Previous
Older Brother
Karen Lee is Willis’s wife (and later his ex-wife). She and Willis have a daughter together, Phoebe. Willis meets Karen on the set of Black and White, where she plays an undercover detective. She’s a quarter Taiwanese. Willis thinks that being a woman gives Karen an advantage, at least within mainstream (white) society, which considers women of Asian descent beautiful (even if it simultaneously objectifies and stereotypes them). Karen is initially supportive of Willis’s career, but eventually his all-consuming goal of becoming Kung Fu Guy drives them apart. Karen eventually gets her own show on which she plays a young mother, a role that necessitates her leaving Chinatown to relocate to the suburbs. There’s a part for Willis on the show too, but he turns it down to be Kung Fu Guy, and eventually he and Karen divorce. Toward the end of the novel, Willis is tried and found guilty of his own disappearance. Afterward, he delivers an emotional monologue to the courtroom audience. Willis’s speech moves Karen, and she hints that she may be willing to give their marriage another try.
Karen Lee Quotes in Interior Chinatown
The Interior Chinatown quotes below are all either spoken by Karen Lee or refer to Karen Lee . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 4: Striving Immigrant
Quotes
“Oh, boo hoo, I’m a poor helpless Asian Man. It’s so terrible being me.”
“I have to talk with an accent because no one can process what the hell to do with me. I’ve got the consciousness of a contemporary American. And the face of a Chinese farmer of five thousand years ago. Asian Man. It’s a fact. Look it up. No one likes us.”
“Not with that attitude they won’t. And by the way, I think I might like you. Maybe. A little.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5: Kung Fu Dad
Quotes
You survey the room: drawings, hair ties, notes to herself. Seemingly every species of stuffed animal or creature, real or imagined, lined up like a royal court along the walls on the floors. Her friends, her audience. Her off-screen voices. She seems both more resourceful and yet more childlike at the same time—how she’s invented a world, stylized, so that its roles and scenery, its characters and rules, its truths and dangers, all fit within one room. How small it is, and overstuffed, and ready for expansion. How bright it is, how messy. This whole place, the objects in it, all from her.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The words coming out of your mouth, you can feel it happening, how you’re softening, changing into a different person. You were a bit player in the world of Black and White, but here and now, in her world, you’re more. Not the star of the show, something better. The star’s dad. Somehow you were lucky enough to end up in her story.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
PHOEBE Can you tell me a story?
KUNG FU DAD I don’t know how. No one’s ever asked me to.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
KAREN You wanted them to find you.
KUNG FU DAD I wanted them to find us.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Interior Chinatown LitChart as a printable PDF.
Karen Lee Quotes in Interior Chinatown
The Interior Chinatown quotes below are all either spoken by Karen Lee or refer to Karen Lee . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 4: Striving Immigrant
Quotes
“Oh, boo hoo, I’m a poor helpless Asian Man. It’s so terrible being me.”
“I have to talk with an accent because no one can process what the hell to do with me. I’ve got the consciousness of a contemporary American. And the face of a Chinese farmer of five thousand years ago. Asian Man. It’s a fact. Look it up. No one likes us.”
“Not with that attitude they won’t. And by the way, I think I might like you. Maybe. A little.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5: Kung Fu Dad
Quotes
You survey the room: drawings, hair ties, notes to herself. Seemingly every species of stuffed animal or creature, real or imagined, lined up like a royal court along the walls on the floors. Her friends, her audience. Her off-screen voices. She seems both more resourceful and yet more childlike at the same time—how she’s invented a world, stylized, so that its roles and scenery, its characters and rules, its truths and dangers, all fit within one room. How small it is, and overstuffed, and ready for expansion. How bright it is, how messy. This whole place, the objects in it, all from her.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The words coming out of your mouth, you can feel it happening, how you’re softening, changing into a different person. You were a bit player in the world of Black and White, but here and now, in her world, you’re more. Not the star of the show, something better. The star’s dad. Somehow you were lucky enough to end up in her story.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
PHOEBE Can you tell me a story?
KUNG FU DAD I don’t know how. No one’s ever asked me to.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
KAREN You wanted them to find you.
KUNG FU DAD I wanted them to find us.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
