The Balance Tips

Author’s Note

My parents told me the earliest stories I remember. These are true stories, they said, part of your mother’s Taiwanese family history; these throughlines are part of you, too. Most stories were tragic, violent, or both. At first, I didn’t understand what domestic violence, military rule, and Confucian patriarchy meant, so I wasn’t scared. My grandmother’s, aunts’, and mother’s experiences were just facts expressed in narrative form.

"Your ama [grandmother] is naturally left-handed. The family thought this was bad luck, so her parents taught her to be right-handed. They used chopsticks to hit the knuckles and fingers of her left hand each time she tried to use it. Because society upheld being right-handed, and girls weren’t to draw attention to themselves."

"Your agong [grandfather] arranged a marriage between your big aunt and his best friend’s son. While Agong didn’t know that the son was abusive, he later learned that his best friend did. But by then it was too late; your aunt had already married him and learned from experience. Still, it was her duty as daughter to uphold the arrangement."

Relatives expected me to nod and believe. And with each retelling, moral lessons emerged. I was a girl, and culturally, that was a failing from which I could never recover. Their stories taught me to fear, avoid, or obey men. To always protect the family standing over the self. Let filial piety guide you; your elders will always tell you the truth. And I listened wholeheartedly, at first.

But I learned that absolutes are rare. The truth can be not only slippery, but also contextually and culturally dependent. And even when an idea, mentality, or practice is widely accepted as the norm, such acceptance doesn’t mean we should forgo further examination.

I began writing The Balance Tips during my master’s program. A year after I submitted 16,500 words for my dissertation, I finished the first draft. It was August 2016, three months before the election of the forty-fifth US president, long before the realities of COVID-19, and I was living in Seattle. While I let the draft sit, I took stock of the country in which I had been born. Current events centered on the flagrant murders and shootings of Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color, some of whom were part of the greater LGBTQ+ community. I was horrified and constantly learning about the systems that condone police brutality, mass incarceration, and the funneling of toxic water to marginalized communities. (Marginalized by whom? Pushed to the margins not by choice.) Whatever naïve beliefs I had held about the US were evaporating, and it was hard not to despair after the election, after the first hundred days, after the reports of immigrant families torn asunder and their children being housed in cages, after more fatal shootings and police abuses of power, after, after, after…

The United States is an ideal; we live in a country composed of various states, but the state of the union has been in crisis since white people treated Native and Black people with abhorrently inhumane, recursive violence. White supremacy, genocide, theft of lands, slavery, rape, torture, colorism, classism, capitalism, colonialism, colonization, xenophobia, imperialism, unethical experimentation, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and eugenics enabled not just 1776, but where we are today. Our monumental wrongs, which we as a country still struggle to acknowledge and attempt to forget—which we have yet to take meaningful responsibility for—have in turn haunted each generation. The echoes of such traumas pass down as ghastly heirlooms. There has been too much assault, strife, and murder.

My here and now is 2021, and we have failed to follow through on foundational promises of liberation and justice. We have not given reparations to Black people, nor have we provided commensurate restitution to any group. Some of our representatives are trying to pass bills and policies to help, but often these efforts are blocked and end at trying. And we keep adding to the already disgraceful bloodshed.

I cannot list the names of all the people whose lives have been unjustly abused or taken since I finished the first draft of this novel in August 2016. How many names are absent from our media? How many people are still missing, or their deaths unknown? The statistics are unending; numbers and names do not begin to encapsulate who these people were, what they wanted to pursue in this life, and who they loved and were loved by. Unjustly abused or taken. Because they were Black and/or Native, Asian, Brown, Muslim, Jewish, gender nonconforming, trans, queer, disabled, neurodiverse, an immigrant, undocumented, feminine, female, a BLM protester, a sex worker…ultimately, just being and living when someone decided they were not equally human and deserved violence or death.

After the Atlanta spa shootings in March 2021, more media/news outlets published articles and think pieces on anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes. Why were Asian women targeted in these shootings? Was fetishization involved? What occurs at the intersection of Asian and woman? How could sex work or perceived sex work justify these murders? What effects did the forty-fifth president cause with rhetoric like the China virus? What about exclusion acts, and internment, and migrant workers? How has the model minority myth been used to criticize and gaslight other people of color—usually Black people?

People in my network reached out to me after the Atlanta shootings. How are you doing? Has everything been okay over by you? How are you feeling about that situation? Hope you are doing okay…

Truth is, nothing has felt okay for a long time. The more I learn about the atrocities committed in the US, the more unsure of myself and despairing I feel, despite years of therapy and self-work. But I have also (re)learned the power possible in positionality awareness, in seeking overlooked perspectives. My recurring comforts are reading and writing about the resilience of people. Even if my autodidactic actions are relatively small, they make me feel better informed and situated to support advocacy and activism. I am glad we are pursuing difficult, uncomfortable discussions about inequality, compliance, complicity, and accountability.

Because unearthing truths, upending silence, discussing traumatic experiences—i.e., reclaiming our narratives despite repercussions of losing face—these are acts of bravery and growth, not victimization and shame. Without self-reckoning, we fall short of healing our generational wounds, of addressing how we have been affected by intergenerational trauma.

I am the child of a Taiwanese immigrant mother and a white father whose family has been in the States for generations. Not only have I overheard anti-Black and anti-Brown rhetoric used in Asian and white communities in attempts to justify racism, I have experienced racism from both sides for being mixed—simultaneously too white or too Asian or too much of both. In hindsight, it is unsurprising that my racial reckoning took two decades. Coming out as queer and genderqueer took even longer. I had never felt safe to contemplate what being myself could entail, let alone how to support others in their identity journeys. I spent my childhood and young adulthood trying to survive personal traumas, afraid I would take my own life before age twenty-five. I made the mistake of folding into myself instead of recognizing how my threads wove into a greater tapestry.

By the time this novel is released, my thirtieth birthday will be fast approaching. I have learned a fair amount in the art of surviving. I want to pay forward the moral lessons from my own stories. To create a new narrative cycle, one free from the interdictions inherent in the stories my Taiwanese family passed down to me. I hold a different place in this lineage. I can think about choice, responsibility, and my role as I. And I can offer stories beyond tragedy—I can create stories centered on the possibilities after trauma. I wrote this novel as a small contribution toward building a more just country and world. I wrote hoping to reach someone, to inspire and be found. As a child, I had scoured library shelves, desperate for non-white, alternative representation, hoping to recognize a potential version of myself between the borrowed pages of a book. I wrote for them. I wrote to offer alternatives; to imagine a self beyond the confines of the past. Of my past, of the assignment of cishetero womanhood—an assignment I learned to question, and upon recognizing myself as queer and genderqueer, to reject. And, selfishly, I wrote to soothe the most wounded parts of myself.

I did not write this novel knowing its publication would take place against the backdrop of a global pandemic, in this polarized, violent climate. Unfortunately, this has come to be. Despite appearances, capitalizing on book sales is not my aim. (Again, if my work reaches one person, I will have accomplished my small objective.) Instead, I hope this novel offers spaces for resonance and recognition, as well as opportunities for self-reflection and betterment. I hope we can remind ourselves to be kind to ourselves and others, and to strive for intersectional solidarity. With all this context, I now list content and potential trigger warnings for The Balance Tips.

Discussions of/characters’ experiences with:

homophobia

biphobia

anti-Black racism

anti-Asian racism

mental illness

depression

CPTSD/PTSD

grief

identity struggles

intersectional misogyny

Confucian patriarchy

familial abuse and estrangement

assault

financial insecurity

anti-immigration rhetoric

internalized shame

trauma, and

bigotry

On a final note, despite what cancel culture argues, when we err, we are not canceled as people. We are not automatically, irrevocably bad or inhuman by dint of our mistakes. We can seek repair and we can (rare absolute incoming) always do better, so long as we listen and learn. We can revise our approaches for betterment, as Ma would say. But we must actively make the choice to do better, to be better—all the time. Yes, we must try to make that choice daily, in every moment, especially knowing that despite our best intentions and efforts, we will have many flawed moments, many learning-curve moments.

To partially quote Grace Lee Boggs’s sign-off,

In queerness, love, and struggle,

Joy Huang-Iris

Rupture

Northern California threw itself up. Yawning, shaking, rumbling. Upheaval. A battle fought between energy and plates. The ground rejected silence. Rejected stillness. Listen, it shouted. I’m tired of holding this in.

…the Oakland A’s take, take—holy—

Static and snow swallowed the third game of the 1989 World Series. The television rocked twice before crashing into the coffee table.

As the ceiling lights broke free, pelting down, Jia and Hua Wu clutched at each other. Terror sealed their throats. Glasses fell, chairs rattled, shelves toppled. Books turned into projectiles. Hua ducked to avoid An Introduction to the Law of Restitution, pulling Jia down with her.

"Jiu ming!" Jia heard her own voice but failed to recognize it.

Ten seconds later, stillness.

Triage

Jia

Stanford’s East Asia library begged for help. That’s what Hua insisted.

Volunteering is big in America. It’s good. Come with me.

Hua left with staff members to recover the card catalog, which had endured a blast of water when a ceiling pipe burst. Jia watched her younger sister’s back. Watched her walk away. Seven years since she’d seen that free stride. Since bowing to Father’s deal. A price, an exchange. Jiao huan. Life for a life. She fingered the loose threads of the button-down she’d borrowed. Too much in these seven days. First flight and major earthquake. First time volunteering. In this two-month visit, what other firsts hid?

For a moment she stood, unraveling shirt threads, staring at the wreckage. Jia had never seen so many books strewn on a floor. Like spoiled children having tantrums.

A sorry sight, isn’t it? a nearby male voice said.

Jia looked around. Busy volunteers paid no attention to her. No men nearby.

It’s like Mother Nature broke up with our libraries. The voice—American—came from behind her, but she only saw rows of empty shelves.

He chuckled. Look to your right. No, your other right. Through the shelves.

Jia stood on her tiptoes. Between the shelving, a face. Wire-framed glasses. Startling green eyes. Feeling bold, she picked up a stack of books and walked to the other side. He was dark-haired, tall, and thin. Dressed in a fitted navy-blue suit. Smart-looking. Handsome, if he shaved his mustache.

You work here?

He finished shelving. Years ago, when I did undergrad at Cardinal.

Da fei suo wen, she wanted to say. But she smiled and nodded.

He laughed. My mistake, I should’ve said Stanford. Cardinal is its nickname. He offered to take her books, but she held onto them tighter.

I want to try. Let me, show me how? Jia wished she’d paid more attention during English class. Then she wouldn’t have to speak like a child to maintain grammar.

Though his lips quirked, he indulged her request.

Only a hundred thousand more books to go, he said when they went back for more of the fallen.

Haha, you funny man.

He smiled briefly, a flash of white teeth. Actually, I’m not joking. There are about 1.3 million books in Hoover Tower. It’s estimated that ten percent were shaken down by the quake. We probably haven’t reshelved thirty thousand, so I was being generous.

He led them to another empty bookshelf and they continued their newly formed routine. She passed volumes; he reshelved.

You mathematician, Mr…?

How rude of me! Drew. He held out his hand, but when she stared, he dropped it. I’m Drew Goodson. And no, I’m just a stockbroker visiting family. But you are, besides lovely, of course…?

I don’t have English name.

Tell me anyway. I grant you permission to yell at me if I butcher it.

Wu is my family name. But you call me Jia.

Drew took the book she’d extended to him but didn’t turn back to the shelves. Jia, he repeated, extending the ah sound. Nice ring to it. Does it mean something?

Jia smiled shyly. Home.

Requisition

Fay

How do you complete a virtual application?

You scroll to the beginning. The mandatory fields are stars; their totality is your shining moment of acceptance or rejection. Cursor/curse her, you enter: name, first and last. Forename. The name before the closer. What name do you lead with? The name your mother gave you when she looked down at/on you that first time. At your quivering small mass. At your blood-streaked skin, slick with her amniotic fluid.

Tomorrow will be the one day you could say, I was born yesterday—pity the paucity of your linguistic skills.

Mother looked down at/on you, and out it burst. The name to haunt you till death because you’re too damned lazy to jump into the form-filling circus that’s paired (with compliments, but pay here!) with every name change. Yeah, this name: Faith. A noun, a concept.

What’s faith? Trust, belief. Have faith in me. Have Faith. What does she want Faith to be? So many possibilities. She, stewing in the sweat from hours of exertion, had no energy to imagine the specifics. How she, like your preschool comrades, would call you Fay. Cute then, cursed later. Too much rhymes with this diminutive. How she would stare at you when you ripped up the acceptance letter. Hands in white-peppered hair, her cry of despair. Fay-ah, you turn down acceptance? You scattered the pieces like ashes. And they are. Ashes of your old self.

Middle name, the intervening one. Stuck between first and last. Disregarded, forgotten, relegated to gasps while the other two breathe; it can forget itself. Sharing this name? This Wu, a relic of your mother’s roots. The tenth most common Chinese name. Multiple meanings: military, business, affairs of men. Disclosure unnecessary. Without a mandate, you hide it.

Another asterisk. The digital star summons you to answer. Last name, sur(sir)name. What name do you close with? The name your father left you. This name can stand alone. Goodson. Son of Good? A Good Son? The original good son? What Ma would call xiao zi. Maybe that’s why you’re bad, with that hole between your legs, that hole between nose and chin. You can never be the good son, so how can you truly claim Goodson?

Down with the scroll.

What’s your history? List in MM/DD/YY format.

Explain your experiences. Character limit: 2,000.

Are you legally authorized? (Refer to your origins.)

List your previous homes. Reasons for leaving.

Have you ever

lied under oath?

broken a promise?

pretended to be someone else?

committed a crime against your humanity?

succumbed to silence?

lost your mother’s face?

If so, explain your decisions.

VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURE: SELF IDENTIFY

Please check boxes as necessary.

Gender: M or F (ERROR: no computing beyond the binary)

Sex: M or F (ERROR: no computing beyond the binary)

Orientation: N or S, E or W; straight, curly, or wavy (QUERY: bald)

Race: select one or more (ASSET: one soothes the system)

The Irrepressible Nature of Coconuts

Fay

At three a.m., they returned to Summer’s studio apartment in Brooklyn.

While Summer took a shower, Fay stripped off her unicorn costume, trading it for the spare pajamas she kept at Summer’s. By the time the sounds of flowing water ceased, Fay lay on her side, staring at the window’s pale yellow drapes. She felt the queen-size bed dip. The smell of coconut shampoo, conditioner, and body lotion wafted toward her: Summer’s favorite scent. Fay used to hate it, but now she never thought about Summer without thinking of coconuts. Or thought of coconuts without thinking of Summer.

Psst. Fay.

Fay closed her eyes.

Faker! You never fall asleep without a blanket. Why aren’t you under the covers?

Continuing to face the window, Fay replied, Because I’m sweaty and I don’t want to shower or grime up your sheets.

Summer poked her in the back. So what? Come on under the covers where it’s soft and warm.

Nah.

Summer wriggled out from under the covers. Fine. Then I’m going to complain about Theodore until you die of boredom.

Try me.

Can’t you at least face the ceiling? I feel like you’re turning your back on me.

Fay turned over and made a face. You and your puns.

Deny it all you want; I know you love them.

Arms behind her head, Fay stared up at the ceiling’s glow-in-the-dark stars. Teddy boy pick another fight?

He never does it on purpose.