{"id":4625,"date":"2004-07-23T11:16:18","date_gmt":"2004-07-23T15:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=4625"},"modified":"2017-12-14T17:07:49","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T22:07:49","slug":"country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Country of Origin by Don Lee + Author Interview [in AsianWeek]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Don<\/a>A Yellow ‘Country of Origin’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Technically, writer Don Lee is a third-generation Korean American. But he was born in Tokyo where his father was working for the U.S. State Department. Then after moving to South Korea at age 4, he had his first identity crisis: \u201cJapanese was my first language,\u201d he says. \u201cBut here I was in Korea, speaking only Japanese. I was a little confused to say the least. I thought I was a Japanese kid, but now I was a Korean kid?\u201d To add to his bewilderment, the Lee family lived on a U.S. Army base in Seoul. \u201cNow I was an American, Korean, and Japanese,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s all you need to know why I\u2019m so hung up on identity,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

Identity is at the crux of Lee\u2019s first novel, Country of Origin<\/em>, his follow-up to the award-winning short story collection, Yellow: Stories<\/em>. Not one of his characters is who he or she appears to be \u2026 not Tom Hurley, the half-Korean foreign service officer stationed in Japan, nor Julia Tinsley, his photographer lover. Nor Vincent Kitamura, her CIA husband. And then there\u2019s the noise-challenged Kenzo Ota, the Japanese policeman assigned to investigate the aptly named Lisa Countryman, an African American hapa whose disappearance brings all the characters together.<\/p>\n

AsianWeek<\/em><\/strong>: So the obvious question: how did Country of Origin<\/em> come about?
\n Don Lee<\/strong>: Given my background [of international moves], I was fascinated by the milieu of foreign service officers and ex-patriots. Originally, I was going to write a story only about Tom. But while I had a situation, I didn\u2019t have a plot to drive the story forward. The breakthrough came when I heard about a young English woman who went missing, who had been a hostess in Tokyo. And I knew from my past that one of the duties of a vice consul in consular services is to take care of the welfare and whereabouts of their citizens. So now I had my story.<\/p>\n

AW<\/em><\/strong>: As you\u2019re heading out for your Country<\/em> book tour, do you have any good road stories to share from the Yellow <\/em>tour?
\n DL<\/strong>: One of my favorite experiences was at the Harvard bookstore. This young man came up to me and said, \u201cI\u2019m Korean American and I want to be a writer, too, but the question is do I have to write about being Korean American?\u201d My answer was: \u201cNo, because I\u2019m doing that for you. My generation has to deal with those kinds of questions so the next generations won\u2019t have to, and you can just tell pure stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

AW<\/em><\/strong>: The current marketing of books often seems to have an \u2018Oriental\u2019 bent to it \u2026 from chopstick-y fonts on covers to the exotic woman in exotic dress in soft focus, etc. There\u2019s that whole sense of \u2018other\u2019 presented as a selling point \u2026 have you noticed that?
\n DL<\/strong>: I had this sweet, well-meaning college student tell me she initially didn\u2019t want to read my book because it was about another culture. Her way of complimenting me was to say she went ahead and read it anyway and enjoyed it despite her reservations. If a book smacks of the \u2018other\u2019 or exoticism, people are often repelled by the work; they\u2019re not interested because it\u2019s about a different culture \u2013\u00a0like this college student. There\u2019s a certain fatigue about multiculturalism right now. What it really\u00a0comes down to in that sort of marketing is the message that you\u2019re a racist and you need to learn outside your comfort zone \u2013\u00a0that gets tiring for the reader after awhile. …[click here for more<\/a>]\n

Author interview<\/strong>: “A Yellow ‘Country of Origin'” <\/a>AsianWeek<\/a><\/em>, July 23, 2004<\/a><\/p>\n

Tidbit<\/strong>:\u00a0Don Lee<\/a> was a quietly entertaining guest\u00a0for the Smithsonian’s\u00a0Korean American Centennial Commemoration<\/a>‘s\u00a0fall program, “Literature<\/a>,”\u00a0on October 24, 2003.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2004<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"CountryA Yellow ‘Country of Origin’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Technically, writer Don Lee is a third-generation Korean American. But he was born in Tokyo where his father was working for the U.S. State Department. Then after moving to South Korea at age 4, he had his first identity crisis: \u201cJapanese was my first language,\u201d he says. \u201cBut here I was in Korea, speaking only Japanese. I was a little confused to say the least. I thought I was a Japanese kid, but now I was a Korean kid?\u201d To add to his bewilderment, the Lee family lived on a U.S. Army base in Seoul. \u201cNow I was an American, Korean, and Japanese,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s all you need to know why I\u2019m so hung up on identity,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

Identity is at the crux of Lee\u2019s first novel, Country of Origin<\/em>, his follow-up to the award-winning short story collection, Yellow: Stories<\/em>. Not one of his characters is who he or she appears to be \u2026 not Tom Hurley, the half-Korean foreign service officer stationed in Japan, nor Julia Tinsley, his photographer lover. Nor Vincent Kitamura, her CIA husband. And then there\u2019s the noise-challenged Kenzo Ota, the Japanese policeman assigned to investigate the aptly named Lisa Countryman, an African American hapa whose disappearance brings all the characters together.<\/p>\n

AsianWeek<\/em><\/strong>: So the obvious question: how did Country of Origin<\/em> come about?
\n Don Lee<\/strong>: Given my background [of international moves], I was fascinated by the milieu of foreign service officers and ex-patriots. Originally, I was going to write a story only about Tom. But while I had a situation, I didn\u2019t have a plot to drive the story forward. The breakthrough came when I heard about a young English woman who went missing, who had been a hostess in Tokyo. And I knew from my past that one of the duties of a vice consul in consular services is to take care of the welfare and whereabouts of their citizens. So now I had my story.<\/p>\n

AW<\/em><\/strong>: As you\u2019re heading out for your Country<\/em> book tour, do you have any good road stories to share from the Yellow <\/em>tour?
\n DL<\/strong>: One of my favorite experiences was at the Harvard bookstore. This young man came up to me and said, \u201cI\u2019m Korean American and I want to be a writer, too, but the question is do I have to write about being Korean American?\u201d My answer was: \u201cNo, because I\u2019m doing that for you. My generation has to deal with those kinds of questions so the next generations won\u2019t have to, and you can just tell pure stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

AW<\/em><\/strong>: The current marketing of books often seems to have an \u2018Oriental\u2019 bent to it \u2026 from chopstick-y fonts on covers to the exotic woman in exotic dress in soft focus, etc. There\u2019s that whole sense of \u2018other\u2019 presented as a selling point \u2026 have you noticed that?
\n DL<\/strong>: I had this sweet, well-meaning college student tell me she initially didn\u2019t want to read my book because it was about another culture. Her way of complimenting me was to say she went ahead and read it anyway and enjoyed it despite her reservations. If a book smacks of the \u2018other\u2019 or exoticism, people are often repelled by the work; they\u2019re not interested because it\u2019s about a different culture \u2013\u00a0like this college student. There\u2019s a certain fatigue about multiculturalism right now. What it really\u00a0comes down to in that sort of marketing is the message that you\u2019re a racist and you need to learn outside your comfort zone \u2013\u00a0that gets tiring for the reader after awhile. …[click here for more<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Author interview<\/strong>: “A Yellow ‘Country of Origin'” <\/a>AsianWeek<\/a><\/em>, July 23, 2004<\/a><\/p>\n

Tidbit<\/strong>:\u00a0Don Lee<\/a> was a quietly entertaining guest\u00a0for the Smithsonian’s\u00a0Korean American Centennial Commemoration<\/a>‘s\u00a0fall program, “Literature<\/a>,”\u00a0on October 24, 2003.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2004<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,6,76,38,6535],"tags":[3598,83,84,6608,550,59,551,51,25,145,216],"class_list":["post-4625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-author-interview-profile","category-fiction","category-japanese","category-korean-american","category-repost","tag-asianweek","tag-assimilation","tag-betrayal","tag-bookdragon","tag-country-of-origin","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-don-lee","tag-identity","tag-immigration","tag-mixed-race-issues","tag-mystery"],"yoast_head":"\nCountry of Origin by Don Lee + Author Interview [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Country of Origin by Don Lee + Author Interview [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Yellow 'Country of Origin' Technically, writer Don Lee is a third-generation Korean American. But he was born in Tokyo where his father was working for the U.S. State Department. Then after moving to South Korea at age 4, he had his first identity crisis: \u201cJapanese was my first language,\u201d he says. \u201cBut here I was in Korea, speaking only Japanese. I was a little confused to say the least. I thought I was a Japanese kid, but now I was a Korean kid?\u201d To add to his bewilderment, the Lee family lived on a U.S. Army base in Seoul. \u201cNow I was an American, Korean, and Japanese,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s all you need to know why I\u2019m so hung up on identity,\u201d he laughs. Identity is at the crux of Lee\u2019s first novel, Country of Origin, his follow-up to the award-winning short story collection, Yellow: Stories. Not one of his characters is who he or she appears to be \u2026 not Tom Hurley, the half-Korean foreign service officer stationed in Japan, nor Julia Tinsley, his photographer lover. Nor Vincent Kitamura, her CIA husband. And then there\u2019s the noise-challenged Kenzo Ota, the Japanese policeman assigned to investigate the aptly named Lisa Countryman, an African American hapa whose disappearance brings all the characters together. AsianWeek: So the obvious question: how did Country of Origin come about? Don Lee: Given my background [of international moves], I was fascinated by the milieu of foreign service officers and ex-patriots. Originally, I was going to write a story only about Tom. But while I had a situation, I didn\u2019t have a plot to drive the story forward. The breakthrough came when I heard about a young English woman who went missing, who had been a hostess in Tokyo. And I knew from my past that one of the duties of a vice consul in consular services is to take care of the welfare and whereabouts of their citizens. So now I had my story. AW: As you\u2019re heading out for your Country book tour, do you have any good road stories to share from the Yellow tour? DL: One of my favorite experiences was at the Harvard bookstore. This young man came up to me and said, \u201cI\u2019m Korean American and I want to be a writer, too, but the question is do I have to write about being Korean American?\u201d My answer was: \u201cNo, because I\u2019m doing that for you. My generation has to deal with those kinds of questions so the next generations won\u2019t have to, and you can just tell pure stories.\u201d AW: The current marketing of books often seems to have an \u2018Oriental\u2019 bent to it \u2026 from chopstick-y fonts on covers to the exotic woman in exotic dress in soft focus, etc. There\u2019s that whole sense of \u2018other\u2019 presented as a selling point \u2026 have you noticed that? DL: I had this sweet, well-meaning college student tell me she initially didn\u2019t want to read my book because it was about another culture. Her way of complimenting me was to say she went ahead and read it anyway and enjoyed it despite her reservations. If a book smacks of the \u2018other\u2019 or exoticism, people are often repelled by the work; they\u2019re not interested because it\u2019s about a different culture \u2013\u00a0like this college student. There\u2019s a certain fatigue about multiculturalism right now. What it really\u00a0comes down to in that sort of marketing is the message that you\u2019re a racist and you need to learn outside your comfort zone \u2013\u00a0that gets tiring for the reader after awhile. ...[click here for more] Author interview: "A Yellow 'Country of Origin'" AsianWeek, July 23, 2004 Tidbit:\u00a0Don Lee was a quietly entertaining guest\u00a0for the Smithsonian's\u00a0Korean American Centennial Commemoration's\u00a0fall program, "Literature,"\u00a0on October 24, 2003. Readers: Adult Published: 2004\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-07-23T15:16:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-12-14T22:07:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2004\/07\/Don-Lee-Country-of-Origin.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"366\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"397\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Country of Origin by Don Lee + Author Interview [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Country of Origin by Don Lee + Author Interview [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon","og_description":"A Yellow 'Country of Origin' Technically, writer Don Lee is a third-generation Korean American. But he was born in Tokyo where his father was working for the U.S. State Department. Then after moving to South Korea at age 4, he had his first identity crisis: \u201cJapanese was my first language,\u201d he says. \u201cBut here I was in Korea, speaking only Japanese. I was a little confused to say the least. I thought I was a Japanese kid, but now I was a Korean kid?\u201d To add to his bewilderment, the Lee family lived on a U.S. Army base in Seoul. \u201cNow I was an American, Korean, and Japanese,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s all you need to know why I\u2019m so hung up on identity,\u201d he laughs. Identity is at the crux of Lee\u2019s first novel, Country of Origin, his follow-up to the award-winning short story collection, Yellow: Stories. Not one of his characters is who he or she appears to be \u2026 not Tom Hurley, the half-Korean foreign service officer stationed in Japan, nor Julia Tinsley, his photographer lover. Nor Vincent Kitamura, her CIA husband. And then there\u2019s the noise-challenged Kenzo Ota, the Japanese policeman assigned to investigate the aptly named Lisa Countryman, an African American hapa whose disappearance brings all the characters together. AsianWeek: So the obvious question: how did Country of Origin come about? Don Lee: Given my background [of international moves], I was fascinated by the milieu of foreign service officers and ex-patriots. Originally, I was going to write a story only about Tom. But while I had a situation, I didn\u2019t have a plot to drive the story forward. The breakthrough came when I heard about a young English woman who went missing, who had been a hostess in Tokyo. And I knew from my past that one of the duties of a vice consul in consular services is to take care of the welfare and whereabouts of their citizens. So now I had my story. AW: As you\u2019re heading out for your Country book tour, do you have any good road stories to share from the Yellow tour? DL: One of my favorite experiences was at the Harvard bookstore. This young man came up to me and said, \u201cI\u2019m Korean American and I want to be a writer, too, but the question is do I have to write about being Korean American?\u201d My answer was: \u201cNo, because I\u2019m doing that for you. My generation has to deal with those kinds of questions so the next generations won\u2019t have to, and you can just tell pure stories.\u201d AW: The current marketing of books often seems to have an \u2018Oriental\u2019 bent to it \u2026 from chopstick-y fonts on covers to the exotic woman in exotic dress in soft focus, etc. There\u2019s that whole sense of \u2018other\u2019 presented as a selling point \u2026 have you noticed that? DL: I had this sweet, well-meaning college student tell me she initially didn\u2019t want to read my book because it was about another culture. Her way of complimenting me was to say she went ahead and read it anyway and enjoyed it despite her reservations. If a book smacks of the \u2018other\u2019 or exoticism, people are often repelled by the work; they\u2019re not interested because it\u2019s about a different culture \u2013\u00a0like this college student. There\u2019s a certain fatigue about multiculturalism right now. What it really\u00a0comes down to in that sort of marketing is the message that you\u2019re a racist and you need to learn outside your comfort zone \u2013\u00a0that gets tiring for the reader after awhile. ...[click here for more] Author interview: \"A Yellow 'Country of Origin'\" AsianWeek, July 23, 2004 Tidbit:\u00a0Don Lee was a quietly entertaining guest\u00a0for the Smithsonian's\u00a0Korean American Centennial Commemoration's\u00a0fall program, \"Literature,\"\u00a0on October 24, 2003. Readers: Adult Published: 2004","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2004-07-23T15:16:18+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-12-14T22:07:49+00:00","og_image":[{"width":366,"height":397,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2004\/07\/Don-Lee-Country-of-Origin.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/","name":"Country of Origin by Don Lee + Author Interview [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-07-23T15:16:18+00:00","dateModified":"2017-12-14T22:07:49+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/country-of-origin-by-don-lee-author-interview\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Country of Origin by Don Lee + Author Interview [in AsianWeek]"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4625"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43255,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625\/revisions\/43255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}