Interview questions for Paul Hanstedt about Hong Konged
- English teachers often tell their students that they can learn by writing—that writing itself is a technique for discovery. So, did you learn anything new during the process of writing Hong Konged?
Often I would be coming up on the ending of a piece and I would have no idea where it was going to go—then something would come up on the page and suddenly all of it would make sense. “Grief and the Village” is a good example of this: writing it, I was furious, just furious a the boys who were making Will’s life miserable. I didn’t think there was any way I could forgive them, nor did I want to, never mind that one of them had lost his mother and was buried in his own grief. I didn’t care. He was hurting Will and I wanted to hurt him back. I was just so mad.
Then, writing the piece, I asked that question at the end, “What do you say?” and then I just knew—I knew what you said, and I knew why you said it and I knew how often you said it.
Which leads to something larger, I think: I’ve always known that writing was good for dealing with trauma and getting through experiences in general. Known, that is, in a very academic way: I’d read the research from psychology that’d said this over and over again for the last forty years.
Being in Hong Kong, though, going through all of this stuff—none of it very traumatic, granted—I really came to see how powerful words were, how effective writing was at helping me make sense of everything that was going on around us, all of the stressers that come at you when you’re abroad with small children. Writing is powerful. Words are powerful.
- How did you deal with the inevitable challenge faced by all memoirists: how to write honestly without alienating your family and friends.
I set a pretty simple rule: I was allowed to make fun of myself, but not of others. I don’t think I nailed this completely—there are a few lines about the kids that tease a great deal—but I was very careful about the Hong Kongers: I didn’t want them thinking I was mocking their country—because I wasn’t, and wouldn’t want to. Our time there simply offered so much. We’re forever grateful.
That said, there was a time when Ellen was a little nervous about this project: part of the irony of your question is that I wasn’t always entirely truthful. At times, particularly with her, I would put words in her mouth meant to make fun of me, to put me in my place, to draw attention to the foolishness of my actions, words, and thoughts. Understandably, that made her a little uncomfortable: she didn’t want to come off as harsh. Then this summer when we were in Maine I mentioned this to a friend of hers who said, “Oh no, it’s very obvious what you’re doing, that those aren’t always her words.”
Beyond that, it’s probably worth noting that we’ve encouraged the children NOT to read the book until they are older. We’ve told them that it’s a grown up book, that some of the emotions conveyed are complex and that we want them to be old enough to understand that when we finally do read it.
Here’s hoping we don’t all end up in therapy . . .
- Related to question # 2: What role did your wife Ellen have in the writing and revision of the book, especially given that she is an editor?
Almost none. I made a point of having her read the chapters about herself to make sure that nothing I said in there was out of bounds, and she read some of the chapters that were getting a lot of response in blog form—“Grief and the Village,” for instance—but other than that, she shied away from it. She lived in Germany and England when she was young, and those place, that time of her life was sacred for her. Even today she won’t read, say, Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island because she doesn’t want his conception of the place messing with her own.
Hong Kong is the same way: she had her experiences, her perceptions, I had mine. She’s happy with her memories, her conceptions of our time there. She has no interest in messing that up by wading into my twisted little universe.
- Did you have any particular models in mind as you wrote the book? Are there particular writers who you think have influenced you?
Bill Bryson is the obvious model: he’s funny, self-effacing, perceptive. His writing has complexity to it, and he’s not afraid to question his own first impressions. I like that.
Since completing the book, I’ve read Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence. I’m not saying that my book is anywhere near as good as his, but I like the fact that I saw him making some of the same moves I made.
Aside from travel memoir, though, I’d say I’m influenced by Augustine Burroughs and David Sedaris. I like their dry, self-effacing humor, and their willingness to not, in the next moment, shy from complex and sometimes very heavy emotions.
- You’re a poet as well as a short story writer, and you’ve also written about academic issues for academics. Given your background, did you face any particular challenges or make any particular discoveries as you were writing a piece of creative nonfiction? Did any of your other writing particularly affect this book’s character?
I haven’t written poetry for years, with good reason: I’m incapable of brevity. That said, one of the things I learned writing this book is that I prefer writing nonfiction to fiction. Fiction bends too much to my propensity for symmetry: my stories often feel too tidy to me, too neatly wrapped up.
Nonfiction, on the other hand, is by nature messy: you can’t tell where it’s going to go, where you’ll end up. I like that. Yes, I can shape a story some, flashing backwards and forwards, but in the end, what happens happens. I like that. I prefer that.
Beyond this, another thing I discovered—and I’m guessing this does go back to my efforts to be a poet—is how much I enjoy writing a really good sentence. By this I mean a sentence that: a) says what I want it to say; and b) is enjoyable to read, has a rhythm and flow to it, wrapping itself around the page like really good jazz improv or a snake.
Oh, and I forgot: another reason I didn’t become a poet is because I’m really bad at metaphors!
- What resources did you draw upon as you struggled during your year abroad? Any particular books?
None. I didn’t have time. Between work, family, and writing, I really didn’t read much. Terrible to say, I know, but over the course of that year I wrote around 1,000 pages. That’s a lot.
- Given that the book has been selected for the Lutheran Readers Project, what Lutheran/religious/spiritual elements of the book would you encourage readers to watch for?
I’m the son of a Lutheran minister, the son-in-law of a Lutheran minister; I went to a Lutheran college, I teach at a Lutheran college; I used to go a Lutheran Bible camp, then I was a counselor at that camp, and now I send my kids to that camp. I’m pretty damn Lutheran.
In Richard Neibuhr’s Christ and Culture, I’ve always read the chapter “Christ and Culture in Paradox,” as essentially a statement of what it means to be Lutheran: we are willing to hold two apparent opposites in our minds at the same time, recognizing the truth of both of them. For me, grace means that we’ve been forgiven, that no matter how badly we mess up, we’re still going to be okay. But nonetheless, we should continue to work hard, to be good, to make the world a better place. This second seems to contradict the first, but nonetheless, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t recognize not just the truth but the necessity of the latter.
This willingness to embrace paradox is, I’d like to think, essential to my writing: I hope that when I’m writing I’m able to show the complexity of things, the ways in which two traits that shouldn’t line up—say, my love of my son and my absolute anger at him at given moments—actually are part of the same whole.
So keep an eye out for that. And keep an eye out for those moments when faith—or something like it—comes into play. I don’t, by this, mean FAITH in all caps, some profound and overwhelming sense that the universe operates in a systematic way, that everything will be taken care of—life just seems too complicated for that to work, at least for me, at least most of the time. Really, I think, I’m talking about something more like resignation, those moments where everything we’ve tried hasn’t seemed to work, or everything we thought we knew turns out to be false, and we just have to let go and see how things unfold. I dunno: is it heresy to wonder if helplessness and faith are the same thing?
- As noted in the Discussion Questions, I believe that death is important to this book’s overall meaning. Any thoughts about this claim, or about death itself?
Part of getting old is learning to deal with death. This sounds obvious, I know, and it is, partly: as we get older, more and more of the people we know and love begin to die. When you’re young, death is rare and mostly distant: it happens to old people and seems in some ways not just normal but appropriate. But round about the time you turn forty, death starts creeping closer and taking people who are your own age. It’s terrifying, at first, and shocking. It just seems rude. But then, I suppose, we start to adjust to it, to accept it because we’re tired of being shocked and terrified and offended.
So that’s the obvious thing. The less obvious thing, I think, is how having kids changes our relationship with death: prior to the birth of my first son, I didn’t think about death unless it intruded itself into my world. The moment Will appeared, though, death became a constant companion: I didn’t want my son to die. Moreover, I didn’t want to die—I wanted to be there to see him grow up. Death suddenly became huge and hugely terrifying: it could take one or both of us at any given moment, through S.I.D.S, through a terrorist attack, through a fall down the stairs, through a car accident, through a fever that just wouldn’t go away.
That in mind, it’s appropriate, I suppose, that Hong Konged, begins with a death—two of them, really, one immediately upon our arrival and very close to our family; the other one at the beginning of the book even though it occurred half-way through our travels, and more distant from our family. Being abroad, particularly in a very foreign culture, and even more so during those moments in developing nations, highlights the peculiar fragility of our lives: everything around us looks new, and sharp, and unfamiliar. Traffic flows from another direction, the food tastes slightly peculiar, the heat is suffocating, the insects can kill. At home we’ve become accustomed to the dangers around us, we don’t even see them, we’re habituated. Abroad, though, our senses are sharpened and we notice everything, feel everything.
In some ways, then, I suppose our year abroad as a whole is a metaphor for overcoming our fear of death—or . . . for acclimating to its constant presence? For resigning ourselves to a more comfortable relationship with it? Finally, I think, what we discovered during our year was that the risks never go away but that the benefits always outweigh them anyhow. But I suppose that’s life anywhere, right?