Parents in Interior Chinatown

A good amount of Interior Chinatown is spent focusing on Willis Wu’s parents, both their personal backgrounds, their relationship with Wilis, and where they are today. Arguably, the main character of Act I of the novel is not Willis, it’s his father Ming-Chen Wu, or as Willis refers to him, Sifu. Sifu starts and ends the novel distant from his ex-wife and child, living alone in squalor, with only occasional visits from Willis to ensure that he doesn’t wither away, alone in the dark. This all stems from the unhealthy relationship Ming-Chen had with becoming Kung-Fu Guy. In the words of Willis, “He’d played his role for so long he’d lost himself in it,” (17) and “He’d always be Your Father, but somehow was no longer your dad.” (17) Because of Ming-Chen’s obsession with getting to the peak of Asian male acting, he abandoned his responsibilities as a dad, leaving his relationship with the people who loved him fractured and broken, held together only by obligation. This is best fleshed out when Willis is walking through the family’s backstory. After Ming-Chen gets cast as a Kung Fu Guy, Willis describes his father as “gone. [Dorothy’s] husband is gone. They took him away from her. He is lost now, in his work, in who they made him… This is how she lost her husband. How you lost your dad.” (160)

 

The parallels to Willis and his father become stronger as Willis becomes successful, and gets close to the Kung Fu Guy role. After he and Karen are married and have Phoebe, and Karen suggests they move to the suburbs, he says he will follow shortly, but he can’t up and leave when he’s so close to his life’s work, becoming Kung Fu Guy. After he gets the part, after years of separation from his wife and child,  he realizes he’s messed up. “You stop to consider what you are doing. Still playing a part that was handed to you, written for Asian Man. You understand: you’ve made a mistake. The biggest mistake of your life.” (181) In this moment, Willis realizes he’s become his father, he has let his meaningless work gain importance over what really matters: family. After this, he desperately attempts to grow closer to his child, attempting to avoid becoming Sifu, living alone in the dark forever. Only after the trial does Willis truly break away from that fate, reconciling with his ex-wife Karen, and transitioning his life’s purpose from being Kung Fu Guy to being Willis Wu, dad. As this transition happens, we also see the rebirth of Ming-Chen, away from Sifu to Grandpa as he interacts with his granddaughter at the Golden Palace. Gaining closeness with Phoebe saves the Wu men, allowing them to shed the Kung Fu Guy stereotypes that have been drilled into them, and allowing them to try to become family men.