Interior Chinatown: Act 3: Ethnic Recurring Summary & Analysis

Ming-Chen Wu is Willis’s father’s real name, though the novel has only alluded to this in passing; mostly, people refer to him by the characters he's played, like Sifu or Old Asian Man. Willis’s irritated response that they’re “not all related” alludes to a racist assumption that people of the same race all look alike, though in an ironic twist, it turns out that Willis actually does know Wu, since he’s his father. 

The detail of the attractive extras seated at tables humorously reminds readers that Willis is on the set of a TV show, acting out a part; it’s necessary to do this because the novel often blurs the line between the world of the TV show and reality, a narrative technique that conveys how Willis gradually internalizes the stereotypes and tropes that Black and White imposes on him.

Even at this early point in the story, Willis seems to acknowledge that the prestige he gains with each new, better role he plays is far less impressive than the prestige that comes with being a famous (white) movie star. Symbolically, the lesser fame Willis can achieve as an Asian actor reflects the limits to his ability to assimilate into American culture as an Asian person. He can be more assimilated than other Asian people, the novel implies, but he’ll never achieve the standing of a complete (white) American.

Once more, the book blurs the line between the world of the show and Willis’s reality. On the one hand, readers may interpret this dialogue as a scripted exchange between Special Guest Star and Old Asian Man, in which Special Guest Star admits that he’s now working with the detectives. But another interpretation is that the real Willis is admitting to his real father that he’s finally gotten a better part on the show—trying to convince his father that even though the role requires him to effectively stereotype himself, it's a good thing because it means he’s rising through the ranks and advancing his career. Old Asian Man’s disappointed response, of course, suggests that he thinks the anguish that accepting this role will inspire in Willis isn’t worth the fame. And he’s also upset that Willis is betraying his Asian roots to gain the acceptance of his American home. 

Turner’s angry response to Willis’s apparent attack on his masculinity stereotypes him as much as it stereotypes Old Asian Man—he’s simultaneously defending the assumption that Black men like himself are especially manly and that Asian men like Old Asian Man are effeminate by comparison. The (apparently) off-script interaction between Willis and the detectives expands on this idea, with Turner accurately pointing out that Willis’s participation in the system does strengthen the system. His remark, of course, reveals his own complicity in that system as well, as he’s climbed his way up the system to play a part that effectively fetishizes the “coolness” of Black people.

Turner is making a valid point here: Willis, in remaining hyper focused on the fact that Turner has a lead part on the show, loses sight of the fact that Turner’s role (and Green’s too, for that matter) stereotypes Blackness as much as Willis’s part plays on Asian stereotypes.

The model minority myth is an argument that draws on the perceived collective success of Asian people to downplay the role that systemic racism plays in the struggles of other minority groups. When Turner reminds Willis that Green just called him “Asian Guy,” he’s implying that even if model minorities think they’re benefitting from having white people (like Green) on their side, this perceived empowerment is just an illusion. In reality, people who weaponize the model minority myth to downplay systemic oppression still see so-called “model minorities” as inferior, as (Turner suggests) Green demonstrated when she called Willis “Asian Guy.”

The loud voice with which Green addresses Old Asian Man once more shows that her earlier attempts at cultural sensitivity were mere performance. Presumably, she’s speaking this way because she assumes he doesn’t speak English, but other than the fact that it’s racist for her to assume that he can’t speak English, if she was really interested in overcoming a language barrier, she’d speak more slowly to give a non-fluent English speaker time to actively comprehend what she’s saying.  

The disparity in Willis’s personal sense of the gambling den’s patrons and the way they’re made to appear on the show illustrates how racial bias and stereotyping can warp one’s sense of reality, projecting dangerous, exotic characteristics onto people who in fact are just ordinary folks trying to make ends meet like anyone else. Fatty Choy, for instance, is really just a goofy prankster, but his role on Black and White as “Lowlife Oriental” exaggerates these characteristics to make them seem nefarious when they’re actually harmless. 

This is another scene where the book intentionally blurs the line between Willis’s reality and his role on Black and White to comment on the effects of racial stereotyping. Young Fong’s refusal to break character to reciprocate Willis’s (off-script) greeting symbolizes how people can internalize stereotypes and lose their sense of self. Willis perhaps hasn’t been acting long enough to get to this point, but if he continues to get cast in increasingly important roles, then perhaps it’s only a matter of time before he, too, loses himself.

Young Fong’s characterization of the women downstairs casts Asian women as “exotic” prizes for westerners’ consumption. This passage thus reinforces how the world of Black and White forces its Asian characters to participate in the stereotyping of Asian people. Willis’s suspicion that he knows the mystery woman builds tension; at any rate, this scene seems to suggest that whoever she is, she’ll be important later on. Green, despite her performance of anti-racism, seems determined to cast Older Brother as a dubious character who couldn’t have come into money through honest means. She doesn’t explicitly say that she suspects this due to his race, but the implication is that since Older Brother is Asian and these supposed criminals are also Asian, he must know and be in cahoots with them.

The world of Black and White contains so many fantastical elements and unbelievable characters, yet it draws the line at granting Mini Boss immunity, which apparently would be too ludicrous an outcome for viewers of the show to buy. This drives home one of the show’s core aims—to uphold the status quo, and one way to do that is to ensure that nobody cuts any of the show’s minority characters any slack.    

Karen’s willingness to break character and introduce herself to Willis sets her apart from other characters, like Mini Boss, who seems to struggle to differentiate between his character on the show and the person he is in real life. Willis, on the other hand, remains committed to his acting, even if he sometimes recognizes its problematic nature—he demonstrates his commitment here in the immense inner pride he feels after performing impressive kung fu moves.  

Fatty Choy and Willis’s “fake Chinese” reminds characters that the show Black and White is intended for non-Asian audiences; viewers at home won’t be able to distinguish between the nonsense language that Fatty Choy and Willis speak at first and the authentic language they speak afterward. The interaction with Karen and Willis is rather ambiguous—from Willis’s shocked response, it’s not clear whether she’s breaking character when she implicitly calls him out for communicating with Fatty Choy in real Cantonese. Her choice to whisper in Willis’s ear is equally ambiguous. The strange and uncertain nature of their interaction in this scene builds tension and perhaps foreshadows that Karen will be important to the story at some later point.

Once more, Turner reveals his (or his character’s) racism when he perpetuates a stereotype about Asian people (“these people”) and their fixation on “honor.” The line about counterfeit being “Chinatown’s number one export” has multiple meanings, simultaneously referencing the real industry of Chinatown counterfeiting, as well as figuratively alluding to the fake stereotyped characters that the Chinatown of Black and White churns out. 

This is yet another scene in which the narrative intentionally blurs the scripted plot of Black and White with the unscripted plot of Willis’s reality. Willis, of course, is not really dying—his character has just been written out of the show. Metaphorically, his “early” death further suggests the limits of assimilation; mainstream America (which Black and White symbolizes) will let Willis participate in the show—but only temporarily, and he certainly can’t be the star.

When Karen tells Willis that his story must end this way because he’s “an Asian Man,” she’s further emphasizing his limited ability to assimilate into mainstream American culture. He can get on the show, and he can even be a “guest star,” but the show’s production crew and viewers (who in this case symbolize mainstream American culture in a broader sense) will never see him as belonging there in a permanent sense.