Christal
Cooper 1,779 Words
*This
article first appeared in the Asian American Times on December 10, 2009. It has been updated for this blog feature.
The Crossings
of Characters
“I
hesitate to give all the details of the characters
in
Crossings; only because the more I think about
it
the more I’ll want to write about it, and,
right
now, I want them all to rest.”
Leonard Chang
One
morning, ten years ago, writer Leonard Chang had his usual cup of coffee in one
hand and the San Francisco Chronicle
in the other.
“On this particular morning, I think I may have been working
on some final edits of Fade to Clear, and had various projects on the
backburner, so felt like I could skim the paper before going to work. Then I
read about the FBI bust of the massage parlors.
Over one hundred Korean women immigrants were forced into
prostitution. I remember immediately
going online to see what other information I could find. There wasn't
much. I do remember drinking a lot more
coffee than I usually do, my mind spinning with this news. It hit all the
things I'm interested in as a writer -- Koreans, crime, the intersection of
races/ethnicities, the American dream, AND it happened in my city... So I took
a few notes, and resolved to do more research...”
Chang
did not think of the San Francisco
Chronicle article as a story idea until he was once again shocked to learn
how organized the sex trade business was.
“There were standardized layouts and
methods used by the parlors—almost like a franchise. This made me think about
how systematic it must have been to traffic the women from Korea into San
Francisco, and I just had to know more.”
Thus
Chang became the investigator, talking with investigators in the case. He
later learned how global the sex trade was not only in San Francisco but also around
the world. He then became friends with one of the directors of a
non-profit organization that fights to stop human trafficking as well as help
its victims, mostly women immigrants.
“That I already had five novels
published, novels that are often used in literature and sociology courses, gave
me some credibility and authority.”
Through
his research Chang discovered that there existed evil people who, for every
immigrant woman exploited, made tens of thousands of dollars. The
perpetrators who got rich off of these women were aware of their crimes, but
managed to talk themselves into believing they were providing a service to the
public. Whenever the thought of the victimized woman entered the mind of
the trafficker, the trafficker would choose not to think about it, enabling him
to commit more crimes and make more money.
“I was amazed at the
self-rationalization and self-justification that some of the traffickers had.”
Chang
met with some victims, learning their individual selves, identity, their own
personal experiences of being forced into prostitution. Once Chang
gathered all of the women’s stories he knew this was a novel he was fated to
write. Before Chang wrote the first word on the first page he determined
that he would not discuss Crossings with anyone until its completion.
“I didn’t want to talk about it because
it would dissipate the energy of the writing.”
He
also decided that the characters would be neither good or evil, but a
combination of the two.
“It would be too easy to make the bad guys
all bad and the good guys all good – that, to me, is less interesting fiction.
The key to good fiction, for me, is to try to be as honest in the
portrayals of those gradations. It often makes readers uncomfortable –
heck, it makes this writer uncomfortable at times – but complicated characters
fascinate me.”
Many
of the characters in Crossings faced bleak futures and deaths; and even
through Chang did not want his characters to end up the way they did – as a
fiction writer, he realized character is stronger than writer, and let the
character live, regardless of his or her demise.
“I often liken it to being an actor fully inhabiting a role – you become the
character and write.”
During
the writing of Crossings, Chang would get up everyday, ride his bike
with his laptop to the neighborhood café, write in the morning while he drank
cups of coffee; write in the afternoon while he drank cups of green tea; then
ride back home; and the next morning, start the process again.
“That’s a tough thing to do, to wake up every morning and go into a world
that’s harsh and bleak and scary, and to feel wrung out after every writing
session and to do this for four years.”
The
intensity of the writing was the strongest Chang ever experienced. He’d
written so many drafts of Crossings that he cut out enough material that
could be made into another novel.
“It’s not a matter of what I wanted or
didn’t want to cut, it was what needed to be cut or changed for the novel to be
true, authentic and real to the characters and the story.”
“It’s very important to emphasize that
all the characters in the novel are fiction.
I don’t think I ever based a fictional character on a real one – that
would shackle and limit my abilities as a writer. They are a mix of characters
and stories, born not from a particular source but from many, many places –
even from secondary sources and casual discussions with people familiar with
the human trafficking problem. Bits and
pieces of information and backstory may have leaked in from dozens of sources,
and the fact that this novel took me four years, with different incarnations
and versions, makes the forensic analysis of the characters almost impossible.
To me, these characters became real and I can’t honestly remember how precisely
they came to life. When I’m writing about a particular character, I become so
immersed that I feel like this character is the most important.”
Unha
“Unha riding a bicycle was the first image
that came to me before I started the novel.
I feel like Unha drove the novel forward for me; that when I was writing
the early drafts I was very, very invested in her story and her plight.
Unha has perhaps a handful of stories
intertwined and woven in. There’s even a
little bit of my mother in Unha, because a story my mother once told me, about
a broken engagement, stuck with me.
Unha’s personality, mannerisms and
character were formed fully from my imagination. Unha is a fighter. She has an inner strength
and ferocity that sometimes gave me chills when I wrote about her. She survived
in part because of this, in part because of Sam’s help, and in part from sheer
luck. I honestly didn’t know what was going to happen to her until that bus
arrived.
I know she’s happy and doing well –
remember that she’s a fighter and will get what she wants. It took a while for
her to recover from all this, but she did, and she’s thriving. Maybe there’s a
piece of this that’s Unha’s story, in a way, of her reinventing herself in L.A.
and finding a new life. You asked earlier where Unha is. I know exactly where
she is. She’s here, in Santa Monica. She’s my neighbor. I pass her on my
bicycle every morning as she tends her vegetable garden. I wave to her. She
waves back. She’s happy, and so am I.”
David
“In one draft I had David narrate the
entire story in his voice – he would imagine events he hadn’t seen. I ended up
discarding that draft, but when I was writing it I felt like David was the most
important character. That epilogue came
from the draft that was David’s story, and in a way he helped save the novel
for me. He offset a lot of the sadness.
David imagined many scenes, and tried
to fill in the gaps of what he didn’t know. He really doesn’t know what
happened to his father, and for him so much of this story is incomplete; he
needed to fill it in with what he could imagine. And the fact that Sam’s body
was never found does lend a little credibility to David’s fantasy.
Also, the scene where David is in the
sauna and sees his dead mother was one that took me by surprise, and which I
liked.
There’s a lot of David that I took out
of the final version of the novel, because it wasn’t quite organic to the
story, and although it was important for me to write, readers don’t need to
read it.”
Minji
“I
didn’t want Minji to die. That was
traumatic. I didn’t see that coming. I
remember when I wrote that scene with Minji, and it was so difficult that I had
to stop writing for the day. I went out rock climbing and tried not to think
about the novel at all. There was a part of me that wanted to go back and
rewrite it in a less distressing way, but that felt manipulative and contrived.
The plight of characters like her, of the harshness of their lives, made this
novel so hard for me to work on. Yet I couldn’t sugarcoat it. I felt I would be
dishonoring the characters and the reality of the stories.”
Sam
“Sam is extremely complicated – he’s a
widower, a terrible husband, a mediocre father, a man in pain, a man who loves
Unha, a conflicted brother... He is, in other words, human. I did not know
where Sam was going to end up until I wrote it, and yes, I was surprised and
saddened.
However, I want to point out that
there are plenty of cases of someone being stabbed in the chest and surviving.
The second stab wound wasn’t necessarily in the chest. So, it’s definitely
possible that Sam is alive.“
Jake
“One of the most heartbreaking moments is in
Chapter 45 when Jake realizes the fate of his brother. He goes into his sauna naked, crying, and
reciting a psalm.
It was from Psalms 139: 23-24. My
mother used to be a Bible teacher and I was one of her students for a while, so
I vaguely remembered a Psalm that dealt with David being introspective. Yes,
Jake and Sam’s relationship was complicated and Jake’s inner turmoil was sad. I
probably could’ve written a whole separate novel about them.”
Im
“You’ll also notice that there’s no
mention of Im. Where did he go? What exactly happened after he stabbed Sam?
Hmmm.”
Yunjin
“Some of the scenes of David and Yunjin
wandering around Oakland and Berkeley were nice to write because they gave me a
little breathing room.”
Photo Description and
Copyright Information.
Photo 1
Jacket cover of Crossings
by Black Heron Press
Photo 2, 9, 10, 11,
and 16
Leonard Chang. Copyright by Leonard Chang.
Photo 3
Jacket cover of Fade
To Clear by St. Martin’s Press.
Photo 4
San Francisco from
Marine Headlands. Public Domain.
Photo 5
A world map showing
the legislative situation in different countries to prevent female trafficking
as of 2009 according to WomanStats Project. Gray - No data;
Green - Trafficking
is illegal and rare;
Yellow - Trafficking
is illegal but problems still exist;
Purple - Trafficking
is illegal but still practiced;
Blue - Trafficking is
limitedly illegal and is practiced;
Red - Trafficking is
not illegal and is commonly practiced.
GNU Free
Documentation License
CCASA 3.0 License
Photo 6
FBI photo
Photo 7a
Jacket cover of Dispatches
From the Cold by Black Heron Press
Photo 7 b
Jacket cover of The
Fruit ‘N Food by Black Heron Press
Photo 7c
Jacket cover of Over
The Shoulder by HarperCollins
Photo 7d
Jacket cover of Underkill
by Minotaur Books
Photo 8
Suitcase full of
cash. Copyright by Leonard Chang.
Photo 12
A United States
Forces Korea poster, warning soldiers not to engage in prostitution or purchase
a "bar fine", here referred to as a "night off".
Public Domain.
Photo 13
Bottle of wine next
to jacket cover of Crossings.
Copyright by Leaonrd Chang.
Photo 14
Summery from inside jacket
cover of Crossings.
Photo 15
Photo from jacket cover
of Crossings
Photo 17
Leonard Chang rock
climbing. Copyright by Leonard Chang.
Photo 18.
Leonard Chang giving
a reading. Copyright by Leonard Chang.
Photo 19
Image of Psalm 139:
23-24 by www.VersifyLife.com
Photo 20
Asian Women’s Shelter
26th Anniversary Gala poster.
Mission Bay Conference Center
1675 Owens Street, San Francisco CA 94143
Friday, May 23, 2014
6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Please join us in celebrating our
26th year of service to the community and meet AWS supporters, donors
and partners and hear a survivor recount her victorious journey to a new life
free of violence. Spend an evening with us and find out how you can make
a difference.
Seats are limited so please make your
reservations now!*
To RSVP & purchase tickets, click here.
For more information, call 415.751.7110; email
info@sfaws.org or visit our Facebook page for
event updates and specials!!
*Early bird discount applies
www.sfaws.org
www.sfaws.org
Photo
21
Web
logo of San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking.
