I wanted to be an artist.

318
00:18:08,750 --> 00:18:12,875
Drawing was very private
and I could do it for hours,

319
00:18:12,958 --> 00:18:15,125
pencil drawings mostly.

320
00:18:15,208 --> 00:18:18,000
A cat, a horse, a girl,

321
00:18:18,083 --> 00:18:19,416
a tree, a house--

322
00:18:19,500 --> 00:18:22,958
whatever it was,
it was private.

323
00:18:23,041 --> 00:18:25,041
I think what intruded
was this notion

324
00:18:25,125 --> 00:18:26,500
it had to be perfect

325
00:18:26,583 --> 00:18:29,291
and I saw other kids
who were better at drawing,

326
00:18:29,375 --> 00:18:31,958
and then ultimately I had
an art teacher

327
00:18:32,041 --> 00:18:33,333
who said I wasn't
very creative,

328
00:18:33,416 --> 00:18:35,291
that I had no imagination,

329
00:18:35,375 --> 00:18:37,208
and that I didn't have
what it would take

330
00:18:37,291 --> 00:18:39,250
to get to a deeper level
of creativity.

331
00:18:39,333 --> 00:18:42,125
And, you know, at that point,

332
00:18:42,208 --> 00:18:44,000
it seemed there were
enough signs

333
00:18:44,083 --> 00:18:46,708
that I should not pursue that,

334
00:18:46,791 --> 00:18:49,916
plus, my parents would be
extremely disappointed

335
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:53,791
if I did something
that was purely fun.

336
00:18:53,875 --> 00:18:56,041
Whether it's encouragement
or discouragement,

337
00:18:56,125 --> 00:18:58,750
it just stays with you.

338
00:19:01,375 --> 00:19:04,125
I remember
when I asked my mother,

339
00:19:04,208 --> 00:19:06,625
"Would I be considered
beautiful in China?"

340
00:19:06,708 --> 00:19:11,791
She says,
"Well, maybe average." [laughs]

341
00:19:11,875 --> 00:19:14,125
And I was so crushed
because I thought, well,

342
00:19:14,208 --> 00:19:17,333
I'm kind of ugly
in American culture.

343
00:19:17,416 --> 00:19:20,166
Wouldn't I be
at least beautiful

344
00:19:20,250 --> 00:19:21,250
in Chinese culture?

345
00:19:21,333 --> 00:19:23,291
No, I was average.

346
00:19:23,375 --> 00:19:26,666
So much for
my mother's honesty.

347
00:19:26,750 --> 00:19:32,875
♪♪

348
00:19:32,958 --> 00:19:34,833
Auntie Daisy and Uncle John

349
00:19:34,916 --> 00:19:38,375
were two of the founding
members of the Joy Luck Club,

350
00:19:38,458 --> 00:19:39,708
and Uncle John actually

351
00:19:39,791 --> 00:19:42,458
came up with the name
Joy Luck Club.

352
00:19:42,541 --> 00:19:45,125
And they were regular members

353
00:19:45,208 --> 00:19:48,083
until Peter had his brain tumor

354
00:19:48,166 --> 00:19:49,916
and Uncle John had his.

355
00:19:51,708 --> 00:19:54,208
Shortly after
this Christmas,

356
00:19:54,291 --> 00:19:56,625
my older brother Peter
was discovered to have

357
00:19:56,708 --> 00:19:58,833
an inoperable brain tumor.

358
00:20:00,541 --> 00:20:03,250
My father,
the Baptist minister,

359
00:20:03,333 --> 00:20:05,333
prayed to God and had
the congregations

360
00:20:05,416 --> 00:20:07,833
pray for a miracle.

361
00:20:07,916 --> 00:20:11,833
My mother joined him
in all of this--wrote letters.

362
00:20:11,916 --> 00:20:14,416
Every day, it was a visit
to my brother

363
00:20:14,500 --> 00:20:18,875
who was unconscious...

364
00:20:18,958 --> 00:20:21,375
at the end of six months.

365
00:20:21,458 --> 00:20:23,916
Two weeks before
my brother died,

366
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:27,791
my father was diagnosed
with a glioblastoma,

367
00:20:27,875 --> 00:20:29,333
with a brain tumor.

368
00:20:31,666 --> 00:20:35,750
When Peter was diagnosed
with this brain tumor,

369
00:20:35,833 --> 00:20:40,083
it seemed like a short period
of time from when he died.

370
00:20:40,166 --> 00:20:44,333
Six months later,
Uncle John died.

371
00:20:44,416 --> 00:20:46,416
And I think Uncle John

372
00:20:46,500 --> 00:20:48,666
might have been in the hospital
when Peter died.

373
00:20:48,750 --> 00:20:51,500
So he couldn't really be

374
00:20:51,583 --> 00:20:54,875
where he wanted to be
with his son.

375
00:20:56,166 --> 00:20:59,750
Two weeks before
my father died,

376
00:20:59,833 --> 00:21:03,583
a minister came to counsel me
because I had been discovered

377
00:21:03,666 --> 00:21:05,791
reading a very bad book,

378
00:21:05,875 --> 00:21:08,416
-Catcher in the Rye.
-[laughter]

379
00:21:08,500 --> 00:21:09,916
Banned book.

380
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:13,083
He was a youth minister,
and he came into the room

381
00:21:13,166 --> 00:21:15,500
and we were sitting on the bed,
and he was talking about

382
00:21:15,583 --> 00:21:20,333
how I had caused my father
more pain than the brain tumor.

383
00:21:20,416 --> 00:21:23,708
So I started to cry,
of course,

384
00:21:23,791 --> 00:21:27,291
and then he said,
let's pray for forgiveness.

385
00:21:27,375 --> 00:21:29,000
And we did,
and I was still crying,

386
00:21:29,083 --> 00:21:30,791
and he said,
"You shouldn't cry now."

387
00:21:30,875 --> 00:21:32,041
And I was still crying.

388
00:21:32,125 --> 00:21:37,500
And then he started
to tickle me on my side.

389
00:21:37,583 --> 00:21:40,291
And then he threw me
on the bed

390
00:21:40,375 --> 00:21:43,250
and he tickled me
even further.

391
00:21:43,333 --> 00:21:44,958
He tickled me all over.

392
00:21:45,041 --> 00:21:47,875
He tickled me under my dress.

393
00:21:47,958 --> 00:21:50,875
And when he was done,
he said to me,

394
00:21:50,958 --> 00:21:52,916
"You have a very dirty mind

395
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,083
and no one's going
to believe you."

396
00:21:56,708 --> 00:22:02,083
So I came out of that room
a very angry girl.

397
00:22:02,166 --> 00:22:03,916
I was a daddy's girl,

398
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,333
I loved my older brother.

399
00:22:06,416 --> 00:22:09,833
They were my protectors,
and they were gone.

400
00:22:09,916 --> 00:22:14,291
I was left with this crazy,
suicidal mother.

401
00:22:17,791 --> 00:22:20,083
After my father
and brother died,

402
00:22:20,166 --> 00:22:24,041
my mother was in such turmoil
over what we were gonna do

403
00:22:24,125 --> 00:22:25,958
with the rest of our lives.

404
00:22:26,041 --> 00:22:27,625
She thought
that it was a curse

405
00:22:27,708 --> 00:22:30,958
and she started seen omens
in everything.

406
00:22:31,041 --> 00:22:33,708
One day she was washing dishes

407
00:22:33,791 --> 00:22:36,583
and she picked up this can of--

408
00:22:36,666 --> 00:22:38,958
I think it was called
Old Dutch cleanser--

409
00:22:39,041 --> 00:22:43,166
and she just said,
"Holland---Holland is clean,

410
00:22:43,250 --> 00:22:44,666
we're moving to Holland."

411
00:22:44,750 --> 00:22:46,791
With anybody else,
that would be a joke.

412
00:22:46,875 --> 00:22:49,375
But with my mother,
that was the reason

413
00:22:49,458 --> 00:22:51,166
why she decide
we go to Holland.

414
00:22:51,250 --> 00:22:53,875
Maybe we would be able
to outrun this curse

415
00:22:53,958 --> 00:22:55,333
that was after us.

416
00:22:55,416 --> 00:22:56,916
We packed all our clothes,

417
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:59,166
our furniture went
to relatives,

418
00:22:59,250 --> 00:23:01,458
I didn't even know
that she sold the house.

419
00:23:01,541 --> 00:23:03,583
We ended up on a boat.

420
00:23:03,666 --> 00:23:09,208
This is my mother and all of
us going to the Netherlands.

421
00:23:09,291 --> 00:23:13,708
We arrived at with no idea
where we were gonna live.

422
00:23:13,791 --> 00:23:15,125
And we ended up drifting,

423
00:23:15,208 --> 00:23:17,208
we ended up going
to Switzerland.

424
00:23:17,291 --> 00:23:20,083
We lived on a little chalet
on the mountain,

425
00:23:20,166 --> 00:23:22,625
Beautiful--
you could see the Lake Geneva.

426
00:23:22,708 --> 00:23:25,083
Every day,
waking up to Lake Geneva.

427
00:23:25,166 --> 00:23:28,500
Here's the house
where I used to live.

428
00:23:28,583 --> 00:23:30,416
Here's the window
in the bedroom.

429
00:23:32,291 --> 00:23:35,541
Here's the view of Montreux.

430
00:23:35,625 --> 00:23:38,291
And what happened there
was not only

431
00:23:38,375 --> 00:23:40,541
all the pent up anger
I had had

432
00:23:40,625 --> 00:23:42,666
and was not able to express

433
00:23:42,750 --> 00:23:45,500
about the death of my brother
and father.

434
00:23:45,583 --> 00:23:50,458
It was now the freedom to have
boyfriends,

435
00:23:50,541 --> 00:23:54,208
to be friends with rich girls
who wore makeup.

436
00:23:54,291 --> 00:23:55,833
I started smoking.

437
00:23:55,916 --> 00:24:00,416
I almost ran off and eloped
with the German army deserter.

438
00:24:00,500 --> 00:24:03,208
My mother thought he was going
to ruin me

439
00:24:03,291 --> 00:24:06,666
and she could do
nothing to dissuade me.

440
00:24:08,375 --> 00:24:10,875
[John] When my mom was on her own,

441
00:24:10,958 --> 00:24:14,791
there was a lot of grief
and a lot of shouting.

442
00:24:14,875 --> 00:24:18,458
She was angry of everything
that was happening.

443
00:24:18,541 --> 00:24:21,208
[Amy] We had many, many arguments.

444
00:24:21,291 --> 00:24:25,125
I remember times when
I would go into the bathroom

445
00:24:25,208 --> 00:24:26,250
so she couldn't see me.

446
00:24:26,333 --> 00:24:28,750
I would be absolutely placid

447
00:24:28,833 --> 00:24:31,916
and I'd go in the bathroom
and then I'd have dry heaves,

448
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:34,208
and then I'd come out,
and I didn't want her to see

449
00:24:34,291 --> 00:24:37,416
that it affected me whatsoever.

450
00:24:37,500 --> 00:24:40,416
Nothing that she said
could change me.

451
00:24:41,791 --> 00:24:46,666
It was part of my decision
to not be like her at all,

452
00:24:46,750 --> 00:24:49,541
to not have those emotions.

453
00:24:49,625 --> 00:24:54,708
But I came home one day,
and she was raging.

454
00:24:54,791 --> 00:24:56,500
She had this way of breathing.

455
00:24:56,583 --> 00:24:58,416
It was like--
[panting heavily]

456
00:24:58,500 --> 00:25:02,416
Like that,
and her face was crazed

457
00:25:02,500 --> 00:25:05,791
and she pushed me
and she kept pushing me

458
00:25:05,875 --> 00:25:07,666
into the bedroom,
and she locked it

459
00:25:07,750 --> 00:25:11,000
from the inside, and she
tossed the key somewhere.

460
00:25:11,083 --> 00:25:13,333
And she had this cleaver

461
00:25:13,416 --> 00:25:16,791
and she backed me up
against the wall.

462
00:25:16,875 --> 00:25:18,458
And she just said,

463
00:25:18,541 --> 00:25:21,250
"It's enough. It's time."

464
00:25:21,333 --> 00:25:24,541
"I'm going to kill you first,
and then Didi."

465
00:25:24,625 --> 00:25:26,083
That's what we called
my brother,

466
00:25:26,166 --> 00:25:27,791
"And then I'm going
to kill myself,

467
00:25:27,875 --> 00:25:30,875
and we will all be
with Daddy and Peter."

468
00:25:30,958 --> 00:25:33,625
And her eyes were different.

469
00:25:33,708 --> 00:25:36,916
Her eyes were glazed in a way.

470
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,000
They were gone.

471
00:25:39,083 --> 00:25:41,250
It wasn't just anger,
she was gone.

472
00:25:41,333 --> 00:25:44,375
And I thought, she's really--
she's crazy.

473
00:25:44,458 --> 00:25:47,458
She's gonna do it.

474
00:25:47,541 --> 00:25:49,625
And I remember
looking out the window,

475
00:25:49,708 --> 00:25:52,250
looking out on Lake Geneva,
and the French Alps,

476
00:25:52,333 --> 00:25:55,083
and I just looked and I said,
this is it.

477
00:25:55,166 --> 00:25:56,458
And it's so sad.

478
00:25:56,541 --> 00:26:01,083
It's so sad that this is what
it has come to.

479
00:26:02,708 --> 00:26:06,500
And what came out
of my throat,

480
00:26:06,583 --> 00:26:10,541
I thought, was a complete
betrayal to me, was a voice.

481
00:26:10,625 --> 00:26:12,625
The voice said,
"I wanna live."

482
00:26:12,708 --> 00:26:15,375
"I wanna live. I wanna live."

483
00:26:17,875 --> 00:26:20,166
When that voice said,
"I wanna live, I wanna live,"

484
00:26:20,250 --> 00:26:21,416
that was the end of it.

485
00:26:21,500 --> 00:26:24,125
That's all I remember
up until that point.

486
00:26:35,791 --> 00:26:37,458
After a while,
when I found out that

487
00:26:37,541 --> 00:26:40,083
I could graduate a year early,

488
00:26:40,166 --> 00:26:42,291
I had my reason to leave home.

489
00:26:43,791 --> 00:26:45,083
After they moved,

490
00:26:45,166 --> 00:26:47,875
we didn't see them
for a few years,

491
00:26:47,958 --> 00:26:49,958
and then when Amy
and her family

492
00:26:50,041 --> 00:26:51,875
came back from Switzerland,

493
00:26:51,958 --> 00:26:54,625
I guess I was a freshman
in college at San Jose State,

494
00:26:54,708 --> 00:26:57,041
and Amy and her boyfriend, Lou,

495
00:26:57,125 --> 00:27:00,208
had transferred
from Linfield College.

496
00:27:00,291 --> 00:27:02,458
I looked them up
and we started

497
00:27:02,541 --> 00:27:03,833
seeing each other again.

498
00:27:03,916 --> 00:27:05,125
I had to get used
to the idea that

499
00:27:05,208 --> 00:27:08,833
there was this guy
now in the picture.

500
00:27:08,916 --> 00:27:10,916
Lou was actually
a blind date.

501
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,416
I was in a sorority,
and somebody decided

502
00:27:14,500 --> 00:27:18,833
for some crazy reason to
ask him to go to a function.

503
00:27:18,916 --> 00:27:20,375
And when I found out
what she had done,

504
00:27:20,458 --> 00:27:23,625
I said, "I am not going out
with this guy."

505
00:27:23,708 --> 00:27:26,083
It wasn't exactly
love at first sight.

506
00:27:26,166 --> 00:27:28,666
It was more maybe cluelessness
at first sight

507
00:27:28,750 --> 00:27:31,750
because I wasn't
adversely reacting

508
00:27:31,833 --> 00:27:33,458
to all of the things
that Amy did

509
00:27:33,541 --> 00:27:37,250
to make it seem that she
wanted nothing to do with me.

510
00:27:37,333 --> 00:27:42,458
He was mellow, nice, handsome.

511
00:27:42,541 --> 00:27:44,833
He was built
in a muscle way

512
00:27:44,916 --> 00:27:47,750
that I've always
found unattractive in men.

513
00:27:47,833 --> 00:27:50,416
I always feel that the amount
of muscle mass

514
00:27:50,500 --> 00:27:53,416
kinda detracts
from the mass in the brain.

515
00:27:53,500 --> 00:27:57,333
We overcame these thoughts
of his, somehow.

516
00:27:57,416 --> 00:27:59,583
Within a month,
it was pretty evident

517
00:27:59,666 --> 00:28:02,541
that we were gonna make
a go of it.

518
00:28:02,625 --> 00:28:04,708
-Dad, Mom.
-Hi.

519
00:28:04,791 --> 00:28:07,541
This is Rose Hsu,
my girlfriend.

520
00:28:07,625 --> 00:28:08,916
-Hello
-Hi.

521
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:10,916
His parents did not like me,

522
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,583
and always tried to get us
to break up.

523
00:28:14,666 --> 00:28:17,958
She said it was because
of the Vietnam War.

524
00:28:18,041 --> 00:28:20,333
He's going to be working
with his father in the company

525
00:28:20,416 --> 00:28:22,458
and, uh, he's going to be
judged by people of

526
00:28:22,541 --> 00:28:24,500
a different standard

527
00:28:24,583 --> 00:28:27,875
and they won't be
as understanding as we are.

528
00:28:29,375 --> 00:28:33,791
Mrs. Jordan, you sound as if
Ted and I are getting married.

529
00:28:33,875 --> 00:28:35,916
That's hardly the case.

530
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:37,958
Oh, I know, dear.
It's just that,

531
00:28:38,041 --> 00:28:40,000
well, the way the world is,

532
00:28:40,083 --> 00:28:43,083
how unpopular Vietnam was.

533
00:28:43,166 --> 00:28:45,833
I'm not Vietnamese.
I'm American.

534
00:28:45,916 --> 00:28:49,666
I would not wanna dismiss
them as hardcore racists.

535
00:28:49,750 --> 00:28:50,916
They weren't that,

536
00:28:51,041 --> 00:28:54,666
but they still
had difficulty accepting Amy

537
00:28:54,750 --> 00:28:58,083
that was a cloud
on the relationship, really,

538
00:28:58,166 --> 00:29:00,833
throughout our lives.

539
00:29:00,916 --> 00:29:03,083
We were so young,
and he didn't know

540
00:29:03,166 --> 00:29:06,083
how to stand up for me
to his parents.

541
00:29:06,166 --> 00:29:07,833
And so I said, this is it.

542
00:29:07,916 --> 00:29:10,333
Either we get married,
or it's over.

543
00:29:10,416 --> 00:29:14,416
So that was the proposal.
[laughs]

544
00:29:14,500 --> 00:29:17,083
And he said, "Oh, okay."
[laughs]

545
00:29:17,166 --> 00:29:20,583
Four months later,
we got married.

546
00:29:20,666 --> 00:29:23,000
He was such a nice guy.

547
00:29:23,083 --> 00:29:29,791
And I had the thought that my
father would have liked him.

548
00:29:29,875 --> 00:29:32,541
I lived with my mom
in San Leandro.

549
00:29:32,625 --> 00:29:35,708
I think I was 16 or 17
years old.

550
00:29:35,791 --> 00:29:38,500
Amy and Lou had come down
to visit.

551
00:29:38,583 --> 00:29:41,708
Shrimp, my favorite.

552
00:29:41,791 --> 00:29:45,083
And my mom had made over,
I'd say,

553
00:29:45,166 --> 00:29:47,333
200 to 300 pot stickers.

554
00:29:47,416 --> 00:29:50,291
And they came and they ate most
of them.

555
00:29:50,375 --> 00:29:52,916
Oh, my God. He just, like,
wolfed those down.

556
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:54,833
I was so pissed off.
[laughs]

557
00:29:54,916 --> 00:29:57,708
I said,
"Don't ever bring him back."

558
00:29:57,791 --> 00:30:00,500
All this needs
is a little soy sauce.

559
00:30:00,583 --> 00:30:02,125
[gasps]

560
00:30:03,333 --> 00:30:06,541
The entire world assumes
it must be me.

561
00:30:06,625 --> 00:30:10,291
I can't count the times
I've met people and they say,

562
00:30:10,375 --> 00:30:12,958
"I know you.
You're the guy who said,

563
00:30:13,041 --> 00:30:15,208
'All it needs
is a little soy sauce.'"

564
00:30:15,291 --> 00:30:17,583
And I think the irony
to that story is that

565
00:30:17,666 --> 00:30:18,791
I actually managed to make

566
00:30:18,875 --> 00:30:21,875
a halfway decent
first impression.

567
00:30:21,958 --> 00:30:23,250
He's like a brother to me.

568
00:30:23,333 --> 00:30:26,666
I mean, my lost brother,
he came into my life,

569
00:30:26,750 --> 00:30:29,791
he supported me
as much as possible,

570
00:30:29,875 --> 00:30:33,041
and he was very conscious
of keeping my mom happy

571
00:30:33,125 --> 00:30:35,166
and so forth.

572
00:30:35,250 --> 00:30:38,500
There was a brief period
of time that I actually

573
00:30:38,583 --> 00:30:40,333
probably had a better relationship

574
00:30:40,416 --> 00:30:42,708
with Amy's mother than Amy did.

575
00:30:42,791 --> 00:30:44,208
And they were at loggerheads

576
00:30:44,291 --> 00:30:46,583
because Amy was finally
telling her mother,

577
00:30:46,666 --> 00:30:48,875
no, I'm not going to be
a medical doctor

578
00:30:48,958 --> 00:30:50,916
and a concert pianist by night.

579
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:53,500
You know, I'm going
to do this my way.

580
00:30:53,583 --> 00:30:55,625
-There you are, puffing away.
-Oh.

581
00:30:55,708 --> 00:30:57,583
-[both laugh]
-You've turned it on?

582
00:30:57,666 --> 00:30:59,500
-Yeah.
-Oh, no.

583
00:30:59,583 --> 00:31:01,166
My mother will see this
and tell me--

584
00:31:01,250 --> 00:31:02,750
She won't approve.

585
00:31:02,833 --> 00:31:06,541
At that point,
I really had the love/hate

586
00:31:06,625 --> 00:31:08,541
relationship with my mother.

587
00:31:08,625 --> 00:31:12,375
I knew what kind of support
she needed to not kill herself.

588
00:31:12,458 --> 00:31:14,208
So I started
writing letters to her

589
00:31:14,291 --> 00:31:15,541
when I went to college.

590
00:31:15,625 --> 00:31:18,416
"Dear Mom,
Boy, it sure was good

591
00:31:18,500 --> 00:31:20,000
talking to you
on the telephone,

592
00:31:20,083 --> 00:31:22,666
even though I didn't say
anything too profound."

593
00:31:22,750 --> 00:31:25,000
And in a way, it was similar

594
00:31:25,083 --> 00:31:26,916
to what I do now
with characters.

595
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:30,291
I have to make myself

596
00:31:30,375 --> 00:31:33,750
emotionally like
those characters.

597
00:31:33,833 --> 00:31:38,333
And that's what I did
with my mother.

598
00:31:38,416 --> 00:31:40,500
It was necessary

599
00:31:40,583 --> 00:31:42,250
because she was alone
in the world.

600
00:31:42,333 --> 00:31:43,958
She needed that.

601
00:31:52,166 --> 00:31:56,250
Lou and I talked about kids,
and I was a little afraid

602
00:31:56,333 --> 00:31:59,833
that what if I had a child
who would be,

603
00:31:59,916 --> 00:32:02,458
A, like me,
once they're a teen,

604
00:32:02,541 --> 00:32:04,125
you know,
a lot of trouble,

605
00:32:04,208 --> 00:32:10,083
or would be--be sick
like my brother, and die.

606
00:32:10,166 --> 00:32:12,541
I would have been
a terrible mother,

607
00:32:12,625 --> 00:32:14,083
I would have been
like my mother.

608
00:32:14,166 --> 00:32:16,291
I would have been worried all
the time about

609
00:32:16,375 --> 00:32:20,500
every single possibility
of disease and danger.

610
00:32:22,583 --> 00:32:24,625
And so that became
the decision.

611
00:32:31,500 --> 00:32:33,125
-Hi.
-Hello.

612
00:32:33,208 --> 00:32:35,541
-Oh, look at you.
-What? Look at you.

613
00:32:35,625 --> 00:32:38,125
I wonder if you could just
tell us a little bit

614
00:32:38,208 --> 00:32:41,583
about your
pre-Joy Luck Club world.

615
00:32:41,666 --> 00:32:43,416
You know,
I had another best seller.

616
00:32:43,500 --> 00:32:45,833
It sold--you know what
these numbers are.

617
00:32:45,916 --> 00:32:47,541
When you have a best seller,

618
00:32:47,625 --> 00:32:50,541
you have to sell a certain
amount in the first week.

619
00:32:50,625 --> 00:32:54,500
I'd sold 80,000 copies
and went in for two reprints.

620
00:32:54,583 --> 00:32:57,791
It was called
Telecommunications and You.

621
00:32:57,875 --> 00:32:59,208
[laughter]

622
00:32:59,291 --> 00:33:01,166
It was published for IBM.

623
00:33:01,250 --> 00:33:04,750
And I was a business writer

624
00:33:04,833 --> 00:33:07,375
before I started
writing fiction.

625
00:33:07,458 --> 00:33:10,916
Amy was linguistics--
an English major--

626
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:14,291
and I remember her
wanting to write.

627
00:33:14,375 --> 00:33:16,541
John, my husband,
started a business.

628
00:33:16,625 --> 00:33:19,458
He had one phone line
that was Dial-A-Joke,

629
00:33:19,541 --> 00:33:22,208
another phone line that
was Dial Michael Jackson,

630
00:33:22,291 --> 00:33:24,708
and another one
that had astrology.

631
00:33:24,791 --> 00:33:27,625
So he hired Amy
to write astrology.

632
00:33:27,708 --> 00:33:29,458
She was very creative,

633
00:33:29,541 --> 00:33:34,958
and she would make it up.
[laughs]

634
00:33:35,041 --> 00:33:37,666
I was doing a little bit
of ad copy,

635
00:33:37,750 --> 00:33:39,916
direct mail--
the really sleazy stuff.

636
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:42,083
You know, like,
do these exercises,

637
00:33:42,166 --> 00:33:43,875
and your vision
will become perfect,

638
00:33:43,958 --> 00:33:47,291
or study this course,
and you'll be a doctor.

639
00:33:47,375 --> 00:33:51,166
I had materials I wrote for
a telecommunications company.

640
00:33:51,250 --> 00:33:52,916
I was
the subject matter expert

641
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,708
on ISDN and wide area networks

642
00:33:55,791 --> 00:33:58,375
and the divestiture of AT&T.

643
00:33:58,458 --> 00:34:02,458
All those subjects, I had
absolutely no interest in.

644
00:34:02,541 --> 00:34:04,541
I was doing really well.

645
00:34:04,625 --> 00:34:05,791
I had a lot of clients.

646
00:34:05,875 --> 00:34:09,375
I was working about
90 billable hours a week,

647
00:34:09,458 --> 00:34:12,500
and--which meant I didn't have
a lot of time

648
00:34:12,583 --> 00:34:15,041
to sleep or eat or be social.

649
00:34:15,125 --> 00:34:17,666
And I was looking for something
more meaningful.

650
00:34:17,750 --> 00:34:21,291
And that's why I started
writing fiction.

651
00:34:22,541 --> 00:34:27,041
I met somebody who encouraged
me to read fiction again,

652
00:34:27,125 --> 00:34:30,208
and she gave me a reading list
and she was a writer.

653
00:34:30,291 --> 00:34:32,541
And I started to write.

654
00:34:32,625 --> 00:34:36,458
And the things I discovered
about writing at that point

655
00:34:36,541 --> 00:34:38,250
were so important to me.

656
00:34:38,333 --> 00:34:41,208
It was the notion
that you could write

657
00:34:41,291 --> 00:34:44,791
and find out what you really
believed and felt.

658
00:34:44,875 --> 00:34:50,541
All these things
that had been submerged,

659
00:34:50,625 --> 00:34:52,916
they just came out

660
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:54,083
and it was through fiction

661
00:34:54,166 --> 00:34:56,375
because fiction gave you
a place of safety.

662
00:34:56,458 --> 00:34:57,750
It wasn't about you,

663
00:34:57,833 --> 00:34:59,500
it was about these characters,

664
00:34:59,583 --> 00:35:00,791
but it was about you.

665
00:35:00,875 --> 00:35:04,125
And at that point,
I knew I would write

666
00:35:04,208 --> 00:35:05,500
the rest of my life.

667
00:35:05,583 --> 00:35:07,125
I would write fiction
the rest of my life.

668
00:35:07,208 --> 00:35:10,333
1985, 33 years old.

669
00:35:10,416 --> 00:35:13,291
I never was so egotistical
as to think

670
00:35:13,375 --> 00:35:15,583
I could make a living
doing that.

671
00:35:22,583 --> 00:35:25,583
The telling moment
for Amy and her mother

672
00:35:25,666 --> 00:35:29,250
was when
we were on vacation in Hawaii,

673
00:35:29,333 --> 00:35:32,458
she got a phone call
from her brother.

674
00:35:32,541 --> 00:35:35,583
He said that Mom had just
had a heart attack

675
00:35:35,666 --> 00:35:39,916
and this sounded like a life-
threatening situation.

676
00:35:41,625 --> 00:35:44,541
As I went to a phone booth
to call the hospital,

677
00:35:44,625 --> 00:35:47,541
I was sure it was too late.

678
00:35:47,625 --> 00:35:49,333
As I waited to be connected,

679
00:35:49,416 --> 00:35:53,375
I made a vow to God
and whoever was listening,

680
00:35:53,458 --> 00:35:55,208
if my mother lives,

681
00:35:55,291 --> 00:35:56,958
I will get to know her.

682
00:35:57,041 --> 00:35:59,416
I will ask her about her past.

683
00:35:59,500 --> 00:36:03,625
And this time, I'll actually
listen to what she has to say.

684
00:36:03,708 --> 00:36:05,916
Why, I'll even
take her to China.

685
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:09,166
And yes, I'll write stories
about her.

686
00:36:09,250 --> 00:36:12,083
All at once, I heard
my mother's voice,

687
00:36:12,166 --> 00:36:13,625
"Amy."

688
00:36:13,708 --> 00:36:16,250
"Oh, Mom, are you okay?"

689
00:36:16,333 --> 00:36:18,833
"Yes, fine, fine."

690
00:36:18,916 --> 00:36:22,208
"Listen, I thought you had
a heart attack, I thought--"

691
00:36:22,291 --> 00:36:24,416
My mother cut me off
with a huff.

692
00:36:24,500 --> 00:36:26,666
"Heart attack?
No, no, no, no."

693
00:36:26,750 --> 00:36:28,958
"I go to fish market
and the fishmonger,

694
00:36:29,041 --> 00:36:31,750
he tried cheating me,
made me so mad."

695
00:36:31,833 --> 00:36:34,750
"All sudden, I got a pain
in my chest, hurt me so bad."

696
00:36:34,833 --> 00:36:37,000
"So I drive to Kaiser Hospital."

697
00:36:37,083 --> 00:36:40,458
"Turn out, I have angina
caused by stress."

698
00:36:40,541 --> 00:36:44,291
"So, you see, that fishmonger,
he wrong, stressed me out."

699
00:36:44,375 --> 00:36:47,208
-Buy something like this.
-What is it?

700
00:36:47,291 --> 00:36:48,541
That's fish.

701
00:36:48,625 --> 00:36:51,250
After I hung up,
I heard a voice saying,

702
00:36:51,333 --> 00:36:55,500
"Hey, don't forget now,
you promised."

703
00:36:59,208 --> 00:37:02,583
I started to ask her
about her life.

704
00:37:02,666 --> 00:37:04,958
And I listened,
instead of saying,

705
00:37:05,041 --> 00:37:07,500
"I'm really busy now, I
can't--I can't listen to you."

706
00:37:07,583 --> 00:37:10,750
I would listen to everything.

707
00:37:10,833 --> 00:37:15,541
And that profoundly changed everything,

708
00:37:15,625 --> 00:37:18,166
I wasn't fighting it anymore.

709
00:37:18,250 --> 00:37:24,000
And I learned a lot
by simply being quiet

710
00:37:24,083 --> 00:37:26,041
and actually listening.

711
00:37:26,125 --> 00:37:30,541
Remember you used to want
to go back to China to live?

712
00:37:30,625 --> 00:37:31,833
-Yeah.
-Why?

713
00:37:31,916 --> 00:37:35,916
Because you two
are not treat me good,

714
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,333
John and you.

715
00:37:38,416 --> 00:37:42,291
I want to go back and have a
servant and live alone... quiet.

716
00:37:42,375 --> 00:37:43,708
At about that time,

717
00:37:43,791 --> 00:37:46,708
Amy really started writing

718
00:37:46,791 --> 00:37:49,750
as a mental health break
from all of the business work

719
00:37:49,833 --> 00:37:51,208
that she was doing.

720
00:37:51,291 --> 00:37:53,500
While Amy was writing
these stories,

721
00:37:53,583 --> 00:37:56,083
she would frequently sit down

722
00:37:56,166 --> 00:37:59,708
and just let her mother
tell her life story.

723
00:37:59,791 --> 00:38:03,916
Okay. No, if I wrote her--
wrote him,

724
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:07,625
your father--I didn't say I
want to come to United States.

725
00:38:07,708 --> 00:38:11,083
-Mm-hmm.
-No, communists-- going to come

726
00:38:11,166 --> 00:38:14,041
-but-- what I--I can do.
-What month was that?

727
00:38:14,125 --> 00:38:16,083
-That's--
-My dad and my mother

728
00:38:16,166 --> 00:38:20,375
never told us
about their lives in China

729
00:38:20,458 --> 00:38:22,291
when we were growing up.

730
00:38:22,375 --> 00:38:25,166
And then later in the years,
she finally said,

731
00:38:25,250 --> 00:38:28,708
"You have sisters in China."

732
00:38:29,833 --> 00:38:32,541
And I said, "What? Sisters?
what do you mean, sisters?"

733
00:38:32,625 --> 00:38:36,791
Yeah, she told us that we have
three past sisters.

734
00:38:36,875 --> 00:38:39,083
I was just kinda, like,
dumbfounded.

735
00:38:39,166 --> 00:38:40,625
Like, what?
I---I don't know--

736
00:38:40,708 --> 00:38:43,125
What are their names and
how old are they?

737
00:38:43,208 --> 00:38:44,625
Where have they been living?

738
00:38:44,708 --> 00:38:47,708
That kind of information
took a while to figure out.

739
00:38:47,791 --> 00:38:50,958
Amy and Lou and Mom
went back to China

740
00:38:51,041 --> 00:38:53,708
to go visit the family.

741
00:38:53,791 --> 00:38:56,083
Yeah, look where we are,
we're in Shanghai.

742
00:38:56,166 --> 00:38:58,791
[speaking Chinese indistinctly]

743
00:39:01,791 --> 00:39:04,791
We went to China so Amy
could really get

744
00:39:04,875 --> 00:39:08,458
close to Amy's mother's
history and family.

745
00:39:08,541 --> 00:39:12,541
[speaking Chinese]

746
00:39:15,333 --> 00:39:17,125
[overlapping chatter]

747
00:39:18,916 --> 00:39:21,416
[Amy] We're on the train on
our way to Qingdao.

748
00:39:22,875 --> 00:39:25,208
It doesn't get any better
than this.

749
00:39:25,291 --> 00:39:28,791
This is the front
of Communist martyrs hotel.

750
00:39:30,458 --> 00:39:34,250
Piano that accompanied the
building of the hotel, I guess.

751
00:39:34,333 --> 00:39:36,458
-Come on.
-Come on.

752
00:39:36,541 --> 00:39:39,458
[playing piano]

753
00:39:39,541 --> 00:39:46,541
♪♪

754
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,250
[indistinct chatter]

755
00:40:02,791 --> 00:40:05,416
After that,
they decided to see

756
00:40:05,500 --> 00:40:08,875
if any of the siblings would
want to come to America.

757
00:40:08,958 --> 00:40:10,875
-Amy?
-Yeah.

758
00:40:10,958 --> 00:40:14,750
[in Chinese]
I’m so glad to see you today, Amy.

759
00:40:14,833 --> 00:40:18,958
Next time, I may stay longer,
but I’m afraid you’re too busy.

760
00:40:19,041 --> 00:40:20,750
[in broken English]
How about this picture?

761
00:40:20,833 --> 00:40:24,583
[Amy in Chinese] Oh, it’s our Mom.

762
00:40:24,666 --> 00:40:26,666
When she was a kid.

763
00:40:26,750 --> 00:40:28,500
[Jindo in Chinese]
When mom was little?

764
00:40:28,583 --> 00:40:31,166
So this is “kid Mom”?

765
00:40:31,250 --> 00:40:34,125
-[Amy in English] Yeah.
-[in broken English] How about this one?

766
00:40:34,208 --> 00:40:36,416
[Amy in Chinese] That’s your grandma.

767
00:40:36,500 --> 00:40:37,958
-[Jindo in Chinese] This is her?
-[Amy in English] Yeah.

768
00:40:38,041 --> 00:40:40,375
-[Jindo in Chinese] Looks so young!
-[Amy] Uh huh.

769
00:40:40,458 --> 00:40:44,708
-[in broken English] So this girl is Mom?
-[Amy in Chinese] She’s your Mom.

770
00:40:44,791 --> 00:40:47,958
-[Jindo in Chinese] She’s your Mom, too.
-[Amy] She is my Mom and our Mom.

771
00:40:48,041 --> 00:40:51,208
[Jindo in broken English]
Yes. Oh, that picture is good.

772
00:40:55,375 --> 00:40:58,041
I didn't understand
until I was an adult

773
00:40:58,125 --> 00:41:00,750
what she
meant by sacrifices.

774
00:41:00,833 --> 00:41:03,416
They were all that she had
left behind in Shanghai,

775
00:41:03,500 --> 00:41:05,666
where she'd had a life
of privilege,

776
00:41:05,750 --> 00:41:07,458
starting from
the age of nine

777
00:41:07,541 --> 00:41:09,958
when her widowed mother
married the richest man

778
00:41:10,041 --> 00:41:12,333
on the island
outside of Shanghai.

779
00:41:13,666 --> 00:41:15,708
She went from being
the honorable widow

780
00:41:15,791 --> 00:41:17,250
of a poor scholar

781
00:41:17,333 --> 00:41:19,666
to a wealthy man's
fourth wife,

782
00:41:19,750 --> 00:41:22,750
one of his concubines.

783
00:41:22,833 --> 00:41:24,625
One version of clan history,

784
00:41:24,708 --> 00:41:28,416
cast her the victim of a rape
by the rich man,

785
00:41:28,500 --> 00:41:30,958
which resulted in pregnancy.

786
00:41:32,958 --> 00:41:34,708
To teach her husband
a lesson,

787
00:41:34,791 --> 00:41:37,125
she swallowed opium.

788
00:41:37,208 --> 00:41:39,125
"She had only meant
to scare him,"

789
00:41:39,208 --> 00:41:40,833
my mother explained.

790
00:41:40,916 --> 00:41:43,375
"She died by accident."

791
00:41:43,458 --> 00:41:44,916
But there were
a few times

792
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,083
when she acknowledged
that her mother killed herself

793
00:41:47,166 --> 00:41:50,250
because, "She could not
take it anymore."

794
00:41:52,083 --> 00:41:55,208
Sometimes she felt the same,
she would say.

795
00:42:00,291 --> 00:42:02,625
She was about 18, here,

796
00:42:02,708 --> 00:42:06,666
and I think to judge by how
innocent she looks,

797
00:42:06,750 --> 00:42:08,666
it was before she married

798
00:42:08,750 --> 00:42:11,041
who she called "that bad man,"

799
00:42:11,125 --> 00:42:15,416
a pilot who was supposed
to marry her stepsister,

800
00:42:15,500 --> 00:42:19,166
the man threw that woman
over to marry my mother

801
00:42:19,250 --> 00:42:21,041
because she was beautiful.

802
00:42:22,500 --> 00:42:24,708
This is when you were 18?

803
00:42:24,791 --> 00:42:29,041
-Eighteen, Chinese age is 20.
-Yeah.

804
00:42:29,125 --> 00:42:31,416
-Maybe 19.
-You wore a white dress?

805
00:42:31,500 --> 00:42:33,333
Yeah.

806
00:42:33,416 --> 00:42:36,041
And this man spend
my money all up.

807
00:42:36,125 --> 00:42:38,625
-Hm.
-Can you see that?

808
00:42:38,708 --> 00:42:40,166
Mm-hmm.

809
00:42:42,708 --> 00:42:46,250
And he was--destroying my
body, too, is that right?

810
00:42:46,333 --> 00:42:48,833
-Mm-hmm.
-So foolish,

811
00:42:48,916 --> 00:42:51,500
so stupid--stupid person.

812
00:42:51,583 --> 00:42:55,125
-I hate myself.
-Mm-hmm.

813
00:42:55,208 --> 00:42:59,250
And every day the sex,
every day, he want it.

814
00:42:59,333 --> 00:43:04,166
They don't get--don't give it,
again on the bed.

815
00:43:04,250 --> 00:43:05,916
He's not treating my person.

816
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:10,833
He treating I belong to him--
a box, a thing,

817
00:43:10,916 --> 00:43:12,416
For he to not everyday use,

818
00:43:12,500 --> 00:43:13,833
-is that right?
-Mm-hmm.

819
00:43:13,916 --> 00:43:16,583
Just so you know
how bad he was,

820
00:43:16,666 --> 00:43:20,291
He was somebody who made
his daughters bring home

821
00:43:20,375 --> 00:43:22,541
their schoolmates
so he could rape them.

822
00:43:22,625 --> 00:43:24,625
[audience murmuring]

823
00:43:24,708 --> 00:43:29,875
This is a man my mother
could not leave.

824
00:43:29,958 --> 00:43:32,250
By the laws of marriage
at that time,

825
00:43:32,333 --> 00:43:34,375
she had to stay with him.

826
00:43:34,458 --> 00:43:38,041
And during that time with him,
she had four children,

827
00:43:38,125 --> 00:43:40,125
a son and three daughters.

828
00:43:40,208 --> 00:43:43,791
The first son that you
had then, how did he die?

829
00:43:43,875 --> 00:43:47,416
Maybe with the restaurant--
eat something wrong that night,

830
00:43:47,500 --> 00:43:51,125
then he came home,
was diarrhea--never stop.

831
00:43:51,208 --> 00:43:53,250
Then I was looking
for his father,

832
00:43:53,333 --> 00:43:55,458
take him to the doctor.

833
00:43:55,541 --> 00:43:58,875
He came home,
he said that son's sick.

834
00:43:58,958 --> 00:44:02,000
He said,
“Si ren bu guan.”

835
00:44:02,083 --> 00:44:03,958
“Si ren bu guan.”
meaning,

836
00:44:04,041 --> 00:44:07,500
-doesn't something matter--
-No, if he die, I don't care.

837
00:44:07,583 --> 00:44:10,083
-Yeah. Oh--
-“Si ren bu guan.”

838
00:44:10,166 --> 00:44:11,250
-“Si ren bu guan.”
-Mm-hmm.

839
00:44:11,333 --> 00:44:13,625
-"He dies, I don't care."
-Mm-hmm.

840
00:44:13,708 --> 00:44:16,625
[somber music playing]

841
00:44:16,708 --> 00:44:17,958
♪♪

842
00:44:18,041 --> 00:44:21,875
My father took this photo
in Tianjin,

843
00:44:21,958 --> 00:44:25,583
he was working for the
US Information Agency,

844
00:44:25,666 --> 00:44:31,000
and she was visiting that town
with her sister-in-law.

845
00:44:31,083 --> 00:44:32,916
Once she met him, she stayed,

846
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,833
effectively abandoning
her marriage.

847
00:44:37,500 --> 00:44:38,708
This was during the height

848
00:44:38,791 --> 00:44:41,750
of my mother and father's
affair,

849
00:44:41,833 --> 00:44:44,541
unfathomable love
during this time,

850
00:44:44,625 --> 00:44:46,750
that could conquer everything.

851
00:44:48,708 --> 00:44:50,958
They had this affair
for at least two seasons,

852
00:44:51,083 --> 00:44:54,041
and then her husband,
who hired a detective,

853
00:44:54,125 --> 00:44:56,875
had her hauled back to Shanghai

854
00:44:56,958 --> 00:44:59,541
and put in jail.

855
00:44:59,625 --> 00:45:02,208
She tried to kill herself,
of course, in jail,

856
00:45:02,291 --> 00:45:04,333
was hospitalized.

857
00:45:04,416 --> 00:45:06,708
And during that time,
my father had

858
00:45:06,791 --> 00:45:10,875
his conscience stirred
and he felt that he had played

859
00:45:10,958 --> 00:45:13,333
this terrible role
in destroying this marriage

860
00:45:13,416 --> 00:45:14,708
and this family.

861
00:45:14,791 --> 00:45:17,083
He pledged that he would
love her forever.

862
00:45:17,166 --> 00:45:19,416
And if she could free herself,

863
00:45:19,500 --> 00:45:21,458
she should join him in
the United States.

864
00:45:21,541 --> 00:45:23,083
And then he left.

865
00:45:23,166 --> 00:45:24,833
She got the divorce,
eventually,

866
00:45:24,916 --> 00:45:27,750
through trickery and through
the help of relatives.

867
00:45:29,458 --> 00:45:31,458
What happens to a person

868
00:45:31,541 --> 00:45:33,125
when they leave
their daughters behind?

869
00:45:33,208 --> 00:45:35,791
What kind of guilt comes up?

870
00:45:35,875 --> 00:45:38,875
[somber music playing]

871
00:45:39,791 --> 00:45:41,875
As my mother tells it,

872
00:45:41,958 --> 00:45:45,458
when they announced
that John Tan's bride

873
00:45:45,541 --> 00:45:47,583
was coming
from Shanghai,

874
00:45:47,666 --> 00:45:50,791
there were several women
who shrieked

875
00:45:50,875 --> 00:45:53,041
and then ran out in tears.

876
00:45:53,125 --> 00:45:55,708
I don't know
whether that's true.

877
00:45:55,791 --> 00:45:57,333
She was in love,

878
00:45:57,416 --> 00:46:00,750
so she did what
she needed to do.

879
00:46:00,833 --> 00:46:07,833
♪♪

880
00:46:10,541 --> 00:46:11,958
It was hard
to wrap my head around

881
00:46:12,041 --> 00:46:15,750
all the different aspects
of Auntie Daisy's past.

882
00:46:15,833 --> 00:46:18,958
What helped is that I had
a half-brother

883
00:46:19,041 --> 00:46:22,875
and knowing the story of
my grandmother being a concubine,

884
00:46:22,958 --> 00:46:24,833
which was not easy to say.

885
00:46:24,916 --> 00:46:26,750
Because the culture's different,

886
00:46:26,833 --> 00:46:29,791
talking to people
in the States,

887
00:46:29,875 --> 00:46:33,416
it was hard, I think, for them
to understand what that meant.

888
00:46:35,041 --> 00:46:37,708
I learned about
Auntie Daisy's past,

889
00:46:37,791 --> 00:46:42,041
I think it was as Amy was
developing her stories.

890
00:46:42,125 --> 00:46:45,916
Amy had written
a few stories

891
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:50,125
that she didn't really connect
up with as a novel or anything,

892
00:46:50,208 --> 00:46:51,750
but she went to
the Squaw Valley

893
00:46:51,833 --> 00:46:54,000
Writer's Conference

894
00:46:54,083 --> 00:46:56,875
and got a lot of good feedback

895
00:46:56,958 --> 00:46:59,541
to encourage her
to keep writing.

896
00:46:59,625 --> 00:47:01,583
I was teaching
at Squaw Valley

897
00:47:01,666 --> 00:47:03,750
and we had
Wednesday afternoons off.

898
00:47:03,833 --> 00:47:06,666
So a bunch of us took the tram
up to the top of the mountain.

899
00:47:06,750 --> 00:47:08,625
I didn't know Amy.
She was in the tram.

900
00:47:08,708 --> 00:47:10,541
We got up the mountain,

901
00:47:10,625 --> 00:47:14,166
it started to hail,
and the lightning was going.

902
00:47:14,250 --> 00:47:16,166
Our guide, who said he knew
the mountain

903
00:47:16,250 --> 00:47:19,375
like the back of his hand
did in the winter.

904
00:47:19,458 --> 00:47:20,750
He was a ski instructor.

905
00:47:20,833 --> 00:47:23,416
He did not know how to get us
down in the summer.

906
00:47:23,500 --> 00:47:27,250
So it took us maybe
two or three hours.

907
00:47:27,333 --> 00:47:29,541
I mean, we're all good writers,
but bad athletes.

908
00:47:29,625 --> 00:47:31,875
None of us were exactly
in shape.

909
00:47:31,958 --> 00:47:35,125
And we edged our way
down the ravines.

910
00:47:35,208 --> 00:47:36,708
And when we got to the bottom,

911
00:47:36,791 --> 00:47:40,083
Amy Tan unzipped her fanny pack

912
00:47:40,166 --> 00:47:41,666
and pulled out
a single cigarette.

913
00:47:41,750 --> 00:47:42,875
And I remember
they took a picture.

914
00:47:42,958 --> 00:47:45,333
I--this white jersey skirt
of mine was--

915
00:47:45,416 --> 00:47:47,791
had been hailed on, it had
mud on it, had blood on it.

916
00:47:47,875 --> 00:47:49,166
It was just sort of dragging around

917
00:47:49,250 --> 00:47:50,375
my ankles at that point.

918
00:47:50,458 --> 00:47:51,625
But Amy looked perfect.

919
00:47:51,708 --> 00:47:54,916
And then the one cigarette,
perfect. [laughs]

920
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:56,708
The next day, she felt that

921
00:47:56,791 --> 00:47:58,708
we'd been through something together,

922
00:47:58,791 --> 00:48:01,166
and she asked if I would
take a look at her story,

923
00:48:01,250 --> 00:48:03,833
and I did, and I loved it.

924
00:48:03,916 --> 00:48:06,416
And it was a mess,
and I still loved it.

925
00:48:06,500 --> 00:48:07,916
And I remember saying to her,

926
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:09,375
"You know, this would be
wonderful."

927
00:48:09,458 --> 00:48:12,500
"You should break this into
12 separate short stories."

928
00:48:12,583 --> 00:48:16,333
And Amy said
my favorite word as a student,

929
00:48:16,416 --> 00:48:18,791
"Okay," and she did it.

930
00:48:18,875 --> 00:48:21,500
So that's how it started, and
it happened fast after that.

931
00:48:21,583 --> 00:48:23,625
It happened very fast.

932
00:48:23,708 --> 00:48:25,750
Molly Giles said,
"I think you should meet

933
00:48:25,833 --> 00:48:28,791
a writer I'm working with,
Amy Tan."

934
00:48:28,875 --> 00:48:32,708
And so Amy came armed with
an outline and,

935
00:48:32,791 --> 00:48:36,500
the title was
Wind and Water.

936
00:48:36,583 --> 00:48:38,416
And I said, well, coming
from California,

937
00:48:38,500 --> 00:48:40,791
I will be laughed out of Manhattan

938
00:48:40,875 --> 00:48:44,125
if I come in with a book
called Wind and Water.

939
00:48:44,208 --> 00:48:46,041
-[laughter]
-In the synopsis

940
00:48:46,125 --> 00:48:48,208
were these four magical words,

941
00:48:48,291 --> 00:48:49,916
"The Joy Luck Club."

942
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:52,750
And I got goose pimples
when I saw those words.

943
00:48:52,833 --> 00:48:54,791
That's my goose pimple test.

944
00:48:54,875 --> 00:48:56,916
And I said, "Could we use that
as a title?"

945
00:48:57,000 --> 00:48:59,916
And Amy said, "That's just
a club my parents have.

946
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:01,500
You know, they meet on
Thursday nights.

947
00:49:01,583 --> 00:49:02,708
They play Mahjong."

948
00:49:02,791 --> 00:49:03,958
It's like
the Girl Scouts of America.

949
00:49:04,041 --> 00:49:05,375
I mean, it just sounded
so prosaic, you know.

950
00:49:05,458 --> 00:49:08,375
It's a stock planning club,
you know?

951
00:49:08,458 --> 00:49:10,083
-Yeah.
-And I said, "Well, you know,

952
00:49:10,166 --> 00:49:12,583
who doesn't want joy, luck
and who doesn't wanna

953
00:49:12,666 --> 00:49:13,916
be a member of that club?"

954
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:16,708
By the way, there's now
a restaurant in New York,

955
00:49:16,791 --> 00:49:20,250
which is a derivative,
called the Soy Luck Club.

956
00:49:20,333 --> 00:49:21,166
[laughter]

957
00:49:21,250 --> 00:49:24,333
One of the nights we were
at Amy and Lou's house

958
00:49:24,416 --> 00:49:26,375
was the night there was
a bidding war

959
00:49:26,458 --> 00:49:28,416
for her first book.

960
00:49:28,500 --> 00:49:30,958
She would excuse herself from
her table,

961
00:49:31,041 --> 00:49:33,166
and she talked to her agent,
and she'd come back,

962
00:49:33,250 --> 00:49:36,291
she goes, "Knopf just
bid on my book."

963
00:49:36,375 --> 00:49:39,125
And then another phone call
would come in and,

964
00:49:39,208 --> 00:49:42,250
"Putnam just bid on my book."

965
00:49:42,333 --> 00:49:44,833
Amy thought, "Well,
I've got this contract."

966
00:49:44,916 --> 00:49:48,333
"I get to write my book,
and it will be published."

967
00:49:48,416 --> 00:49:52,833
"But in six months,
it will be life back

968
00:49:52,916 --> 00:49:54,708
as we lived it before."

969
00:49:54,791 --> 00:49:58,250
And when it took off,
did I expect it?

970
00:49:58,333 --> 00:49:59,750
No, I did not.

971
00:49:59,833 --> 00:50:02,375
The Joy Luck Club went
right to number one

972
00:50:02,458 --> 00:50:03,666
on the bestseller list.

973
00:50:03,750 --> 00:50:06,208
When The Joy Luck Club hit,
it really hit.

974
00:50:06,291 --> 00:50:08,125
It was a revolution.
[laughs]

975
00:50:08,208 --> 00:50:10,583
The book was a finalist for
the National Book Award

976
00:50:10,666 --> 00:50:12,416
and the National Book Critics
Circle Award.

977
00:50:12,500 --> 00:50:14,375
It was the longest running
number one book

978
00:50:14,458 --> 00:50:16,166
on the New York Times
Best Seller list.

979
00:50:16,250 --> 00:50:18,916
The Joy Luck Club was so
massive when it came out.

980
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:20,708
I mean, everybody loved it.

981
00:50:20,791 --> 00:50:22,583
It was just a magical book
to appear.

982
00:50:22,666 --> 00:50:23,958
There was nothing like it.

983
00:50:24,083 --> 00:50:27,125
And now I see that I am not
the only one with

984
00:50:27,208 --> 00:50:29,041
the mother that says all of
the stuff

985
00:50:29,125 --> 00:50:30,458
that sounds unbelievable.

986
00:50:30,541 --> 00:50:32,541
It was hard to believe
the success.

987
00:50:32,625 --> 00:50:34,041
Everybody embraced the book.

988
00:50:34,125 --> 00:50:35,250
I have to tell her
that she has

989
00:50:35,333 --> 00:50:36,958
accomplished a mission with me,

990
00:50:37,041 --> 00:50:39,791
showing that women
do have histories.

991
00:50:39,875 --> 00:50:41,083
I don't experience that as if,

992
00:50:41,166 --> 00:50:42,833
you know, like a political experience.

993
00:50:42,916 --> 00:50:44,500
That's a deeply emotional experience

994
00:50:44,583 --> 00:50:46,291
for me to feel like,
you know,

995
00:50:46,375 --> 00:50:48,666
my history is part of
the larger history also.

996
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,166
It was published in 1989.

997
00:50:52,250 --> 00:50:54,583
And even then,
I said to myself,

998
00:50:54,666 --> 00:50:55,875
this is not gonna last.

999
00:50:55,958 --> 00:50:58,416
I have to go back
to the work that I had before

1000
00:50:58,500 --> 00:51:00,875
to make a living,
this is for fun.

1001
00:51:00,958 --> 00:51:05,583
And it took me from March
until October

1002
00:51:05,666 --> 00:51:07,750
to finally realize
I could do this

1003
00:51:07,833 --> 00:51:10,875
for the rest of my life--
just write stories.

1004
00:51:10,958 --> 00:51:13,291
Tell me what you think
your gift is

1005
00:51:13,375 --> 00:51:17,375
that enables what you say to
resonate with so many people.

1006
00:51:17,458 --> 00:51:20,500
I think in part,
it's nothing unusual.

1007
00:51:20,583 --> 00:51:22,208
It's the fact that
I'm a baby boomer.

1008
00:51:22,291 --> 00:51:24,791
I'm an American
born in this country,

1009
00:51:24,875 --> 00:51:27,000
and I'm a baby boomer,
and I have feelings

1010
00:51:27,083 --> 00:51:30,375
that a lot of women
my age have.

1011
00:51:30,458 --> 00:51:35,291
And one of that
is this fear of,

1012
00:51:35,375 --> 00:51:39,208
what would I lose
if I lost my mother?

1013
00:51:39,291 --> 00:51:43,125
What do I lose by not
knowing about the past?

1014
00:51:43,208 --> 00:51:46,333
"In me, they see
their own daughters

1015
00:51:46,416 --> 00:51:48,750
just as ignorant,
just as unmindful

1016
00:51:48,833 --> 00:51:52,750
of all the truths and hopes
they had brought to America."

1017
00:51:52,833 --> 00:51:54,708
"They see daughters
who grow impatient

1018
00:51:54,791 --> 00:51:56,791
when their
mothers talk in Chinese,

1019
00:51:56,875 --> 00:51:59,000
who think they're stupid
when they explain things

1020
00:51:59,083 --> 00:52:00,500
in fractured English."

1021
00:52:00,583 --> 00:52:02,458
"They see that joy and luck

1022
00:52:02,541 --> 00:52:04,625
did not mean the same
to their daughters,

1023
00:52:04,708 --> 00:52:07,958
that to these closed
American-born minds,

1024
00:52:08,041 --> 00:52:10,458
joy luck is not a word."

1025
00:52:10,541 --> 00:52:12,250
"It does not exist."

1026
00:52:12,333 --> 00:52:14,875
"They see daughters who would
bear grandchildren

1027
00:52:14,958 --> 00:52:17,291
born without
any connecting hope

1028
00:52:17,375 --> 00:52:21,500
passed from generation
to generation."

1029
00:52:23,875 --> 00:52:26,083
I was a voracious reader
from an early age,

1030
00:52:26,166 --> 00:52:29,333
and she was the first
Asian-American author

1031
00:52:29,416 --> 00:52:30,958
I had read.

1032
00:52:31,041 --> 00:52:33,125
And she was the first person
that was

1033
00:52:33,208 --> 00:52:36,291
reflecting back to me
part of a world I knew.

1034
00:52:36,375 --> 00:52:40,375
She showed me the glamorous
Shanghai of the 30s.

1035
00:52:40,458 --> 00:52:42,791
She showed me all these
back stories that I knew about

1036
00:52:42,875 --> 00:52:45,458
and could relate to
from my family's story.

1037
00:52:45,541 --> 00:52:48,000
And then the counterpoint
of that

1038
00:52:48,083 --> 00:52:50,666
was to showcase the
Asian-American experience,

1039
00:52:50,750 --> 00:52:53,375
the second generation
of daughters

1040
00:52:53,458 --> 00:52:56,625
who have to deal with these
mothers who came from China.

1041
00:52:56,708 --> 00:52:59,458
There were moments there
that I could so relate to

1042
00:52:59,541 --> 00:53:00,875
as an immigrant.

1043
00:53:00,958 --> 00:53:03,291
"My mother saw danger
in everything,

1044
00:53:03,375 --> 00:53:05,541
even in other Chinese people."

1045
00:53:05,625 --> 00:53:06,791
"Where we lived and shopped,

1046
00:53:06,875 --> 00:53:09,333
everyone spoke
Cantonese or English."

1047
00:53:09,416 --> 00:53:12,416
"My mother was from Wuxi,
near Shanghai,

1048
00:53:12,500 --> 00:53:14,708
so she spoke Mandarin
and a little bit of--"

1049
00:53:14,791 --> 00:53:19,166
Being bi-cultural
is an asset for a writer.

1050
00:53:19,250 --> 00:53:21,250
It gives you curiosity.

1051
00:53:21,333 --> 00:53:23,250
You want to ask questions.

1052
00:53:23,333 --> 00:53:26,541
You want to understand deeply.

1053
00:53:26,625 --> 00:53:30,375
And in the answers,
you get stories.

1054
00:53:30,458 --> 00:53:33,166
That's what Amy has been doing.

1055
00:53:33,250 --> 00:53:35,750
She observes her mother,

1056
00:53:35,833 --> 00:53:37,875
and her aunts,
and the culture,

1057
00:53:37,958 --> 00:53:40,750
and at the same time,
she totally belongs here.

1058
00:53:40,833 --> 00:53:43,958
So it's in the contrast,
in the complexity

1059
00:53:44,041 --> 00:53:47,541
that she finds her language
and her inspiration.

1060
00:53:48,708 --> 00:53:51,458
Not to do any disservice to
the amazing

1061
00:53:51,541 --> 00:53:54,958
Asian-American writers
that came before Amy,

1062
00:53:55,041 --> 00:53:57,916
but I think this was
the first book to really

1063
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:00,458
cross over into becoming

1064
00:54:00,541 --> 00:54:04,916
a mainstream mass market
success.

1065
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:07,416
It had such a huge impact
on paving the way

1066
00:54:07,500 --> 00:54:11,208
for other writers of color
to tell their stories.

1067
00:54:12,583 --> 00:54:16,125
When I actually was about
to be published,

1068
00:54:16,208 --> 00:54:18,916
I gave my mother
the book to read,

1069
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:25,375
and her remark was,
"It was so easy to read."

1070
00:54:25,458 --> 00:54:29,666
She, more than anyone,
knew what was fiction

1071
00:54:29,750 --> 00:54:35,083
and that it wasn't some sort
of autobiography,

1072
00:54:35,166 --> 00:54:38,625
but she also knew the emotions,
and the situations,

1073
00:54:38,708 --> 00:54:42,958
the conflicts that we had
that were embedded

1074
00:54:43,041 --> 00:54:48,125
in the story and felt that
I understood her completely.

1075
00:54:48,208 --> 00:54:50,333
She didn't have to tell me
why she was angry

1076
00:54:50,416 --> 00:54:53,750
about things or why she was
worried about me.

1077
00:54:53,833 --> 00:54:55,333
It was all in the book.

1078
00:54:55,416 --> 00:54:58,958
♪♪

1079
00:54:59,041 --> 00:55:03,625
Amy and myself,
we write about emotions

1080
00:55:03,708 --> 00:55:05,750
and relationships.

1081
00:55:05,833 --> 00:55:07,583
And those are universal.

1082
00:55:07,666 --> 00:55:12,208
So reading Amy,
I realized that, wow,

1083
00:55:12,291 --> 00:55:13,750
these people are just like me,

1084
00:55:13,833 --> 00:55:15,958
like,
my Latin American family--

1085
00:55:16,083 --> 00:55:17,333
what's the difference?

1086
00:55:17,416 --> 00:55:19,791
Those grandmothers
are like my grandmother

1087
00:55:19,875 --> 00:55:23,416
and that makes it so close,

1088
00:55:23,500 --> 00:55:25,083
so personal,

1089
00:55:25,166 --> 00:55:28,625
so touching
in so many ways.

1090
00:55:28,708 --> 00:55:31,625
And I think that's what
every reader feels

1091
00:55:31,708 --> 00:55:36,416
anywhere in the world in any
language when they read Amy.

1092
00:55:38,291 --> 00:55:41,000
[Amy] You're gonna make
the curry potato?

1093
00:55:41,083 --> 00:55:44,333
-Curry chicken potato.
-Ooh, yum.

1094
00:55:44,416 --> 00:55:48,250
Then you have a garlic,
onion, ginger.

1095
00:55:48,333 --> 00:55:49,833
It's Chinese cooking.

1096
00:55:49,916 --> 00:55:53,916
Your vegetable have to hot
to seal them.

1097
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:56,375
-Uh-huh.
-If you don't seal them,

1098
00:55:56,458 --> 00:55:59,416
you'll come up not right.

1099
00:56:02,500 --> 00:56:04,416
[man] No respect, huh?

1100
00:56:16,458 --> 00:56:17,833
Well, good evening, everyone,

1101
00:56:17,916 --> 00:56:19,583
and thanks for coming out
on this rainy night

1102
00:56:19,666 --> 00:56:21,500
in San Francisco.

1103
00:56:21,583 --> 00:56:25,208
I want to welcome you
to the 25th anniversary

1104
00:56:25,291 --> 00:56:26,750
of The Joy Luck Club.

1105
00:56:26,833 --> 00:56:29,000
-How about a round of applause?
-[cheers and applause]

1106
00:56:29,083 --> 00:56:31,958
[indistinct chatter]

1107
00:56:37,041 --> 00:56:38,833
I remember when
The Joy Luck movie came out.

1108
00:56:38,916 --> 00:56:39,958
Now, the Joy Luck movie
probably

1109
00:56:40,083 --> 00:56:42,250
did more for her than the book.

1110
00:56:42,333 --> 00:56:45,666
And it had all beautiful
Asian actresses in it,

1111
00:56:45,750 --> 00:56:48,375
that was the first one of its
kind that I can recall.

1112
00:56:48,458 --> 00:56:51,208
[indistinct chatter]

1113
00:56:51,291 --> 00:56:53,583
I gave you my good skin--

1114
00:56:53,666 --> 00:56:56,333
I must have seen it five
times on the big screen.

1115
00:56:56,416 --> 00:56:57,416
This was back in Texas,

1116
00:56:57,500 --> 00:56:59,291
I was still living in Houston,

1117
00:56:59,375 --> 00:57:02,708
and all my friends were white,

1118
00:57:02,791 --> 00:57:05,625
but I was so proud
to show them this movie,

1119
00:57:05,708 --> 00:57:10,166
you know, of English speaking
contemporary Asians. [laughs]

1120
00:57:10,250 --> 00:57:11,333
Because after the party,

1121
00:57:11,416 --> 00:57:12,416
we're going to Lake Tahoe,

1122
00:57:12,500 --> 00:57:14,291
and he actually asked her
to come with us.

1123
00:57:14,375 --> 00:57:16,666
-Oh, great!
-You'll have a great time.

1124
00:57:16,750 --> 00:57:18,333
Where's Jennifer?

1125
00:57:18,416 --> 00:57:20,958
Oh, her Auntie Joan
is putting her down for a nap.

1126
00:57:21,083 --> 00:57:25,166
When I started to act
in Hollywood,

1127
00:57:25,250 --> 00:57:30,708
many films were just coolies,
or dragon ladies,

1128
00:57:30,791 --> 00:57:34,333
railroad workers,
restaurant owners.

1129
00:57:34,416 --> 00:57:36,291
And I'm happy that

1130
00:57:36,375 --> 00:57:40,291
this film portrayed Chinese
as they are.

1131
00:57:40,375 --> 00:57:42,791
I really didn't register

1132
00:57:42,875 --> 00:57:44,833
how big this movie
was gonna be,

1133
00:57:44,916 --> 00:57:47,500
and what a long-lasting effect
it would have

1134
00:57:47,583 --> 00:57:49,958
on all of our lives
at the time.

1135
00:57:50,041 --> 00:57:53,833
Amy had the very straight
bowl cut,

1136
00:57:53,916 --> 00:57:58,958
and such a woman of style
and very, very--

1137
00:57:59,041 --> 00:58:01,541
-So down to Earth.
-Very down to Earth,

1138
00:58:01,625 --> 00:58:04,541
but with a certain gravitas.

1139
00:58:04,625 --> 00:58:05,833
When I first
started writing,

1140
00:58:05,916 --> 00:58:07,416
I made this list of things

1141
00:58:07,500 --> 00:58:08,791
about who I should be
as a writer

1142
00:58:08,875 --> 00:58:12,000
because I knew that it was
very likely I would get

1143
00:58:12,083 --> 00:58:14,333
sucked into all kinds of things

1144
00:58:14,416 --> 00:58:16,875
and lose my ways as a writer.

1145
00:58:16,958 --> 00:58:19,791
So one of them was
to make writing my focus,

1146
00:58:19,875 --> 00:58:22,875
don't get involved
with things like film.

1147
00:58:22,958 --> 00:58:25,291
Ron Bass,
who is a screenwriter,

1148
00:58:25,375 --> 00:58:27,958
he said, "Well, why don't you
take a scene and write it?"

1149
00:58:28,041 --> 00:58:31,250
And I said, "No, I'm not
getting involved with this."

1150
00:58:31,333 --> 00:58:34,125
I said, but I won't write
the screenplay without you

1151
00:58:34,208 --> 00:58:36,875
because it is not just
a wonderful book,

1152
00:58:36,958 --> 00:58:38,666
it is an iconic book.

1153
00:58:38,750 --> 00:58:41,833
It is a book that has meaning
to people of literature

1154
00:58:41,916 --> 00:58:44,500
and people who are
in your community.

1155
00:58:44,583 --> 00:58:46,250
I need your voice.

1156
00:58:46,333 --> 00:58:50,291
And he said, "Well,
just try it, you know."

1157
00:58:50,375 --> 00:58:52,875
"I'll be writing it,
but you just do one scene,

1158
00:58:52,958 --> 00:58:55,291
and I think you will
learn something

1159
00:58:55,375 --> 00:58:58,375
about earning a scene."

1160
00:58:58,458 --> 00:59:03,000
Now, that's like heroin
for a writer, like,

1161
00:59:03,083 --> 00:59:06,041
earn the emotions of a scene.

1162
00:59:06,125 --> 00:59:09,916
So I thought, "Well, okay,
I could do one scene."

1163
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:12,541
And it went from there.

1164
00:59:12,625 --> 00:59:15,000
And, action.

1165
00:59:15,083 --> 00:59:18,541
Here, she's got a book
that is iconic.

1166
00:59:18,625 --> 00:59:21,083
And I would make suggestions,

1167
00:59:21,166 --> 00:59:23,000
and she loved suggestions.

1168
00:59:23,083 --> 00:59:25,333
And she would love
to talk it through.

1169
00:59:25,416 --> 00:59:28,583
She had no pride
of anything like,

1170
00:59:28,666 --> 00:59:29,916
you know,
well, the public is going

1171
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:31,125
to expect that this and this.

1172
00:59:31,208 --> 00:59:35,083
No. Just what tells the story
the best.

1173
00:59:35,166 --> 00:59:37,875
My grades, my job,
[sighs]

1174
00:59:37,958 --> 00:59:41,166
not getting married, everything
you expected of me.

1175
00:59:41,250 --> 00:59:42,875
Not expect anything.

1176
00:59:42,958 --> 00:59:45,708
Never expect.

1177
00:59:45,791 --> 00:59:48,125
Only hope.

1178
00:59:48,208 --> 00:59:49,708
Only hoping best for you.

1179
00:59:49,791 --> 00:59:53,250
I remember one night
I went to the market

1180
00:59:53,333 --> 00:59:56,750
and after I've shopping,
I go to my car,

1181
00:59:56,833 --> 00:59:59,125
I see one big man ran to me.

1182
00:59:59,208 --> 01:00:02,083
I was scared, and I was trying
to holding on my--

1183
01:00:02,166 --> 01:00:06,583
my purse and ready for
an attack or something.

1184
01:00:06,666 --> 01:00:09,083
And the man said,
"No, wait a minute,

1185
01:00:09,166 --> 01:00:11,333
I just want to say--
to thank you so much

1186
01:00:11,416 --> 01:00:14,291
for your character
in The Joy Luck Club."

1187
01:00:14,375 --> 01:00:18,250
"I cried and I cried.
I just lost my mother."

1188
01:00:18,333 --> 01:00:20,916
"I lost my mother.
And I see your scene,

1189
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:23,000
and I just want
to say thank you."

1190
01:00:23,083 --> 01:00:26,916
So I drive home,
and tear came to my eyes.

1191
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:31,291
I realized that
Joy Luck Club,

1192
01:00:31,375 --> 01:00:34,250
how wonderful the story is.

1193
01:00:34,333 --> 01:00:36,833
It's about
the great relationship,

1194
01:00:36,916 --> 01:00:40,250
mother-daughter,
or mother-children.

1195
01:00:40,333 --> 01:00:43,375
It doesn't matter that we are
Asian or not Asian,

1196
01:00:43,458 --> 01:00:45,625
everybody has a mother.

1197
01:00:45,708 --> 01:00:48,458
[crying]

1198
01:00:53,083 --> 01:00:56,791
June, since your baby time,

1199
01:00:56,875 --> 01:01:00,083
I wear this next to my heart.

1200
01:01:00,166 --> 01:01:01,916
Now you wear next to yours.

1201
01:01:04,166 --> 01:01:05,708
It will help you know...

1202
01:01:08,333 --> 01:01:09,916
I see you.

1203
01:01:13,166 --> 01:01:16,333
I see you.

1204
01:01:25,041 --> 01:01:30,750
That bad crab,
only you try to take it.

1205
01:01:30,833 --> 01:01:34,291
Everybody else
want best quality.

1206
01:01:34,375 --> 01:01:37,958
When we went to the premiere
in Hollywood,

1207
01:01:38,041 --> 01:01:39,916
my mother was there.

1208
01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:43,500
And I was a little afraid
of what was going to happen

1209
01:01:43,583 --> 01:01:46,500
because there were scenes
in that movie that were

1210
01:01:46,583 --> 01:01:49,250
based on what had happened
to her as a little girl.

1211
01:01:49,333 --> 01:01:51,458
-Yeah.
-Watching her mother die.

1212
01:01:51,541 --> 01:01:53,791
And the lights come up,
end of the movie,

1213
01:01:53,875 --> 01:01:55,041
everybody's crying.

1214
01:01:55,125 --> 01:01:56,750
And I look at her,
and she's clear-eyed.

1215
01:01:56,833 --> 01:01:59,458
And I said, "Are you okay,

1216
01:01:59,541 --> 01:02:02,000
I mean, was that too sad
or too harsh?"

1217
01:02:02,083 --> 01:02:04,750
She goes, "Oh, no," you know,

1218
01:02:04,833 --> 01:02:08,666
"everything in China are so much
worse, this already better."

1219
01:02:08,750 --> 01:02:13,333
-[laughter]
-And I thought, okay.

1220
01:02:13,416 --> 01:02:16,875
One of the things for Amy
is that early success

1221
01:02:16,958 --> 01:02:21,166
was so huge that she had
to feel, well, now,

1222
01:02:21,250 --> 01:02:22,833
how do you follow that?

1223
01:02:22,916 --> 01:02:24,208
Was it scary
to follow up a hit

1224
01:02:24,291 --> 01:02:26,583
-like The Joy Luck Club?
-Um, scary isn't the word.

1225
01:02:26,666 --> 01:02:29,833
I think it was more
like near-death throes.

1226
01:02:29,916 --> 01:02:31,541
[laughter]

1227
01:02:31,625 --> 01:02:33,791
After I wrote
The Joy Luck Club,

1228
01:02:33,875 --> 01:02:35,416
I was stuck.

1229
01:02:35,500 --> 01:02:38,875
I made probably seven starts
at a novel

1230
01:02:38,958 --> 01:02:40,500
and abandoned them all.

1231
01:02:40,583 --> 01:02:44,375
Meanwhile, my mother is saying,
"Write my true story."

1232
01:02:44,458 --> 01:02:45,750
She had read
The Joy Luck Club,

1233
01:02:45,833 --> 01:02:47,208
but she knew
it was fiction.

1234
01:02:47,291 --> 01:02:50,666
She wanted to be able to tell--
"Yeah, this is my story."

1235
01:02:50,750 --> 01:02:55,291
And I said, "You know, Ma, it's
not how fiction is written.

1236
01:02:55,375 --> 01:02:58,375
It's not really
about true stories and--"

1237
01:02:58,458 --> 01:03:01,125
But when I got stuck,
I thought,

1238
01:03:01,208 --> 01:03:05,125
you know, "What is the reason
for me to write this?"

1239
01:03:05,208 --> 01:03:08,625
It's really to understand myself

1240
01:03:08,708 --> 01:03:10,416
and how I came
to have these thoughts.

1241
01:03:10,500 --> 01:03:13,875
And it's also to give
my mother a gift

1242
01:03:13,958 --> 01:03:16,750
that I was really listening.

1243
01:03:16,833 --> 01:03:21,583
So I said
that's what I'm gonna do.

1244
01:03:21,666 --> 01:03:26,041
That man. Wicked man.
So bad, you know.

1245
01:03:26,125 --> 01:03:29,166
And have to cheating people
to marry him you know,

1246
01:03:29,250 --> 01:03:32,708
like this or the--not,
'cause I'm the marriage,

1247
01:03:32,791 --> 01:03:34,833
the other one's not marriage,
it's a relationship.

1248
01:03:34,916 --> 01:03:37,500
Somebody believe him, you know.

1249
01:03:37,583 --> 01:03:41,416
She loved the idea she was
helping me, to write.

1250
01:03:41,500 --> 01:03:45,166
You know, she'd call me up at
different hours of the day to--

1251
01:03:45,250 --> 01:03:46,833
"I have something else to say."

1252
01:03:46,916 --> 01:03:48,791
And she'd go on for an hour,
and I said, you know--

1253
01:03:48,875 --> 01:03:50,833
I didn't want
to get her upset--

1254
01:03:50,916 --> 01:03:53,000
but I said, "I have to get
some work done."

1255
01:03:53,083 --> 01:03:54,500
"Oh, okay, okay."

1256
01:03:54,583 --> 01:03:56,375
Must be something
you don't want to

1257
01:03:56,458 --> 01:04:00,333
-lure her to give a sex scene.
-Mm-hmm.

1258
01:04:00,416 --> 01:04:03,125
He one time--he wanted three
to sleep together like this,

1259
01:04:03,208 --> 01:04:05,625
-I told you before, huh?
-Mm, mm-hmm.

1260
01:04:05,708 --> 01:04:07,666
And then I refused.

1261
01:04:07,750 --> 01:04:10,166
"I remembered the many
nights he used my body

1262
01:04:10,250 --> 01:04:12,458
after he had already
been with another woman."

1263
01:04:12,541 --> 01:04:14,583
"He even brought
a woman right to our bed

1264
01:04:14,666 --> 01:04:16,416
and forced me to watch."

1265
01:04:16,500 --> 01:04:17,458
"Of course, I did not,

1266
01:04:17,541 --> 01:04:19,916
but I could not shut my ears."

1267
01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:23,291
You can see when I talk
I'm angry, all right?

1268
01:04:23,375 --> 01:04:25,250
That angry never get out.

1269
01:04:25,333 --> 01:04:27,125
"So many years gone by,

1270
01:04:27,208 --> 01:04:30,333
and still the anger can never
come out completely."

1271
01:04:30,416 --> 01:04:32,208
"You can hear this
in my voice."

1272
01:04:32,291 --> 01:04:36,250
I'm the one, unfortunately,
like this used like a machine.

1273
01:04:36,333 --> 01:04:38,958
"That bad man
was using my body."

1274
01:04:39,041 --> 01:04:43,291
"Every night he used it as if
I were, what? A machine!"

1275
01:04:46,666 --> 01:04:47,625
So you've, you've done it.

1276
01:04:47,708 --> 01:04:49,666
You've finished
book number two.

1277
01:04:49,750 --> 01:04:51,000
-Finally.
-My next guest's

1278
01:04:51,083 --> 01:04:52,625
second novel,
The Kitchen God's Wife,

1279
01:04:52,708 --> 01:04:54,500
is still number one
on the New York Times

1280
01:04:54,583 --> 01:04:55,666
bestseller list this week.

1281
01:04:55,750 --> 01:04:56,791
It has been
for the last seven weeks.

1282
01:04:56,875 --> 01:04:58,125
Please welcome Amy Tan.

1283
01:04:58,208 --> 01:05:00,083
Her second novel looks
as though it's gonna be

1284
01:05:00,166 --> 01:05:02,166
an even bigger smash
than the first book.

1285
01:05:02,250 --> 01:05:03,666
"I've told you about
the early days

1286
01:05:03,750 --> 01:05:06,166
of my marriage so you can
understand why I became

1287
01:05:06,250 --> 01:05:07,916
weak and strong
at the same time."

1288
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:10,875
What else struck you, Amy,
about your mom's upbringing?

1289
01:05:10,958 --> 01:05:13,916
Was it the repression
that she experienced?

1290
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:15,875
It, it was repression.
It was--

1291
01:05:15,958 --> 01:05:18,583
but it was also her strength
that she never gave up.

1292
01:05:18,666 --> 01:05:20,500
Even though she lived
in a society that

1293
01:05:20,583 --> 01:05:22,791
offered her no choices,

1294
01:05:22,875 --> 01:05:25,875
that gave her
unbelievable sorrow,

1295
01:05:25,958 --> 01:05:29,750
she somehow could find a
strength and rise above that.

1296
01:05:29,833 --> 01:05:31,458
I couldn't speak English
at all.

1297
01:05:31,541 --> 01:05:35,750
Couldn't read A, B, C, D.
[both laughing]

1298
01:05:35,833 --> 01:05:37,166
Chinese Americans
are becoming

1299
01:05:37,250 --> 01:05:39,500
an increasingly dynamic
and visible element

1300
01:05:39,583 --> 01:05:41,916
of American society
in business, science,

1301
01:05:42,041 --> 01:05:43,583
the arts,
and literature.

1302
01:05:43,666 --> 01:05:46,416
We have the views of novelist
Amy Tan who was born--

1303
01:05:46,500 --> 01:05:48,208
The Chinese American
community, uh,

1304
01:05:48,291 --> 01:05:51,416
has been a great success
in North America.

1305
01:05:51,500 --> 01:05:54,000
So when you started writing,
did you feel that suddenly

1306
01:05:54,083 --> 01:05:57,250
you were responsible, somehow,
to the history of, you know,

1307
01:05:57,333 --> 01:05:58,750
your people
in the United States,

1308
01:05:58,833 --> 01:06:00,083
if such a thing is possible?

1309
01:06:00,166 --> 01:06:01,541
Well, first, let me say
that when I--

1310
01:06:01,625 --> 01:06:03,000
when I think about
"your people,"

1311
01:06:03,083 --> 01:06:06,416
I think of myself as being
an American as well.

1312
01:06:06,500 --> 01:06:09,916
And so "your" includes both
being Chinese and American,

1313
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:11,625
or Chinese-American,
or whatever.

1314
01:06:11,708 --> 01:06:13,250
I didn't seek to be
a politician.

1315
01:06:13,333 --> 01:06:15,958
I didn't seek to be
a representative

1316
01:06:16,041 --> 01:06:19,458
of a whole community of people.

1317
01:06:19,541 --> 01:06:22,583
I just hope to write
some good stories.

1318
01:06:22,666 --> 01:06:26,208
And yet, when I was given
this mantle

1319
01:06:26,291 --> 01:06:30,250
of speaking for
the Asian-American community,

1320
01:06:30,333 --> 01:06:33,250
suddenly, there were
these expectations.

1321
01:06:33,333 --> 01:06:36,833
I started getting
a lot of criticism.

1322
01:06:36,916 --> 01:06:38,541
Some said I did it wrong,

1323
01:06:38,625 --> 01:06:40,666
that I had created stereotypes,

1324
01:06:40,750 --> 01:06:44,000
and pander to those mothers
speaking in broken English,

1325
01:06:44,083 --> 01:06:46,625
or concubines
who had killed themselves,

1326
01:06:46,708 --> 01:06:48,625
you know,
these were stereotypes.

1327
01:06:48,708 --> 01:06:51,250
"The chapter opens with
language highly reminiscent

1328
01:06:51,333 --> 01:06:52,833
of fortune cookie wisdom,

1329
01:06:52,916 --> 01:06:55,291
Charlie Chan aphorisms,
and the kind of

1330
01:06:55,375 --> 01:06:57,041
Taoist precepts scattered
throughout

1331
01:06:57,125 --> 01:06:58,583
Lin Yutang's
'Chinatown Family.'"

1332
01:06:58,666 --> 01:07:01,625
"Tan inscribes Kwan with
the linguistic exoticism

1333
01:07:01,708 --> 01:07:04,291
that could only stem
from an outsider's ears."

1334
01:07:04,375 --> 01:07:07,125
"Tan's success hinges on her
ability to revive

1335
01:07:07,208 --> 01:07:10,125
Orientalist tropes as if
she rejects them."

1336
01:07:10,208 --> 01:07:11,833
"Amy Tan
opens her Joy Luck Club

1337
01:07:11,916 --> 01:07:13,791
with a fake Chinese
fairy tale."

1338
01:07:13,875 --> 01:07:15,791
"The fairy tale
is not Chinese,

1339
01:07:15,875 --> 01:07:17,791
but white racist."

1340
01:07:17,875 --> 01:07:19,500
In the beginning,
I didn't know what to say.

1341
01:07:19,583 --> 01:07:21,666
I would be caught off-guard.

1342
01:07:21,750 --> 01:07:23,833
But then I realized,
what they wanted,

1343
01:07:23,916 --> 01:07:26,208
really, was role models.

1344
01:07:26,291 --> 01:07:29,541
They wanted me to right
the social wrongs,

1345
01:07:29,625 --> 01:07:31,916
the social injustices.

1346
01:07:32,000 --> 01:07:35,208
And finally, they had somebody
in the limelight who should

1347
01:07:35,291 --> 01:07:38,583
now address that
and not be pandering,

1348
01:07:38,666 --> 01:07:40,916
so to speak,
to the mainstream.

1349
01:07:41,000 --> 01:07:44,166
What they were asking me to do
was to write propaganda.

1350
01:07:44,250 --> 01:07:48,625
When you occupy a space that
has rarely been occupied--

1351
01:07:48,708 --> 01:07:50,958
now, we're talking
30 years ago--

1352
01:07:51,041 --> 01:07:53,875
that that is going to be placed
on you naturally,

1353
01:07:53,958 --> 01:07:55,166
and I understand it.

1354
01:07:55,250 --> 01:07:56,541
But to be true to myself,

1355
01:07:56,625 --> 01:07:59,458
I could not give in
to that kind of pressure.

1356
01:08:02,833 --> 01:08:06,708
The moment you start mixing
activism and writing,

1357
01:08:06,791 --> 01:08:08,958
then you're not writing fiction anymore,

1358
01:08:09,041 --> 01:08:10,458
or not good fiction.

1359
01:08:10,541 --> 01:08:13,083
And I think that Amy has that
very clear.

1360
01:08:14,500 --> 01:08:16,166
The crazy thing about fiction

1361
01:08:16,250 --> 01:08:18,583
is it is a representation,

1362
01:08:18,666 --> 01:08:22,375
the deepest representation
of truth you can find.

1363
01:08:22,458 --> 01:08:23,916
It's not limited to facts.

1364
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:26,791
It has really to do
with human nature.

1365
01:08:26,875 --> 01:08:31,166
And so, my mother
speaks broken English.

1366
01:08:31,250 --> 01:08:34,291
My grandmother was a concubine
who killed themselves.

1367
01:08:34,375 --> 01:08:35,750
And I said,
"You have to write

1368
01:08:35,833 --> 01:08:38,666
what's personally important
to you."

1369
01:08:43,416 --> 01:08:47,333
Every author has
the same need

1370
01:08:47,416 --> 01:08:50,916
to understand
their own lives.

1371
01:08:51,000 --> 01:08:53,083
Who are the characters
in Amy's work?

1372
01:08:53,166 --> 01:08:56,125
Her family and people
who really

1373
01:08:56,208 --> 01:08:57,791
have gone through hell

1374
01:08:57,875 --> 01:09:00,750
and somehow
have come out of it.

1375
01:09:00,833 --> 01:09:03,708
And I don't think
it's a conscious choice.

1376
01:09:03,791 --> 01:09:04,875
It's the way it is,

1377
01:09:04,958 --> 01:09:08,541
because we are surrounded
by those people.

1378
01:09:08,625 --> 01:09:10,583
We belong there.

1379
01:09:10,666 --> 01:09:13,291
In a way,
we are one of them.

1380
01:09:24,458 --> 01:09:28,041
We have a legacy of trauma
and tragedy,

1381
01:09:28,125 --> 01:09:32,750
suicide, rape, children
left behind in China.

1382
01:09:32,833 --> 01:09:34,625
It's embedded in me.

1383
01:09:34,708 --> 01:09:38,166
And I don't always know
how it is embedded

1384
01:09:38,250 --> 01:09:43,291
until something comes out and
clicks and makes me respond,

1385
01:09:43,375 --> 01:09:45,208
and not always in a good way.

1386
01:09:46,750 --> 01:09:49,625
"I have had bouts of
depression in the past."

1387
01:09:49,708 --> 01:09:53,208
"They had occurred after
big changes in my life,

1388
01:09:53,291 --> 01:09:55,375
which should have been
happy periods,

1389
01:09:55,458 --> 01:09:57,625
including the unanticipated
success

1390
01:09:57,708 --> 01:10:01,125
of my first book,
The Joy Luck Club."

1391
01:10:01,208 --> 01:10:05,500
"On the day my book
was published, I cried."

1392
01:10:05,583 --> 01:10:09,125
"They were not tears of joy
for a dream come true."

1393
01:10:09,208 --> 01:10:11,166
"I was afraid."

1394
01:10:11,250 --> 01:10:14,041
"I was overwhelmed
with a sense that this book

1395
01:10:14,125 --> 01:10:18,416
would upend the happiness
I already had."

1396
01:10:18,500 --> 01:10:20,750
"Everyone expected too much,

1397
01:10:20,833 --> 01:10:23,416
and I was certain
I would fail."

1398
01:10:26,166 --> 01:10:28,208
You're uncomfortable
with success.

1399
01:10:28,291 --> 01:10:31,125
We just have a few seconds.
Are you getting used to it now?

1400
01:10:31,208 --> 01:10:32,708
I don't think I'll ever
get used to it.

1401
01:10:32,791 --> 01:10:35,333
I don't think I should.
But it's been wonderful--

1402
01:10:35,416 --> 01:10:36,833
a wonderful reception
to both books.

1403
01:10:36,916 --> 01:10:38,291
Well, we're certainly
very glad

1404
01:10:38,375 --> 01:10:39,500
that you've been successful.

1405
01:10:39,583 --> 01:10:41,166
We look forward
to your next novel.

1406
01:10:41,250 --> 01:10:42,875
I don't wanna give you
an anxiety attack,

1407
01:10:42,958 --> 01:10:44,291
but hopefully,
we'll talk then.

1408
01:10:44,375 --> 01:10:45,791
-Amy Tan, thanks so much.
-Thank you.

1409
01:10:45,875 --> 01:10:47,958
Then Amy Tan wrote
a children's book,

1410
01:10:48,041 --> 01:10:49,250
The Moon Lady.

1411
01:10:49,333 --> 01:10:50,875
The latest book is another
children's book

1412
01:10:50,958 --> 01:10:53,041
called The Chinese Siamese Cat.

1413
01:10:53,125 --> 01:10:56,958
"Just like our ancestor,
Sagwa of China."

1414
01:10:57,041 --> 01:10:59,458
-And that's the end.
-Wow.

1415
01:10:59,541 --> 01:11:03,041
That is one of the best stories
Elmo has ever had, Amy.

1416
01:11:03,125 --> 01:11:06,208
As a short story writer,
I've never had expectations.

1417
01:11:06,291 --> 01:11:08,541
And you learn to work
without expectations

1418
01:11:08,625 --> 01:11:10,375
just for
the joy of it, you know?

1419
01:11:10,458 --> 01:11:12,166
I think Amy is unusual in that

1420
01:11:12,250 --> 01:11:15,500
she's had more expectations
than any writer I've known.

1421
01:11:15,583 --> 01:11:19,083
And if there was just pressure
to keep doing this.

1422
01:11:19,166 --> 01:11:21,041
My first guest is already one
of the world's

1423
01:11:21,125 --> 01:11:22,291
leading female authors.

1424
01:11:22,375 --> 01:11:23,791
She's written a third book,

1425
01:11:23,875 --> 01:11:25,541
The Hundred Secret Senses.

1426
01:11:25,625 --> 01:11:28,041
Family used to always ask
me, "Where's Amy?"

1427
01:11:28,125 --> 01:11:30,333
And I said, "Well,
how would I know?"

1428
01:11:30,416 --> 01:11:33,625
And then she'll end up
on some TV show.

1429
01:11:33,708 --> 01:11:36,041
Ms. Tan, I loved
The Joy Luck Club.

1430
01:11:36,125 --> 01:11:38,166
You really showed me
how the mother-daughter bond

1431
01:11:38,250 --> 01:11:39,500
can triumph over adversity.

1432
01:11:39,583 --> 01:11:41,375
No, that's not
what I meant at all.

1433
01:11:41,458 --> 01:11:43,041
You couldn't have gotten it
more wrong.

1434
01:11:43,125 --> 01:11:45,125
-But--
-Please, just sit down.

1435
01:11:45,208 --> 01:11:47,000
I'm embarrassed
for both of us.

1436
01:11:47,083 --> 01:11:49,708
Her books have sold more
than five million copies

1437
01:11:49,791 --> 01:11:53,541
worldwide, translated into
35 different languages.

1438
01:11:53,625 --> 01:11:55,750
The Hundred Secret Senses
as the characters--

1439
01:11:55,833 --> 01:11:58,166
Over the years,
with each book,

1440
01:11:58,250 --> 01:11:59,958
she realized how much time

1441
01:12:00,041 --> 01:12:01,625
was being taken away
from writing.

1442
01:12:01,708 --> 01:12:04,875
She knew that she had to
be pretty public

1443
01:12:04,958 --> 01:12:07,041
and show
appreciation to her readers,

1444
01:12:07,125 --> 01:12:09,250
which she's so great about.

1445
01:12:09,333 --> 01:12:12,000
She will take the time to sign.
She'll take the time to talk.

1446
01:12:12,083 --> 01:12:15,083
Oh, this is for my daughter
Katie, she said--

1447
01:12:15,166 --> 01:12:18,083
When I was young, I really
craved privacy.

1448
01:12:18,166 --> 01:12:22,750
And I think it was in part
to get away from demands

1449
01:12:22,833 --> 01:12:23,958
and family chaos.

1450
01:12:24,041 --> 01:12:26,125
And I would go in my room,
and I would draw.

1451
01:12:26,208 --> 01:12:30,166
And that is something I had
with my fiction at one time.

1452
01:12:30,250 --> 01:12:31,666
It was private.

1453
01:12:31,750 --> 01:12:33,666
And I wrote it
for my own reasons

1454
01:12:33,750 --> 01:12:35,166
to be in that place.

1455
01:12:35,250 --> 01:12:37,458
And when you have
a lot of expectations,

1456
01:12:37,541 --> 01:12:38,875
the little private room

1457
01:12:38,958 --> 01:12:41,166
is very
crowded with editors,

1458
01:12:41,250 --> 01:12:44,500
and agents, and fans,
and detractors.

1459
01:12:44,583 --> 01:12:48,500
And all of that made it
very difficult to write.

1460
01:12:48,583 --> 01:12:50,958
I was writing in a--
at a different place.

1461
01:12:51,041 --> 01:12:53,291
It was not as meditative.

1462
01:12:53,375 --> 01:12:55,500
It was full of anxiety.

1463
01:12:56,791 --> 01:13:00,333
I felt the burden
of expectations a lot.

1464
01:13:08,083 --> 01:13:11,083
[indistinct chatter]

1465
01:13:13,041 --> 01:13:16,083
One of the main achievements
of this band

1466
01:13:16,166 --> 01:13:18,750
over the years
has been to reduce

1467
01:13:18,833 --> 01:13:21,500
the reputation of Amy Tan
to rubble.

1468
01:13:21,583 --> 01:13:24,375
[laughter]

1469
01:13:24,458 --> 01:13:26,708
We're gonna bring Amy Tan out
to do a song where

1470
01:13:26,791 --> 01:13:29,666
she reveals her inner bad girl.

1471
01:13:29,750 --> 01:13:31,916
[cheers and applause]

1472
01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:34,916
[playing "These Boots
Are Made for Walkin'"

1473
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:42,000
♪♪

1474
01:13:43,375 --> 01:13:47,083
♪ You keep saying you got
something for me ♪

1475
01:13:48,958 --> 01:13:53,458
♪ Somethin' you call love
but confess ♪

1476
01:13:53,541 --> 01:13:54,833
My friend Kathi said,
"You know,

1477
01:13:54,916 --> 01:13:57,083
I'm thinking of putting
together a rock band.

1478
01:13:57,166 --> 01:13:58,416
What do you think?"

1479
01:13:58,500 --> 01:14:02,208
And without thinking,
I just said, "Yeah, sure."

1480
01:14:02,291 --> 01:14:03,500
The band was started
by a woman

1481
01:14:03,583 --> 01:14:05,208
named Kathi Kamen Goldmark,

1482
01:14:05,291 --> 01:14:07,541
who was a literary escort
in San Francisco.

1483
01:14:07,625 --> 01:14:10,291
She, over the years
had met many authors,

1484
01:14:10,375 --> 01:14:11,875
me being one, who had

1485
01:14:11,958 --> 01:14:13,750
been in bands at one point
or another,

1486
01:14:13,833 --> 01:14:15,583
or who wanted to have been
in bands.

1487
01:14:15,666 --> 01:14:17,375
So she came up with the idea
of starting--

1488
01:14:17,458 --> 01:14:18,958
of having all-author rock band

1489
01:14:19,041 --> 01:14:22,791
perform in Anaheim, California,
in 1992.

1490
01:14:22,875 --> 01:14:26,458
And so she sent faxes out
to every author she knew,

1491
01:14:26,541 --> 01:14:29,750
and the ones who answered "yes"
became the band.

1492
01:14:29,833 --> 01:14:31,541
And Stephen King was
one of those authors,

1493
01:14:31,625 --> 01:14:33,333
Ridley Pearson, Amy Tan.

1494
01:14:33,416 --> 01:14:36,375
♪ Bye, bye, love ♪

1495
01:14:36,458 --> 01:14:39,000
♪ Bye, bye, sweet caress ♪

1496
01:14:39,083 --> 01:14:41,708
People were laughing,
and they were dancing,

1497
01:14:41,791 --> 01:14:46,125
and we pretty quickly decided
we had to do this again.

1498
01:14:46,208 --> 01:14:47,500
In the next year
we went on a--

1499
01:14:47,583 --> 01:14:50,083
like, a multi-city tour,
and we were still terrible.

1500
01:14:50,166 --> 01:14:51,583
We got a little bit better.

1501
01:14:51,666 --> 01:14:53,333
We all just loved it.

1502
01:14:53,416 --> 01:14:57,416
And I realized this
was my outlet

1503
01:14:57,500 --> 01:14:59,916
for the kind of
boxed-in feeling

1504
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:03,500
of being in public because
there are no expectations.

1505
01:15:03,583 --> 01:15:05,125
There is no reviewer.

1506
01:15:05,208 --> 01:15:08,708
It was just for the fun
of doing it.

1507
01:15:08,791 --> 01:15:11,083
And that was immediate,

1508
01:15:11,166 --> 01:15:12,291
and it was exhilarating.

1509
01:15:12,375 --> 01:15:14,000
You couldn't expect it.

1510
01:15:14,083 --> 01:15:15,458
What Amy has told me is that

1511
01:15:15,541 --> 01:15:18,416
to come out and dress
like she's hot shit

1512
01:15:18,500 --> 01:15:22,458
and just carry a whip
was so liberating for her.

1513
01:15:22,541 --> 01:15:25,291
♪ Why don't we
do it in the road? ♪

1514
01:15:25,375 --> 01:15:30,125
♪♪

1515
01:15:30,208 --> 01:15:33,000
♪ No one is watching us ♪

1516
01:15:33,083 --> 01:15:36,541
♪ Why don't we
do it in the road? ♪

1517
01:15:36,625 --> 01:15:40,375
I feel like to have fun,

1518
01:15:40,458 --> 01:15:43,750
I sometimes
have to take risks.

1519
01:15:43,833 --> 01:15:45,500
Being in the band
taught me that

1520
01:15:45,583 --> 01:15:48,041
you have to go beyond

1521
01:15:48,125 --> 01:15:50,916
what you're comfortable with

1522
01:15:51,000 --> 01:15:54,250
and you can't just imagine

1523
01:15:54,333 --> 01:15:57,166
the dangerous and
the horrible things that could

1524
01:15:57,250 --> 01:16:01,625
happen at the end of it
as a consequence.

1525
01:16:01,708 --> 01:16:04,333
You have to just be there
and have a great time.

1526
01:16:04,416 --> 01:16:07,000
And with a lot
of risky things,

1527
01:16:07,083 --> 01:16:09,166
the potential
for having fun

1528
01:16:09,250 --> 01:16:11,375
is so much greater
because you find

1529
01:16:11,458 --> 01:16:13,875
these things in yourself
where you just have

1530
01:16:13,958 --> 01:16:17,416
to go to an extreme.

1531
01:16:21,958 --> 01:16:25,333
I used to be scared
of swimming in the ocean.

1532
01:16:25,416 --> 01:16:27,333
I would never do it
because I imagined

1533
01:16:27,416 --> 01:16:29,416
that there were all these
scary things under there.

1534
01:16:29,500 --> 01:16:32,125
I was my mother's daughter
imagining dangers,

1535
01:16:32,208 --> 01:16:35,166
I would die horrible death.

1536
01:16:35,250 --> 01:16:38,666
And then one day,
I actually looked under

1537
01:16:38,750 --> 01:16:41,375
with goggles,
and I saw this beauty.

1538
01:16:41,458 --> 01:16:45,333
And it built from there
until more recently,

1539
01:16:45,416 --> 01:16:47,625
I went swimming with sharks,

1540
01:16:50,125 --> 01:16:51,833
I'd watch these sharks
looking at me

1541
01:16:51,916 --> 01:16:53,166
like, "Who are you?

1542
01:16:53,250 --> 01:16:54,875
What are you doing here?"

1543
01:16:54,958 --> 01:16:57,125
I just love that.

1544
01:17:03,083 --> 01:17:06,083
[indistinct chatter]

1545
01:17:09,625 --> 01:17:15,416
Okay. There was,
no purchases made

1546
01:17:15,500 --> 01:17:18,875
since our last meeting,

1547
01:17:18,958 --> 01:17:23,541
but I have deposited the 600
collected last meeting.

1548
01:17:23,625 --> 01:17:26,625
"In 1995, my mother had
been diagnosed

1549
01:17:26,708 --> 01:17:28,791
with Alzheimer's disease."

1550
01:17:28,875 --> 01:17:32,208
"She was several months shy
of her 80th birthday."

1551
01:17:32,291 --> 01:17:34,500
"The plaques on her brain
had likely

1552
01:17:34,583 --> 01:17:37,500
started to accumulate years
before,

1553
01:17:37,583 --> 01:17:40,375
but we never would have
recognized the signs."

1554
01:17:40,458 --> 01:17:42,875
"'Language difficulties,
gets into arguments,

1555
01:17:42,958 --> 01:17:44,916
poor judgment--
those were traits

1556
01:17:45,000 --> 01:17:47,291
my mother had shown
her entire life."

1557
01:17:47,375 --> 01:17:49,000
"How could we distinguish between

1558
01:17:49,083 --> 01:17:51,416
a chronically difficult personality

1559
01:17:51,500 --> 01:17:54,208
and a dementing one?"

1560
01:17:54,291 --> 01:17:56,791
When her mother was
developing Alzheimer's,

1561
01:17:56,875 --> 01:17:59,375
I'd say the worst part
of that time

1562
01:17:59,458 --> 01:18:02,916
is when the person
who is suffering from it

1563
01:18:03,000 --> 01:18:05,375
knows that things
aren't right,

1564
01:18:05,458 --> 01:18:09,416
but has enough intact mentally
for it to really haunt them.

1565
01:18:11,875 --> 01:18:13,791
"We were eating dinner
in a restaurant

1566
01:18:13,875 --> 01:18:16,125
and she was obsessing
about a family member

1567
01:18:16,208 --> 01:18:18,416
who she
believed did not respect her."

1568
01:18:18,500 --> 01:18:21,916
"Lou, my brother, and I didn't
exactly disagree with her."

1569
01:18:22,000 --> 01:18:25,958
"The trouble was we didn't
wholeheartedly agree."

1570
01:18:26,041 --> 01:18:28,916
"Her anger mounted until
she leapt up from the table

1571
01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:30,791
and ran out
of the crowded restaurant

1572
01:18:30,875 --> 01:18:33,708
with us chasing after her."

1573
01:18:33,791 --> 01:18:36,208
She went charging out
of the restaurant

1574
01:18:36,291 --> 01:18:38,958
to get ran over in traffic.

1575
01:18:39,041 --> 01:18:40,083
And as far as I could tell,

1576
01:18:40,166 --> 01:18:41,666
she was ready to act on it.

1577
01:18:41,750 --> 01:18:43,875
And I went chasing out
after her,

1578
01:18:43,958 --> 01:18:48,125
and I picked her up and
carried her back to the car.

1579
01:18:49,708 --> 01:18:52,208
I think it was just
an urge she would

1580
01:18:52,291 --> 01:18:55,833
never be able to get rid of
probably as--

1581
01:18:55,916 --> 01:18:59,750
as strong as alcohol is
to an alcoholic or,

1582
01:18:59,833 --> 01:19:02,291
you know, cocaine
to a cocaine addict.

1583
01:19:02,375 --> 01:19:04,083
It's not something
you could just say

1584
01:19:04,166 --> 01:19:05,416
you don't have to
do this anymore,

1585
01:19:05,500 --> 01:19:07,500
your life is happy.

1586
01:19:07,583 --> 01:19:08,958
You don't have to threaten anymore.

1587
01:19:09,041 --> 01:19:11,333
It was--it was an impulse.

1588
01:19:11,416 --> 01:19:13,083
It was a desire

1589
01:19:13,166 --> 01:19:15,583
that just came up from her
she couldn't control.

1590
01:19:15,666 --> 01:19:18,625
[indistinct chatter]

1591
01:19:18,708 --> 01:19:21,625
[somber music playing]

1592
01:19:21,708 --> 01:19:26,625
♪♪

1593
01:19:26,708 --> 01:19:30,291
I'm a different person
than I was from my last book,

1594
01:19:30,375 --> 01:19:35,000
only because I've gone through
more of life.

1595
01:19:35,083 --> 01:19:38,333
"Ruth was amazed at what her
mother could recall."

1596
01:19:38,416 --> 01:19:41,416
"She knew not to expect LuLing
to remember appointments

1597
01:19:41,500 --> 01:19:43,708
or facts about
a recent event."

1598
01:19:43,791 --> 01:19:45,541
"But her mother often
surprised her with

1599
01:19:45,625 --> 01:19:47,166
"he clarity of her emotions

1600
01:19:47,250 --> 01:19:49,375
when she spoke of her youth."

1601
01:19:49,458 --> 01:19:51,208
"It didn't matter
that she blurred

1602
01:19:51,291 --> 01:19:52,708
some of the finer points."

1603
01:19:52,791 --> 01:19:57,458
"The past, even revised,
was meaningful."

1604
01:19:57,541 --> 01:20:00,333
This book is about memory,

1605
01:20:00,416 --> 01:20:02,250
losing memories and trying
to hang on

1606
01:20:02,333 --> 01:20:07,000
to certain memories
and so it is intensely personal

1607
01:20:07,083 --> 01:20:10,208
about the things I went through
over the last five years.

1608
01:20:12,083 --> 01:20:15,041
"After all, Bao Bomu says,

1609
01:20:15,125 --> 01:20:18,708
'What is the past but what we
choose to remember?'

1610
01:20:18,791 --> 01:20:21,166
"They can choose
not to hide it,

1611
01:20:21,250 --> 01:20:22,791
to take what's broken,

1612
01:20:22,875 --> 01:20:29,333
to feel the pain and know
that it will heal."

1613
01:20:29,416 --> 01:20:32,416
[indistinct chatter]

1614
01:20:39,125 --> 01:20:41,291
-Hi.
-Hi.

1615
01:20:41,375 --> 01:20:43,625
-So nice to meet you.
-Nice to meet you.

1616
01:20:43,708 --> 01:20:46,625
We all have--

1617
01:20:46,708 --> 01:20:48,500
Thank you so much
for paving the way

1618
01:20:48,583 --> 01:20:50,916
for Asian-American representation

1619
01:20:51,000 --> 01:20:53,250
in writing and in art.

1620
01:20:53,333 --> 01:20:56,333
Are you in writing--
are you writers?

1621
01:20:56,416 --> 01:21:00,500
We're all aspiring creatives.

1622
01:21:00,583 --> 01:21:03,000
You mean you're not in
pre-med or--

1623
01:21:03,083 --> 01:21:05,000
-No.
-No.

1624
01:21:05,083 --> 01:21:06,750
-She is.
-Oh, you are? Okay.

1625
01:21:06,833 --> 01:21:08,958
-You have to have one.
-[laughter]

1626
01:21:11,125 --> 01:21:13,333
-Thank you.
-Sure.

1627
01:21:16,000 --> 01:21:17,333
Thank you.

1628
01:21:17,416 --> 01:21:19,916
-And for you as well.
-Yeah.

1629
01:21:21,416 --> 01:21:23,833
"At the end of June 2001,

1630
01:21:23,916 --> 01:21:26,333
after a four-month book tour
that had taken me

1631
01:21:26,416 --> 01:21:29,000
to 40 cities across
the United States,

1632
01:21:29,083 --> 01:21:31,625
then to a dozen more
in the United Kingdom,

1633
01:21:31,708 --> 01:21:33,291
the Republic of Ireland,

1634
01:21:33,375 --> 01:21:35,125
Australia and New Zealand,

1635
01:21:35,208 --> 01:21:37,875
I returned home
to San Francisco."

1636
01:21:37,958 --> 01:21:40,333
"I lowered the shades,
crawled into bed,

1637
01:21:40,416 --> 01:21:44,791
and began the long rest
I felt I deserved."

1638
01:21:44,875 --> 01:21:48,750
"I slept for nearly 24 hours
that first day."

1639
01:21:50,166 --> 01:21:53,458
"After the tour, I told my
husband, Lou,

1640
01:21:53,541 --> 01:21:57,666
that I felt as if something
in my body had broken,

1641
01:21:57,750 --> 01:22:00,166
something was not right."

1642
01:22:02,625 --> 01:22:04,750
There were these times
where she'd be

1643
01:22:04,833 --> 01:22:09,458
really quiet and disengaged,

1644
01:22:09,541 --> 01:22:13,000
and I would wonder
if it was me,

1645
01:22:13,083 --> 01:22:15,083
our relationship.

1646
01:22:15,166 --> 01:22:18,250
She was just ill
and didn't know it.

1647
01:22:18,333 --> 01:22:21,666
I started running red lights
and stopping at green lights.

1648
01:22:21,750 --> 01:22:24,125
I would get lost
and suddenly find

1649
01:22:24,208 --> 01:22:27,250
that I didn't recognize
where I was.

1650
01:22:27,333 --> 01:22:29,958
Soon, the hallucinations started.

1651
01:22:30,041 --> 01:22:32,583
"Some switch in my brain
that controlled dreams

1652
01:22:32,666 --> 01:22:36,291
now seemed to fail to turn
off once I open my eyes."

1653
01:22:36,375 --> 01:22:37,791
"And before me
would spring forth

1654
01:22:37,875 --> 01:22:41,041
the embodiment
of my nightmares."

1655
01:22:41,125 --> 01:22:43,625
"I would whisper,
'Who's there?'"

1656
01:22:43,708 --> 01:22:46,041
"And the dogs would instantly
leap to attention,

1657
01:22:46,125 --> 01:22:48,500
scan the room, sniff the air."

1658
01:22:48,583 --> 01:22:51,625
"When they settled back to
sleep, so would I."

1659
01:22:51,708 --> 01:22:55,000
"That is, I would try to sleep
after having seen a corpse

1660
01:22:55,083 --> 01:22:56,583
lying next to me

1661
01:22:56,666 --> 01:23:01,041
or a pudgy poodle
dangling from the ceiling."

1662
01:23:01,125 --> 01:23:03,875
At the worst, I would say,

1663
01:23:03,958 --> 01:23:05,666
it had to do with feeling

1664
01:23:05,750 --> 01:23:07,291
that I was losing my mind.

1665
01:23:07,375 --> 01:23:10,208
I know what it feels like
to have Alzheimer's.

1666
01:23:10,291 --> 01:23:13,166
I couldn't read. I couldn't
remember anything.

1667
01:23:13,250 --> 01:23:14,791
I couldn't speak.

1668
01:23:16,750 --> 01:23:19,833
At the time, we were
perplexed and, you know,

1669
01:23:19,916 --> 01:23:22,250
I was mystified, but I know

1670
01:23:22,333 --> 01:23:24,666
with hindsight
exactly what happened.

1671
01:23:24,750 --> 01:23:29,708
We attended her editor's
daughter's wedding

1672
01:23:29,791 --> 01:23:34,000
on the Hudson River in New York
in 1999,

1673
01:23:34,083 --> 01:23:38,041
and she had a tick infect her
from that afternoon,

1674
01:23:38,125 --> 01:23:40,958
although she didn't know that
at the time.

1675
01:23:41,041 --> 01:23:42,708
It was only when Tan
went on the Internet

1676
01:23:42,791 --> 01:23:44,916
and saw a tick rash
like this one

1677
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:46,791
that answers started to come.

1678
01:23:46,875 --> 01:23:48,833
And I said, "Oh my God,

1679
01:23:48,916 --> 01:23:52,833
that is the rash that I had
on my leg four years ago."

1680
01:23:52,916 --> 01:23:54,916
What several doctors
who misdiagnosed her

1681
01:23:55,000 --> 01:23:58,166
didn't know was Tan had been
bitten by a tick this tiny.

1682
01:23:58,250 --> 01:23:59,916
It infected her
with Lyme disease.

1683
01:24:00,000 --> 01:24:02,375
As soon as I started taking medication,

1684
01:24:02,458 --> 01:24:04,541
the anxiety went away completely.

1685
01:24:04,625 --> 01:24:06,958
No amount of therapy
would have done that.

1686
01:24:07,041 --> 01:24:11,708
It had to be medication
to get rid of Lyme disease.

1687
01:24:11,791 --> 01:24:13,708
And it was because
it went into my brain,

1688
01:24:13,791 --> 01:24:15,375
and it caused brain inflammation,

1689
01:24:15,458 --> 01:24:17,666
it caused scarring in my brain,

1690
01:24:17,750 --> 01:24:20,291
and the reason I have epilepsy.

1691
01:24:21,791 --> 01:24:25,416
That Lyme disease,
it went after her.

1692
01:24:25,500 --> 01:24:27,250
So that set her back,

1693
01:24:27,333 --> 01:24:30,166
but she is incredibly tough
and resilient.

1694
01:24:30,250 --> 01:24:35,000
♪♪

1695
01:24:35,083 --> 01:24:37,333
It's her first
non-fiction book

1696
01:24:37,416 --> 01:24:40,916
called The Opposite of Fate:
A Book of Musings.

1697
01:24:41,000 --> 01:24:43,708
The book is called
Saving Fish from Drowning.

1698
01:24:43,791 --> 01:24:45,041
-Amy Tan, good morning.
-Good morning.

1699
01:24:45,125 --> 01:24:46,500
-Great to see you.
-Good to be here.

1700
01:24:46,583 --> 01:24:48,041
We haven't seen anything
from you in eight years,

1701
01:24:48,125 --> 01:24:49,583
so what took you so long?

1702
01:24:49,666 --> 01:24:52,375
I started one book,
and then I,

1703
01:24:52,458 --> 01:24:55,875
suddenly, I saw something,
a family mystery developed

1704
01:24:55,958 --> 01:24:59,208
and I had to start
another book.

1705
01:24:59,291 --> 01:25:00,791
It's called
The Valley of Amazement.

1706
01:25:00,875 --> 01:25:02,750
It goes on sale tomorrow.
You can-

1707
01:25:02,833 --> 01:25:05,541
I probably learned as much
working with Amy

1708
01:25:05,625 --> 01:25:09,208
on her books than I have
any other writer.

1709
01:25:09,291 --> 01:25:12,125
For Amy, actual writing
is not a challenge

1710
01:25:12,208 --> 01:25:14,833
because she's so
fluid and so good

1711
01:25:14,916 --> 01:25:17,791
at getting down what she knows
she needs to get down.

1712
01:25:17,875 --> 01:25:20,083
And she's got such a good ear
for language.

1713
01:25:20,166 --> 01:25:21,708
She hears the language
in a way

1714
01:25:21,791 --> 01:25:23,458
that a poet hears it.

1715
01:25:23,541 --> 01:25:24,625
I think the biggest challenge

1716
01:25:24,708 --> 01:25:28,750
is a psychological one,
that is, writing.

1717
01:25:28,833 --> 01:25:31,500
Not the writing.
It's just writing.

1718
01:25:33,375 --> 01:25:36,250
What's this?
It's--

1719
01:25:36,333 --> 01:25:38,708
Oh, that's a sonata?

1720
01:25:40,708 --> 01:25:42,416
I'd like that.

1721
01:25:42,500 --> 01:25:43,500
[playing piano]

1722
01:25:45,500 --> 01:25:52,541
♪♪

1723
01:25:59,833 --> 01:26:01,583
[laughs]

1724
01:26:01,666 --> 01:26:08,666
♪♪

1725
01:26:12,458 --> 01:26:14,416
One day, I got a phone call.

1726
01:26:14,500 --> 01:26:17,916
I don't know how long
it was into her Alzheimer's.

1727
01:26:18,000 --> 01:26:21,541
I would say it was at least
two years into it.

1728
01:26:21,625 --> 01:26:24,083
At that point, she didn't
remember a lot of things.

1729
01:26:24,166 --> 01:26:25,458
She was not that verbal.

1730
01:26:25,541 --> 01:26:29,166
And her voice sounded like
her voice from the past.

1731
01:26:29,250 --> 01:26:35,250
She said, "Amy, Amy I--I--
I don't know where I am.

1732
01:26:35,333 --> 01:26:37,500
I'm scared.
I think I'm going crazy."

1733
01:26:37,583 --> 01:26:39,833
And I had not heard her talk
like that.

1734
01:26:39,916 --> 01:26:41,458
And it was like she had come up
from out

1735
01:26:41,541 --> 01:26:43,416
of the deep of the ocean,

1736
01:26:43,500 --> 01:26:45,333
and she was, like, flailing

1737
01:26:45,416 --> 01:26:46,875
and trying not to drown again.

1738
01:26:46,958 --> 01:26:49,833
She said--and I said,
"You know,

1739
01:26:49,916 --> 01:26:52,041
we often can't
remember where we are.

1740
01:26:52,125 --> 01:26:54,500
Don't worry about it.
You're fine."

1741
01:26:54,583 --> 01:26:56,375
And she said, "No, no, no.

1742
01:26:56,458 --> 01:26:58,708
Something is wrong
with my mind."

1743
01:26:58,791 --> 01:27:02,083
And--and then she said,

1744
01:27:02,166 --> 01:27:06,708
"I just wanna tell you that...

1745
01:27:06,791 --> 01:27:08,416
[sniffs]

1746
01:27:12,208 --> 01:27:16,375
I know I did some things
to hurt you,"

1747
01:27:16,458 --> 01:27:17,958
And--

1748
01:27:20,083 --> 01:27:21,791
And I was saying, "No, no,

1749
01:27:21,875 --> 01:27:23,625
don't worry about it,
it's fine."

1750
01:27:23,708 --> 01:27:28,625
She said, "I know I did some
things to hurt you,

1751
01:27:28,708 --> 01:27:31,625
and I don't remember
what they are,

1752
01:27:31,708 --> 01:27:32,958
but I know I hurt you,

1753
01:27:33,041 --> 01:27:35,791
and I just want to say

1754
01:27:35,875 --> 01:27:38,750
I'm sorry and--

1755
01:27:42,791 --> 01:27:44,916
I'm sorry, and I hope
that you'll forget

1756
01:27:45,000 --> 01:27:47,958
just as I forgot."

1757
01:27:48,041 --> 01:27:52,541
And I don't know what she
was remembering,

1758
01:27:52,625 --> 01:27:55,958
but it was enough to erase everything,

1759
01:27:56,041 --> 01:27:58,875
everything that
I had ever been hurt--

1760
01:27:58,958 --> 01:28:01,375
you know, that she'd done to
hurt me.

1761
01:28:01,458 --> 01:28:05,541
Um, and then she was gone,

1762
01:28:05,625 --> 01:28:07,000
she was gone again,

1763
01:28:07,083 --> 01:28:10,125
and she didn't talk like that.

1764
01:28:12,041 --> 01:28:14,708
She was again,

1765
01:28:14,791 --> 01:28:21,125
incoherent, unable to say
complete sentences.

1766
01:28:21,208 --> 01:28:23,000
It was a gift.

1767
01:28:30,250 --> 01:28:31,375
Shortly afterward,

1768
01:28:31,458 --> 01:28:33,875
my mother fell into a coma,

1769
01:28:33,958 --> 01:28:35,375
10-20 family members

1770
01:28:35,458 --> 01:28:37,875
were in her rooms
at all hours.

1771
01:28:37,958 --> 01:28:40,000
We played poker, mahjong,

1772
01:28:40,083 --> 01:28:42,583
we eat pizza and Chinese takeout.

1773
01:28:42,666 --> 01:28:45,750
We played videos
of her favorite movies.

1774
01:28:45,833 --> 01:28:48,416
I put on a CD
of Chopin piano music

1775
01:28:48,500 --> 01:28:51,000
and whispered in her ear,

1776
01:28:51,083 --> 01:28:55,166
"That's me playing, I've been
practicing harder."

1777
01:28:55,250 --> 01:29:02,250
♪♪

1778
01:29:13,666 --> 01:29:16,750
Where the Past Begins,
A Writer's Memoir,

1779
01:29:16,833 --> 01:29:19,625
you actually call this
an unintended memoir.

1780
01:29:19,708 --> 01:29:24,125
When did you realize that's
what you were actually doing?

1781
01:29:24,208 --> 01:29:27,083
I was going to write a book
about writing.

1782
01:29:27,166 --> 01:29:28,916
You know,
how does the mind work?

1783
01:29:29,000 --> 01:29:30,375
How does my writer's mind work,

1784
01:29:30,458 --> 01:29:32,875
creativity, imagination.

1785
01:29:32,958 --> 01:29:36,208
And it wasn't until
I started writing things

1786
01:29:36,291 --> 01:29:39,500
spontaneously and seeing
that they kept reverting

1787
01:29:39,583 --> 01:29:42,291
to what had happened to me
in childhood,

1788
01:29:42,375 --> 01:29:45,083
that it became
more of a memoir.

1789
01:29:45,166 --> 01:29:48,875
The past was always present
in our lives.

1790
01:29:52,291 --> 01:29:54,333
Remember that test
I told you about,

1791
01:29:54,416 --> 01:29:57,791
the one that predicted I was
going to be a doctor?

1792
01:29:57,875 --> 01:30:00,166
It wasn't until, like,
three years ago that I said,

1793
01:30:00,250 --> 01:30:01,666
what was that test anyway?

1794
01:30:01,750 --> 01:30:04,250
That was so irresponsible
for a woman to give a child

1795
01:30:04,333 --> 01:30:06,958
one test and then say
she was gonna be a doctor.

1796
01:30:07,041 --> 01:30:08,750
Why hadn't I questioned it before?

1797
01:30:08,833 --> 01:30:10,375
That couldn't be the case.

1798
01:30:10,458 --> 01:30:16,166
So I typed in "1958 Oakland
first grade longitudinal IQ."

1799
01:30:16,250 --> 01:30:18,333
And the first thing
that came up

1800
01:30:18,416 --> 01:30:21,291
was a study by a woman named
Dolores Durkin,

1801
01:30:21,375 --> 01:30:24,291
out of 5,003 students
who enrolled

1802
01:30:24,375 --> 01:30:26,291
in the first grade that year,

1803
01:30:26,375 --> 01:30:30,541
49 of them were found
to be able to read.

1804
01:30:30,625 --> 01:30:32,458
I was an early reader.

1805
01:30:32,541 --> 01:30:34,916
There I was in my bedroom
reading this,

1806
01:30:35,000 --> 01:30:40,291
and it was 63 years
of self-esteem in front of me

1807
01:30:40,375 --> 01:30:43,291
and it had been a lie,
it was based on a lie.

1808
01:30:43,375 --> 01:30:45,458
It had nothing to do with whether

1809
01:30:45,541 --> 01:30:47,166
I was smart enough
to be a doctor

1810
01:30:47,250 --> 01:30:49,875
and my thinking
I never was smart enough.

1811
01:30:49,958 --> 01:30:51,625
I continued to read,

1812
01:30:51,708 --> 01:30:54,958
and she had five interviews
in there with parents.

1813
01:30:55,041 --> 01:30:57,208
My father said

1814
01:30:57,291 --> 01:30:59,916
that I had always
been a scribbler,

1815
01:31:00,000 --> 01:31:02,458
and that even before
the age of four,

1816
01:31:02,541 --> 01:31:04,541
I enjoyed drawing pictures

1817
01:31:04,625 --> 01:31:07,708
and making up stories
about them.

1818
01:31:07,791 --> 01:31:11,458
"Her imagination was amazing,"
my father said.

1819
01:31:13,208 --> 01:31:15,083
And there I had it.

1820
01:31:16,583 --> 01:31:18,166
After all those years
of being told

1821
01:31:18,250 --> 01:31:21,541
I was going to be a doctor,
to read that my father said,

1822
01:31:21,625 --> 01:31:24,833
I had an amazing imagination
made me cry,

1823
01:31:24,916 --> 01:31:28,750
and that was only recently that
I read that, that I saw that.

1824
01:31:28,833 --> 01:31:32,500
I read your second memoir,
Where the Past Begins,

1825
01:31:32,583 --> 01:31:34,625
And I wondered,
was that easier to write

1826
01:31:34,708 --> 01:31:37,166
than a novel or harder?

1827
01:31:37,250 --> 01:31:40,583
At the end of each day,
when I was done writing,

1828
01:31:40,666 --> 01:31:42,583
my husband,
he'd have dinner waiting,

1829
01:31:42,666 --> 01:31:44,958
ten o'clock at night,
I'd go up there,

1830
01:31:45,041 --> 01:31:48,125
and I would be shaking
because of what

1831
01:31:48,208 --> 01:31:50,375
I had just
finished writing.

1832
01:31:50,458 --> 01:31:52,791
So I did that once a week

1833
01:31:52,875 --> 01:31:56,750
for about four months,
and then I had a book.

1834
01:31:56,833 --> 01:31:59,250
It was the fastest book
I've ever written.

1835
01:31:59,333 --> 01:32:03,375
It was the most emotionally
eviscerating book

1836
01:32:03,458 --> 01:32:05,041
I've ever written.

1837
01:32:05,125 --> 01:32:06,916
And I think it is the reason
why I have

1838
01:32:07,041 --> 01:32:08,708
a really hard time now writing,

1839
01:32:08,791 --> 01:32:11,500
because I'm actually
rather afraid

1840
01:32:11,583 --> 01:32:14,166
to have that experience
happen to me again.

1841
01:32:20,708 --> 01:32:24,208
"My childhood, with
topsy turvy emotions,

1842
01:32:24,291 --> 01:32:27,583
has, in fact, been a reason
to write."

1843
01:32:27,666 --> 01:32:31,875
"I can lay it out squarely on
the page and see what it was."

1844
01:32:31,958 --> 01:32:35,666
"I can understand it
and see the patterns."

1845
01:32:35,750 --> 01:32:39,333
"My characters are witness
to what I went through."

1846
01:32:39,416 --> 01:32:42,250
"And each story
we are untangling

1847
01:32:42,333 --> 01:32:45,500
a knot in a huge
matted mess."

1848
01:32:45,583 --> 01:32:48,583
"The work of undoing them
one at a time

1849
01:32:48,666 --> 01:32:52,666
is the most gratifying part
of writing,

1850
01:32:52,750 --> 01:32:55,541
but the mess
will always be there."

1851
01:33:22,375 --> 01:33:24,041
She's at a point where

1852
01:33:24,125 --> 01:33:26,875
she would like to continue
to be a writer,

1853
01:33:26,958 --> 01:33:29,666
but she's also thinking about
not having

1854
01:33:29,750 --> 01:33:35,458
a publishing contract
hanging over her head.

1855
01:33:35,541 --> 01:33:37,250
[whistling]

1856
01:33:37,333 --> 01:33:39,958
And she does have one more
book under contract.

1857
01:33:40,041 --> 01:33:42,458
And I think that the writer's
block element to

1858
01:33:42,541 --> 01:33:44,291
all of this would free up

1859
01:33:44,375 --> 01:33:46,000
if she were able
to complete that

1860
01:33:46,083 --> 01:33:48,041
and then felt an inspiration

1861
01:33:48,125 --> 01:33:49,833
to write something
without feeling

1862
01:33:49,916 --> 01:33:51,083
the added pressure

1863
01:33:51,166 --> 01:33:53,625
of a business
obligation to do so.

1864
01:33:56,250 --> 01:33:57,875
Oh, they're fighting.

1865
01:34:00,125 --> 01:34:04,958
In 2016, I started to draw

1866
01:34:05,041 --> 01:34:07,458
what I saw out the window,

1867
01:34:07,541 --> 01:34:09,833
and I realized that, you know,

1868
01:34:09,916 --> 01:34:13,208
it was bringing up this love
that I always had for drawing.

1869
01:34:13,291 --> 01:34:14,333
tried,

1870
01:34:14,416 --> 01:34:16,375
Some of these are incomplete.

1871
01:34:16,458 --> 01:34:18,583
I have a lot of false starts.

1872
01:34:18,666 --> 01:34:20,875
You start something and then
forgot all about it.

1873
01:34:22,833 --> 01:34:25,666
If I could simply do
what I wanted to do

1874
01:34:25,750 --> 01:34:28,166
all day for a month,

1875
01:34:28,250 --> 01:34:30,833
all I would do is
look at birds and draw.

1876
01:34:30,916 --> 01:34:33,916
I don't have anyone
expecting me

1877
01:34:34,000 --> 01:34:35,083
to produce anything.

1878
01:34:35,166 --> 01:34:37,125
And in fact, when somebody
says to me,

1879
01:34:37,208 --> 01:34:38,791
"Can you draw me a bird,"

1880
01:34:38,875 --> 01:34:41,458
like my publisher did.

1881
01:34:41,541 --> 01:34:44,000
And I said, "Sure."

1882
01:34:44,083 --> 01:34:45,958
And then I couldn't
draw him a bird.

1883
01:34:46,041 --> 01:34:48,416
And I realized
that was a part of it.

1884
01:34:48,500 --> 01:34:51,000
The freedom to do
what I enjoyed

1885
01:34:51,083 --> 01:34:53,125
had to come
with no expectations

1886
01:34:53,208 --> 01:34:54,833
and that I did it
only for myself.

1887
01:34:57,208 --> 01:34:59,500
I joined
a Nature Journal Group.

1888
01:34:59,583 --> 01:35:00,833
I would post things.

1889
01:35:00,916 --> 01:35:03,250
I would post my mistakes even.

1890
01:35:03,333 --> 01:35:04,583
It was good exercise

1891
01:35:04,666 --> 01:35:07,208
to say I didn't have to be perfect.

1892
01:35:08,833 --> 01:35:11,333
It's not just powers
of observation,

1893
01:35:11,416 --> 01:35:13,166
of details and behavior,

1894
01:35:13,250 --> 01:35:15,291
it's wonder,
it's wonderment, you know,

1895
01:35:15,375 --> 01:35:16,625
because when you look
at these things,

1896
01:35:16,708 --> 01:35:21,458
you wonder how--
how this is possible.

1897
01:35:21,541 --> 01:35:24,041
How did--why is this bird
on this branch?

1898
01:35:24,125 --> 01:35:25,916
What is, you know,
the behavior?

1899
01:35:26,000 --> 01:35:28,166
What--why is it doing this?

1900
01:35:28,250 --> 01:35:30,666
And allowing no answers

1901
01:35:30,750 --> 01:35:32,875
and just saying you just
have to observe it

1902
01:35:32,958 --> 01:35:36,791
and be in
wonder the whole time.

1903
01:35:36,875 --> 01:35:43,333
♪♪

1904
01:35:43,416 --> 01:35:46,333
[indistinct chatter]

1905
01:35:46,416 --> 01:35:53,416
♪♪

1906
01:36:23,166 --> 01:36:30,166
♪♪

1907
01:36:35,583 --> 01:36:37,208
Oh, that one.

1908
01:36:37,291 --> 01:36:40,041
There's so many there,
and I just--

1909
01:36:40,125 --> 01:36:43,541
it's not completely exact.

1910
01:36:43,625 --> 01:36:45,250
-[inaudible]
-Yes.

1911
01:36:48,458 --> 01:36:51,708
"Spontaneous epiphanies
always leave me convinced

1912
01:36:51,791 --> 01:36:54,750
once again that there
is no greater meaning

1913
01:36:54,833 --> 01:36:57,458
to my life than what happens
when I write."

1914
01:36:58,958 --> 01:37:01,875
"It gives me awareness
so sharp it punctures

1915
01:37:01,958 --> 01:37:06,333
all layers of thought
so that I can rise."

1916
01:37:08,291 --> 01:37:09,583
"That's what it feels like,

1917
01:37:09,666 --> 01:37:12,291
a weightless rising
to a view high enough

1918
01:37:12,375 --> 01:37:16,333
to survey the moments of the
past that led to this one."

1919
01:37:19,416 --> 01:37:21,875
"Too soon,
that feeling dissipates,

1920
01:37:21,958 --> 01:37:25,333
and I am hanging on
to contrails as I come back

1921
01:37:25,416 --> 01:37:29,250
down to a normal state
of mind."

1922
01:37:29,333 --> 01:37:33,916
"Has my imagination worked
this way since birth?"

1923
01:37:34,000 --> 01:37:39,458
"What enables me to draw a
bird that looks like a bird?"

1924
01:37:39,541 --> 01:37:40,875
"When did I start noticing

1925
01:37:40,958 --> 01:37:45,166
that one thing is emotionally
like another?"

1926
01:37:45,250 --> 01:37:47,416
"When did emotion and imagery

1927
01:37:47,500 --> 01:37:49,791
start colluding
with velvety sharks?"

1928
01:37:52,416 --> 01:37:56,375
"Whatever imagination is,
I'm grateful for

1929
01:37:56,458 --> 01:37:58,416
its elasticity
and willingness

1930
01:37:58,500 --> 01:38:01,750
to accommodate whatever
comes along,

1931
01:38:01,833 --> 01:38:04,416
for giving me flotillas
of imagery

1932
01:38:04,500 --> 01:38:08,875
circumnavigating a brain
that finds emotional resonance

1933
01:38:08,958 --> 01:38:10,833
in almost anything."

1934
01:38:13,333 --> 01:38:15,791
"I just have to let go of
self-consciousness

1935
01:38:15,875 --> 01:38:18,041
for it to spill out freely,

1936
01:38:20,791 --> 01:38:25,916
as if all I am doing
is listening to music."

1937
01:38:26,000 --> 01:38:28,375
♪♪

1938
01:38:33,625 --> 01:38:36,625
[soft piano music playing]