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American Lives
This Fish Is Fowl: Essays of Being
In This Fish Is Fowl Xu Xi offers the transnational and feminist perspective of a contemporary “glocalized” American life. Xu’s quirky, darkly comic, and obsessively personal essays emerge from her diverse professional career as a writer, business executive, entrepreneur, and educator. From her origins in Hong Kong as an Indonesian of Chinese descent to her U.S. citizenship and multiple countries of residence, she writes her way around the globe.
Caring for her mother with Alzheimer’s in Hong Kong becomes the rhythmic accompaniment to an enforced, long-term, long-distance relationship with her partner and home in New York. In between Xu reflects on all her selves, which are defined by those myriad monikers of existence. As an author who began life as a novelist and fiction writer, she also considers the nature of genre, which snakes its way through these essays. In her linguistic trip across the comic tragedy that is globalism, she wonders about the mystery of humanity and the future of our world at this complicated and precarious moment in human existence.
This Fish Is Fowl is a twenty-first-century blend of the essayist traditions of both West and East. Xu’s acerbic, deft prose shows her to be a descendant of both Michel de Montaigne and Lu Xun, with influences from stepparent Jonathan Swift.
Caring for her mother with Alzheimer’s in Hong Kong becomes the rhythmic accompaniment to an enforced, long-term, long-distance relationship with her partner and home in New York. In between Xu reflects on all her selves, which are defined by those myriad monikers of existence. As an author who began life as a novelist and fiction writer, she also considers the nature of genre, which snakes its way through these essays. In her linguistic trip across the comic tragedy that is globalism, she wonders about the mystery of humanity and the future of our world at this complicated and precarious moment in human existence.
This Fish Is Fowl is a twenty-first-century blend of the essayist traditions of both West and East. Xu’s acerbic, deft prose shows her to be a descendant of both Michel de Montaigne and Lu Xun, with influences from stepparent Jonathan Swift.
- GenresEssaysNonfiction
320 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2019
5 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
About the author
Xu Xi
46 books42 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
XU XI is the author’s pinyin* short form name which is also her byline, but she is most assuredly not the following beings with the same pinyin name: a Chinese painter & sculptor; the author of tomes about acupuncture; a nationalist or a dissident-in-exile of any nation-state; a reality TV show host in some special economic zone or on YouTube; an Academic in any Intellectual Discipline, real or imagined, as capitalized by Pooh or some other friendly wild thing. She has however had three legal English names (as well as several best left unnamed of dubious legal quality) and strives assiduously not to acquire any others.
However, she really is the author of thirteen books, including five novels, six collections of short fiction & essays and most recently Insignificance: Hong Kong Stories, released June 15, 2018 by Signal 8 Press; the memoir Dear Hong Kong: An Elegy for a City (2017), as part of Penguin's Hong Kong series for the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China. She is also editor of four anthologies of Hong Kong writing in English. Forthcoming from Nebraska Univeristy Press in March 2019 is an essay collection This Fish Is Fowl.
A former Indonesian national, born and raised in Hong Kong, she eventually morphed into a U.S. citizen at the age of 33, having washed onto that distant shore across from Lady Liberty. These days, she splits time between New York and Asia (her sights set on the land of her former nationality, Indonesia) and still mourns the loss of her beloved writing retreat in Seacliff, on the South Island of New Zealand, where she hovered, joyously, for seven years.
*pinyin = transliteration for Mandarin Chinese or Putonghua (P), the official language of China although Xu is far more fluent in Cantonese (C), that being the people’s language of her birth city, Hong Kong.
XU XI is the author’s pinyin* short form name which is also her byline, but she is most assuredly not the following beings with the same pinyin name: a Chinese painter & sculptor; the author of tomes about acupuncture; a nationalist or a dissident-in-exile of any nation-state; a reality TV show host in some special economic zone or on YouTube; an Academic in any Intellectual Discipline, real or imagined, as capitalized by Pooh or some other friendly wild thing. She has however had three legal English names (as well as several best left unnamed of dubious legal quality) and strives assiduously not to acquire any others.
However, she really is the author of thirteen books, including five novels, six collections of short fiction & essays and most recently Insignificance: Hong Kong Stories, released June 15, 2018 by Signal 8 Press; the memoir Dear Hong Kong: An Elegy for a City (2017), as part of Penguin's Hong Kong series for the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China. She is also editor of four anthologies of Hong Kong writing in English. Forthcoming from Nebraska Univeristy Press in March 2019 is an essay collection This Fish Is Fowl.
A former Indonesian national, born and raised in Hong Kong, she eventually morphed into a U.S. citizen at the age of 33, having washed onto that distant shore across from Lady Liberty. These days, she splits time between New York and Asia (her sights set on the land of her former nationality, Indonesia) and still mourns the loss of her beloved writing retreat in Seacliff, on the South Island of New Zealand, where she hovered, joyously, for seven years.
*pinyin = transliteration for Mandarin Chinese or Putonghua (P), the official language of China although Xu is far more fluent in Cantonese (C), that being the people’s language of her birth city, Hong Kong.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 8, 2019
This collection of “essays on being”, according to the cover of this book, was a concept I didn’t fully understand when I jumped in, and at the end of it, I’m still not sure exactly what that means. The essays explore language, identity, travelling between two homes, family, and writing, but they didn’t quite land for me. The first series of essays were too vague for me, the years of caring for Xi’s ailing mother , for me, were too repetitive - one essay could have done what many did (I think these were pulled from various publications she had written for, and when all bunched together, the same story was told multiple ways), and then when she finally hit on writing and working, the essays would start somewhere and end up somewhere else. I couldn’t find the unifying theme, or really the themes at all. All of this on a backdrop of his odd need to minimize her wealth (international schools and studies, high paying corporate jobs, a family that owned multiple properties in HK and employed three full time nurses for her mother, her own multiple properties owned, and months spent travelling and writing with no income) - I’m over defensive privilege. I think her best writing was about sexuality and bucking social convention, and some of the gleanings about her mother would have been impactful in one edited essay. This book for me was neither terrible nor great, remarkable nor forgettable, but it was absolutely very long. Thank you net galley for this ARC, opinions are my own.
July 29, 2020
I think it's interesting that the author's name on Goodreads is incorrect, especially the emphasis she puts on her name in the final essay. The irony here is not lost on me; Xi's points about how living a global lifestyle can be decentralizing and confusing both to oneself and others are illustrated well in this unfortunate faux pas.
I've never read a book of essays before and was pleasantly surprised. This book reads like a confessional, or like Xu Xi was sitting next to me on my couch telling me about her life. Sometimes her writing felt a little too stream-of-consciousness but maybe that's what makes this type of writing unique.
The struggle for definition of an identity is something I can relate to, albeit for distinct reasons. While Xi's identity is almost too multiple for her (and others) to articulate in a coherent way, mine is simply too much of a tabula rasa for me to even describe. White bread, if you will. Seeing Xi write about the opposite problem, a multifaceted identity that, in being so complex defies definition, was an interesting exercise in empathy.
Aside from her commentaries on her complex racial and ethnic identity and sense of belonging in the world, her discussion about her mother's Alzheimer's was both tragic and accessible. I would highly recommend the second part of this book for anyone who is struggling with the disease.
Ultimately, I don't know that I will come back to this book, but this introduction to essay collections was certainly an enlightening one.
I've never read a book of essays before and was pleasantly surprised. This book reads like a confessional, or like Xu Xi was sitting next to me on my couch telling me about her life. Sometimes her writing felt a little too stream-of-consciousness but maybe that's what makes this type of writing unique.
The struggle for definition of an identity is something I can relate to, albeit for distinct reasons. While Xi's identity is almost too multiple for her (and others) to articulate in a coherent way, mine is simply too much of a tabula rasa for me to even describe. White bread, if you will. Seeing Xi write about the opposite problem, a multifaceted identity that, in being so complex defies definition, was an interesting exercise in empathy.
Aside from her commentaries on her complex racial and ethnic identity and sense of belonging in the world, her discussion about her mother's Alzheimer's was both tragic and accessible. I would highly recommend the second part of this book for anyone who is struggling with the disease.
Ultimately, I don't know that I will come back to this book, but this introduction to essay collections was certainly an enlightening one.
May 7, 2019
A collection of essays on a number of subjects that are deeply personal, thought provoking and moving. Xi Xu doesn't back away from sensitive subject matter like her mother's long struggle with Alzheimer's and the impact it had on her family.
The writer's dark sense of humour shines through in an entertaining as well as compelling fashion, and her prose is a genuine delight to read.
Was glad to have come across this title.
Recommended.
With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.
The writer's dark sense of humour shines through in an entertaining as well as compelling fashion, and her prose is a genuine delight to read.
Was glad to have come across this title.
Recommended.
With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.
November 16, 2019
Xu Xi's writing is reflective and insightful and draws deeply from the cultural wells of Hong Kong, Indonesia and North America, all of which she, or her close relatives, call home. But the challenges that bedevil her--how to balance romance, the life of a writer and teacher, and caring for her mother through year's of Alzheimer's disease--are universal and relatable, as we now say.
November 15, 2019
While this book is intriguing in the perspective it offers on the author's life as a multi-national person, the writing style is a little esoteric for me. I think I'll come back to it another time to see if it clicks then.
November 9, 2019
Some poignant stories blended with humor. Some of the repetition was too much.
June 26, 2020
Sharp, clear and honest. An exposé of the "sensibility of compromise" that has defined Hong Kong through the ages.
May 2, 2024
Good. Liked the writing a lot in the first half. Too Repetitive. Didn't want to finish it.
July 24, 2019
My full review can be found here!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews