Incensed Taiwanese Novel Thoughts

 

ED LIN

    I'm still that black guy that supports east asian literature written by asian authors. Kinda of in the same way that I recently started to support projects created by my own race(African Americans) even more recently. Minorities are people that need to be celebrated more in American culture. That can be hard when we live in a world that still has little problems with diversity. As racial issues seem to continue to be coming up on the horizon of our immediate future, I continue to learn more about East Asian culture as a black man through books and my love for the cultures. So I decided to pick up two books by Ed Lin in a Barnes and Nobles one late weekend evening. I don't know too much about mister Lin but his books's storylines felt like something I would read. He's written a bunch of other books that I never knew about. The two books I purchased were Ghost Month and Incensed. Both books are apart of the Taipei night market series but somehow I chose to read Incensed before Ghost Month and Incensed is the second book. Oh Well. You guys will be getting posts about this series backwards. Just a forewarning…..

  A girl is to be kept away from her boyfriend because her gang leader father doesn't approve of his Indonesian ancestry. She is then sent to live with her cousin who runs a might market stand.

   Ed Lin really truly took the time in this book to set the stage for the places known as China and Taiwan. I felt that by reading this novel, I was being given a cultural lesson while also learning more about the main story that I came for. Lin must have felt like people who weren't asian might pick up a copy of his book so he wastes no time explaining the ins and outs of Chinese culture. One of the biggest things that I learned from the pages of Incensed was how Taiwan isn't considered a part of China. Many different books I have read in the past informed me about the divide between the so called island and China. I just didn't think that the situation was that bad. I'm also aware from Mandopop and C-pop that mainland Chinese vs. Mandarin Chinese are not the same language(This blog is full of posts about Chinese music so readers should know whats up by now.). Most non asian Americans see Taiwan and China as the same place. I've thought like this in the past too sadly. Readers also learn a ton about Taiwanese religious customs that tell information of different Gods along with the temples locals go to in order worship them. A readers planing a trip to Taiwan might start feeling superstitious after all the references to punishment for not bringing offerings to a certain temple. Lin's writing does well conveying all of this information to the reader on top of detailed descriptions about the night market. I could actually see the night market in front of me as I flipped through the pages of Incensed. The smell of the food that was cooking at the stands and the people moving around the night market became a normal picture to me in a second hand after image created from the text of this book. There might be too much of a tourist experience in this book for me in fact. I originally come for a kidnap mystery dealing with a Taiwanese night market. However, I didn't expect to get a WHOLE lesson in the cultural background of Taiwan. Incensed takes a huge amount of time talking about cultural traits and a family associated with gangs that takes half the book to cover. Actions of kidnaping then being on the run doesn't come into play until the latter chapters of the book which wasn't what I came for. I would have loved Incensed a lot more if there had been an good balance of cultural information and the flow of the story. Lin could have even put cultural references in while the action of the story was taking place. My thoughts kept thinking, "when is something going to happen to the girl?". It seemed to take forever for the conflict to pick up or maybe I missed something? I believe this whole book was an excuse for Lin to teach readers about Taiwan/Chinese culture. I'm not mad at him either since I did learned a lot more than what I already knew. That doesn't excuse the fact that I felt a bit cheated out of the storyline I was interested in though.

I WANT TO TRY MOON CAKE! 

   I was interested in the certain viewpoints of the main character named Jing-nan. His character was on the borderline of being thinking like an American but then also thinking like a native Taiwanese person. He was born in Taiwan but studied in the states so he could speak English fluently. Sometimes during the book, he looks at situations in the same manner that a foreigner or an American would look at aspects of Taiwanese culture. These instances reminded me of South Korea and when a Korean student goes to study abroad. Their mind is no longer technically a Korean mind because that person has gotten the chance to experience the world outside of Korea. This causes you to question some of the customs of your own culture as well. Jing-nan had these same characteristics. I enjoyed other topics touched on by the characters but I won't address them here as I think doing so would spoil the book.


   Incensed isn't a book that I would recommend to those looking for a quick mystery thriller. Instead I would give this book to those who want to learn a bit about Taiwan because Incensed spends more time highlighting this aspect. This and family relations combined together. I'll be reading Ghost month next.