Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Interior Chinatown, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Immigration
Performance and Identity
Stereotypes
Family and Ambition
The System
Summary
Analysis
INT. CHILD’S BEDROOM—MORNING. Happy music plays, and children sing about being happy as Phoebe Wu wakes up and yawns. “Rise and shine, Phoebe Wu!” the children sing.
Now that Phoebe has her own TV show, the question becomes whether she’ll inherit the suffering her family has endured and internalize problematic racist stereotypes, as her parents and grandparents have done before her—or whether she’ll break the cycle and play a part that doesn’t rely on racist stereotypes and instead foregrounds her authentic self.
Themes
INT. BATHROOM—MORNING—MOMENTS LATER. Phoebe is dressed now and getting ready for her day. INT. KITCHEN—MORNING—A LITTLE LATER. Phoebe enters the kitchen, singing along with the singing children: “Xie Xie Mei Mei!” She puts on her backpack and lines up with children who are all the same size and weight as her. All the children board the bus together. The show is a kind of cartoon, featuring real people against an animated background. It’s about a little Chinese girl, Mei Mei, and her life “in a new country,” a made-up place that sort of resembles an old Taiwanese village, pre-colonization, that’s been “focus-group-tested, aesthetically engineered” to be the “perfect mythical U.S. suburb.”
Phoebe’s TV show resembles contemporary children’s shows geared toward teaching kids about other cultures and instilling in them a capacity to embrace and respect difference. Willis’s observation that the world of Phoebe’s show depicts the “perfect mythical U.S. suburb” reflects his fear that such an accepting, multicultural utopia is mere fantasy and not something that can happen in the real world.
Themes
Phoebe’s show is “an optimistic amnesiac’s retelling of the age-old-story of immigration, acculturation, assimilation.” In this land, Mei Mei can move between places just by stepping through a doorway. Strangers are kind to her, and she’s still so young that she probably hasn’t had anyone make fun of her for how the lunch her a-kong packed for her smells.
A-kong means “grandfather” in Min Nan Chinese (the language spoken in much of Taiwan). When the book describes Phoebe’s show as “an optimistic amnesiac’s retelling of the age-old-story of immigration, acculturation, assimilation,” it suggests that Phoebe’s well-adjusted and happy existence as a descendant of Asian immigrants portrays the immigrant experience as mainstream society wants it to seem rather than as it actually is; in fact (as Willis and his parents’ stories have shown), many children of immigrants experience subtle and overt racism in their daily lives.
Themes
INT. PHOEBE’S ROOM—MORNING. Phoebe opens the door and sees Willis (as Kung Fu Dad). “Daddy!” she shouts. He says he misses her and apologizes that it’s been so long since he’s seen her. Karen appears and dryly thanks him for making an appearance. Willis tells her she looks amazing. He also remarks on how much Phoebe has grown up. Karen tells him things move fast “when you’re doing the kid show.” The voices of singing children offer commentary on the awkward reunion. Karen leads them in song and tries to get Willis to join in, but he doesn’t want to.
Karen’s less-than-pleased reaction to seeing Willis reveals the current state of their relationship—they’re clearly no longer together, and she wryly implies that he’s been a mostly absent father to Phoebe. This reinforces the degree to which Willis’s ambition—and symbolically, the internalized inferiority that fuels that ambition—has harmed his sense of self and his relationship with his family.
Themes
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Phoebe explains to Willis that they learn all about food, culture, inclusion, and even divorce on her show. (The singing children sing cheerfully about how divorce is a totally normal and even good part of life.) Phoebe asks what she’s going to learn today. Willis offers to teach her some Kung Fu moves, but Phoebe just laughs and calls him “silly”; Karen agrees. She suggests that she and Willis have a chat and leads him somewhere they can speak in private.
Phoebe’s remark that she learns about divorce on her TV show rather humorously implies that Karen and Willis have divorced. Phoebe’s lighthearted rejection of Willis’s offer to teach her kung fu suggests that Phoebe, unlike Willis, doesn’t confuse her authentic self with the stock characters that mainstream culture likens her to.
Themes
INT. PHOEBE LAND—GROWN-UP TALKING PLACE. Karen calls Willis out on being gone for so long and then showing up out of the blue. He says he misses Karen and Phoebe. Karen is unimpressed but tells Willis she’s going to leave him alone to get acquainted with his daughter.
Karen (justifiably) doesn’t appear to have forgiven Willis for letting their family take the backseat to his ambition. But her suggestion that she get to know their daughter suggests that she’s willing to help him find his way back—to his daughter, and to an identity that doesn’t rely on the dehumanizing stereotypes that mainstream society has forced on him.
Themes
Willis (as Kung Fu Dad) hears a whimper and realizes that Phoebe has been listening to them. He apologizes for being a bad dad. Phoebe seems to shrug it off, though. “You tried,” she offers. Willis asks if Phoebe wants to play, and she eagerly orders him to follow her to “the castle.”
The ease with which Phoebe accepts Willis’s apology suggests that perhaps Willis stands a chance to repair the damage his ambition has done to his family life.
Themes
INT. CASTLE (AKA PHOEBE’S CLOSET)—DAY. Willis (as Kung Fu Dad) listens to Phoebe telling a story to herself in her castle/closet. She talks about making things and selling them in a store one day. Her daddy will help her with it when he’s not busy working. Willis observes Phoebe and thinks it feels like seeing himself as a kid—back when he still knew how to be himself rather than “perform or act.” He looks around Phoebe’s room. There are stuffed animals everywhere. There are also drawings and notes she’s made for herself. “The whole place, the objects in it, all from her.” He’s astonished at her capacity to make “a whole world” for herself, but Phoebe claims it’s easy. Willis inwardly muses how “thoughtful” and good and smart Phoebe is—she’s doing better at this than he is.
Phoebe’s castle is such a striking concept to Willis because in many ways it’s the opposite of the world he inhabits. Whereas Willis acts out the roles that others have given to him—generic roles that undermine his individuality and perpetuate negative Asian stereotypes—Phoebe’s experience is entirely of her own making. She doesn’t “perform or act” how society wants her to perform or act; instead, she makes “thoughtful” decisions about how she wants her life to play out and what kind of person she wants to be.
Themes
Phoebe teaches Willis how to build a castle in the air, explaining that you have to use a ladder to get up high. Then, when you’re finished building the castle, you get rid of the ladder and are left with a floating castle. Willis asks why you need a ladder at all. It’s clear that Phoebe thinks the question is silly, but she answers anyway, explaining that you can’t just start building in the air—you need the castle to first be “connected” to something, so you need to “build a bridge to the air.” Willis thanks Phoebe for her explanation.
Willis’s literal question about how to build a castle in the air is really a metaphorical question about how to build a life outside the confines of the system—a world where a person can be who they want to be rather than who their society or culture expects them to be.
Themes
As Willis plays with Phoebe, he feels himself transform into a new person. He’s no longer playing a bit part in Black and White, and he’s not a star, either. He’s “something better. The star’s dad.” He feels lucky to be cast in her story.
This is a key turning point in Willis’s character development—he’s finally starting to grasp that he’s selling himself short and trapping himself by aspiring to play Kung Fu Guy (and other such prescribed roles). To find real happiness and fulfillment, he has to embrace the roles he’s made for himself—in this case, the role of Phoebe’s dad.
Themes
INT. PHOEBE’S ROOM—NIGHT. Phoebe is a weird kid, just like Willis was when he was little and like all kids are when they’re little—before the world teaches them how to act and what race they are; before the world crushes their dreams. Before bed, Phoebe tells Willis the five things she’s afraid of, which include “secret passages” and being “eaten by a witch.” She hesitates before telling him number five but finally admits that she’s afraid of him dying. Willis says she shouldn’t worry about that—dads don’t die. This puzzles Phoebe. “Everyone dies,” she tells him. He’ll get to be 100 and then he’ll die. Willis says that sounds like a fine plan, and Phoebe seems relieved.
Willis here suggests that racism is learned rather than innate. In theory, children of all races start off as confident and self-assured as Phoebe is now (and as Willis was when he was Phoebe’s age)—it’s only after they start to act out the roles that mainstream culture has assigned them that they start to discriminate against others or resign themselves to being discriminated against.
Themes
Phoebe asks Willis to tell her a story, and the request stumps him: nobody’s asked him to tell them a story before. But he agrees to try and begins a story about a little girl. But then he stops, not knowing what comes next. He knows that whatever he says next is vitally important: it’ll either “open up the story” or confine it. After a while, he starts a story about a guy whom “something weird” happened to. This pleases Phoebe, but she says she’s sleepy before Willis can get very far into the story. The singing children sing a soft lullaby, and then Phoebe falls asleep.
The reason it’s so difficult for Willis to tell Phoebe a story is because he’s never been the person telling a story before—he’s always been the one who acts out the stories that others have written. And because he’s so used to acting in stories with very formulaic plots that conform to rigid social norms, he struggles to compose a story from scratch that doesn’t rely on those narrow, often problematic conventions.
Themes
Willis watches Phoebe sleep and strokes her face. He realizes how “useless” his Kung Fu is in this place, the “dream” where Phoebe exists. There are no “sirens or cops or dead bodies” here, nor any smelly garbage or the sound of different dialects pulsing through the cramped hallways. PHOEBE LAND is so different from INT. CHINATOWN SRO. There are no Generic Asian Men or Hostess/Prostitutes or Old Asian People here. There’s no “history” here—it’s just happy songs. And what if this was the point of all that came before? This could be the “dream of assimilation, a dream finally realized,” and Phoebe is now “a real American girl.”
The kung fu that Willis has learned is just a flashy trope the mainstream entertainment industry (which in the novel represents society as a whole) uses to feature Asian characters without letting them steal the spotlight. Because of this, it—and all the other one-dimensional roles Willis and his family have played over the years—loses its meaning once Willis ventures beyond the confines of Chinatown and the set of Black and White. Willis’s observation that Phoebe’s world has no “history” is hopeful. It suggests that Phoebe hasn’t inherited her ancestors’ trauma and internalized inferiority—she’s found a way to make the impossible “dream of assimilation” come true, existing in America on her own terms rather than in the limiting terms that society has prescribed to previous generations of immigrants and children of immigrants.
Themes
INT. PHOEBE’S ROOM—NIGHT. Willis goes through the routine of feeding Phoebe and getting her ready for bed. He kisses all her stuffed animals when she asks him to, and then he does it again. He watches her wash her face and thinks it looks familiar, then he realizes that she’s doing it the way he does it: she’s watched and learned from him.
Phoebe is discerning in the lessons she learns from her father—she copies the harmless and good things that he does, like washing her face in a particular way. But she disregards her father’s negative habits, like his self-destructive ambition and inability to break free from the social expectations that make him feel trapped, inferior, and miserable.
Themes
INT. PHOEBE LAND—NIGHT. Willis lies awake and stares at the moon. “This is the dream,” he thinks. He has solid work and knows how to “talk white.” He can show the world that he’s “responsible” and “unthreatening,” and he can work on the “dream of blending in”—the dream of transforming “from Generic Asian man to just plain Generic Man.” But he also knows he can’t stay this way forever—it’s “just another role.”
Willis continues to be confused about who he’s supposed to be in life. He struggles to come up with an identity that doesn’t rely on Western stereotypes of Asian people—but that also doesn’t require him to give up his Asian heritage altogether.
Themes
Willis looks out the window then and sees the police. Willis assures Karen and Phoebe that everything is okay—they’re there for him because he stole the police car. Turner and Green call out for him to surrender and nobody will get hurt. Karen tells Phoebe that Willis is going to prison but that it’ll be a good thing. Then to Willis, she remarks, “You wanted them to find you.” Willis replies that he “wanted them to find us.”
When Willis asserts that he “wanted them to find us,” he seems to reaffirm his commitment to his family. It’s important that the detectives find Willis with his family so that they know where his priorities now lie. Even if Willis hasn’t quite figured out who he wants to be, he knows that the answer lies closer to his family than it does the world of Black and White.
Themes
