Author Sujata Massey writes hapa mysteries set in Japan (thanks, tilo). Her Bengali father once lived in Cambridge — 
alert Jhumpa Lahiri!
Her mother is from Bonne, Switzerland. Her father is a Calcutta-born Bengali. They met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she grew up in Philadelphia and Berkeley… she spends each day writing about a half-Japanese, half-American antiques dealer cum detective living in the seedier streets of Tokyo. [Link]
Her books’ titles (‘pearl,’ ‘kimono,’ ‘samurai’) pitch Asian exoticism, which, to be fair, is common in mass-market mysteries. One booster disagrees, but the name of his bookstore undercuts his argument 
“Sujata really evokes a modern, quirky Japan that most Americans aren’t familiar with,” said Joe Guglielmelli, co-owner of The Black Orchid mystery bookstore in New York City. “She’s the only mystery writer out there who’s doing modern-day Japan…” [Link]Massey chose a Japanese father and an American mother for Shimura to go against the grain. So often, Massey explains, it’s the other way around: The wife is Asian and the husband is American. “Asian women are exoticized,” she sighs… [Link]
She writes about the baffling and often funny Engrish popular in Japan (Hinglish ain’t no slouch either):
She prefers collecting the details of Japanese life… a “Milk Pie Club” sweat shirt; a brand of chocolate pretzels called “Pickle”; the “That’s Donald!” slogan on another passenger’s clothes. [Link]
Massey also catalogues the ethnic pecking order in Tokyo:
While [protagonist Rei Shimura] strives to fit in with Japanese people, she also spends time examining the rigid hierarchy among Tokyo’s gaijin, as foreigners are called. At the top of the heap are international expatriate businessmen who earn high salaries and live in luxury apartments with central heating paid for by company expense accounts. Next down are the American military, who have a cost-of-living allowance that covers American groceries and a house far from Tokyo without central heating.
Below the military is Rei Shimura’s class: teachers, translators and bar workers from countries such as the U.S., Canada and Australia. These gaijin usually share tiny, freezing apartments, one or two rooms with a hot-plate kitchen and a small bathroom molded out of a single piece of plastic. They have some tough times, but do not suffer the discrimination shown to workers who have traveled from countries like the Philippines, Brazil and Iran to perform jobs that are considered too hard, dirty or dangerous for the local population… [Link]
She finds women in India better off than those in Japan. Presumably she’s comparing the middle class:
“What I found surprising [is that] the lives of women in India are better than the lives of women in Japan,” she says. Massey points to the increasing number of professors and professionals, particularly in math and science, on the subcontinent and then states that while “women in Japan have more sexual freedom at an earlier age–in terms of career advancement, women have a higher success rate in India…” [Link]
Massey on hapa hyphenasian:
… Rei Shimura is multicultural; born in California, she has a Japanese father and an American mother… “The most important similarity I share with my sleuth is confusion over ethnic identity. Rei would like to be treated like a Japanese native, but her manners aren’t quite right, and she speaks her mind too freely…” [Link]“I found it easier to be accepted in Japan than in India,” she says. It was largely a matter of expectations. Because she was obviously not Japanese, Massey says, she wasn’t expected to know all the social rules, so a breach or two could be forgiven… “I shared some of my neuroses with Rei,” Massey says. “Rei has a continual dilemma of trying to find the place in the world she’s most comfortable.” [Link]
No, you just have to be fair and thin
… her daughter “will never feel that you have to be blonde to be beautiful,” … thanks to Massey’s extensive Bollywood movie collection… [Link]… [the] overseas covers… offer a window into the way the different countries regard mixed heritage people. For example, while the U.S. and European covers usually feature a model who looks 100% Asian, the heroine on the Japanese versions looks almost totally Caucasian! [Link]
… when [Shimamura] was finally able to visit Japan after many months in exile, what was she looking forward to? “Shopping for bras for myself in the only country where A-cups ruled…” [Link]
Massey’s personal story is more adventurous than the average Johns Hopkins grad:
I was born in Sussex, England to a father from India and a mother from Germany… When I was five, my parents emigrated to the United States… I probably would have written twenty-inch-long articles about fashion and food forever had I not been courted by an attractive Navy medical officer who made an offer I couldn’t refuse: marriage and the chance to live abroad…
Within the first few weeks, I… leased a charming Japanese-style house in a hilly seaside town called Hayama… The Salaryman’s Wife was published on August 16, 1997… I write at my home in Baltimore, but spend about a month per year in Japan… I rush from Zen temples to antique stores and the bars of Roppongi fueled by green tea, rice cakes and the occasional vodka tonic. [Link]
She’s interested in writing about the subcontinent, but it’s a competitive genre:
Massey says she’s interested in writing about India, where she and her husband have adopted two children. “Just as Rei has discovered her family in Japan, I’ve started to discover my family in India as an adult,” Massey says. “I’m finding myself as excited about India as I was about Japan. Maybe the answer is to send Rei to India…” [Link]… Massey points to the recent interest in all things subcontinental and declares, “I think it’s actually more challenging to write a book about South Asia than about Japan.” Indeed, if you count the growing number of South Asian American writers and add the large amount of writers from the subcontinent who are also writing in English, “there’s a glut of talented people…” [Link]
Her next book, The Typhoon Lover, is out in October.
Here’s a piece from yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle which profiles another unique desi author, Mary Anne Mohanjraj.
Manish, that Engrish link is fantastic! I’m heading back out to Japan for a few months next year and I do enjoy collecting nutty Engrish whilst I’m there. Here’s Japan’s latest soy sauce-fuelled superhero (English version) KIKKOMAN! Fight Kikkoman fight!
Oh, and half-white-half-Bongs will rule the world. One mystery novel at a time, we’ll rule! Maybe.
You mean, Maybe. 🙂
I met a girl last week who’s half-Japanese, half-Bengali. What’s the word for that, Bong-man? 😉
A friend who’s obsessing over good fiction writers sent me this story the other day, because of my obsession with “multicolored babies,” she said. It’s about an infant who’s unnaturally coal black with blue eyes and blonde hair.
See you Sun night? Look for the blue-eyed sheitan…
I’ll try to make it Sunday…no promises! This whole ninja theme has given me an idea. Half Japanese half Bengali…no idea what the name for that is. I only just learnt the word hapa and its Hawaiian roots a few weeks ago.
ms – nicely done! I took a picture of a bar that looked a bit like ‘Maybe’ in Tokyo, simply called ‘FEET’.
I knew a woman in college who was Japanese and Punjabi. Her name was meaningful in both languages.
It’s about an infant who’s unnaturally coal black with blue eyes and blonde hair.
i have met black americans with dark skin who have blue eyes. the genes which code for different aspects of coloration are not totally linked, though there are some common factors involved (obviously). if you wanted to take a large population of africans and blonde swedes and “crossed” them and then had the hybrids just mate with themselves, you would almost certainly get that combination.
Nerd Kids of Porn Stars?
Dammit, who invented ethics? It’d be so cool to tamper with the human race. I’d love to do some breeding experiments. Did a little project on eugenics a while back, and while much of it is morally reprehensible, there are so many occasions when you think it would be fun to cross-breed humans to see what happens. Like pedigree dogs. I always liked that quote from Bulworth:
“All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep f*ckin’ everybody ’til they’re all the same color.”
Crude, but funny.
down with war! down with hate! we must all micegenate!
Vikram Arulimi,
I get teased by friends who say I can find the degrees-of-seperation between me and every Sri Lankan I meet within minutes…but this is nuts. I know her…in a not-family-but-still-poor-relation sort of way. Man, she was not a proper Sri Lankan girl, that’s fer sher.
I always hated it when desi girls would be so demure with their parents and aunties, and then get all kinds of freaky behind their backs. At least, I couldn’t pull it off very well..my lies were always found out. But Mary Ann was just shockingly open about things that would be extreme for any American family. quel scandale!! My mom was torn between thinking that maybe I wasn’t so bad, and fearing that mine were the gateway gestures that would lead down the path to open marriage, S&M and erotica..
Good to know she’s writing more straightforward fiction now. She’s really smart, and all the smut stuff seemed like a really prolonged adolescence after a while.
Author Sujata Massey writes hapa mysteries set in Japan (thanks, tilo).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow. Must. Find. Bookstore. Now.
That’s like calculated to stimulate Saheli’s brain.
(Yeah, I’m totally guilty of unabashed exotic Japanophilia. But it’s such a beautiful language! And country!)
Speaking of mixed-lit, I was given the unremarkable Caucasia years ago. Why are people so fascinated by mixed-race children? Growing up two of my very best friends were mixed-race as they call it now…but I never saw them as anything but typical Americans. If anything I probably saw myself as the other. Since they only mentioned it in passing, as in my mother/father is going to his/her Indian/Colombian/German/Arab thing todayÂ…I donÂ’t think they were pre-occupied with it either but then again we were young and there were more pressing concernsÂ…like boobies. It was a more innocent time, when pornographic material wasnÂ’t just a click away.
1) I guess the racial Tetris mixes have to play to resolve questions of identity can be interesting. But after a generation or two the exotic phenotype will probably be reabsorbed in the gene pool and the individuals culturally immersed in the dominant culture..so the individual mixed pairings will be “insignificant”…see the African-American community. 2) And you canÂ’t neglect the beauty factor. There’s this mystique that attached to mixed-race people…combining human beings of divergent phenotypes. One of my co-workers once wrote a line that read, “She had the blessing of having two parents of different races.” I laffed aloud reading that line but not for the reasons he thought. I’ve noticed very often how many unattractive people share this view aka Everybody just gotta keep f*ckin’ everybody ’til they’re all the same color. Many blame their unattractiveness on their race/homeogenity and desire setting it right for the next generation. Holmes, I like my color and I like it on other people. My belief has always been ‘Beauty begets Beauty’ (or in my case Beauty begot ‘Mere SuperKuteness’). I almost changed my mind when I had a convo with a lovely super-bright Bengali minx who possessed much more eloquence than I ever will. She convinced me beautiful Euroasians often came out of the pairings of unexceptional parents. But one is probably only attracted to EuroAsians, if you like Asian phenotypes in the first place. And most black-white pairings donÂ’t come out like Halle Berry. See The Montel Williams or Jenny Jones show. Or Rain Pryor. The same goes for mestizos, see the Christina show on Telemundo. 3) For alot of Browns, racial phenotypes and pardigms aren’t as fixed as they are to whites, blacks, asians. Ergo racially-mixed individuals are alot less fascinating. I got asked whether I was Indian, North African, Italian, Palestinian, Turkish, “Spanish” all in the last three weeks by complete strangers. You probably have similiar experiences. I have nuclear family members who get mistaken for different races from each other. Gotta lov our ancestors! Before I turned into a hermit, I used to get spoken to by negros and whities about the other as if I was one of them. Apke-style. 4) I love using the word race traitor, it’s fun. 5) Everyone should marry whoever they want. Unless youÂ’re doing mail-order bird style. And/or your partner doesnÂ’t speak the same language you do, or financial status/legal immigration is an issue Â…then youÂ’re just a tool.
I realize I’ve gone way off-tangent here. Off to see The Aristocrats tonite.
ah, but we are good-looking! and smart too!
my friend calls it BOG — the Biracial Occupation Government.
now that’s a government i could be part of.
peace
Razib – not to discount the surprises of genetics, but the point of the fiction story is that the ink-black blonde baby is a changeling. Perhaps someone would like to read a larger metaphor about mixed-race kids into that…? 😉
some self-fetishizing mixed-race people call it Hybrid Vigor
Yes Sid, goodlooking, smart…not to mention punctilious in work, meticulous in appearance and gregarious and lively in food habits, speech and customs. It’s interesting that mixes never were fuly accepted in Indian society. The only famous person mix I can think of in popular Indian culture is Helen. Part of it can certainly be attributed to Hindu caste restrictions. How much truth is there to the idea that British officers when they did marry native, it was to Muslim and lower caste Indian women?
Rumor has it that many Bollywood starlets of the 50’s and 60’s were mixed, because their fairness was highly desired, yet it was a topic never discussed because the “tained blood” of a mixie was NOT highly desired. As the story goes, many of them assumed Indian names in their careers, to cover their tracks and make their parentage untraceable.
and thus, Bong Breaker and I will never ascend to the highest heights of Bollywood stardom, despite remarkable dance skillz and being damn hot 🙁
Ha, speak for yourself love, I’m headed to the top!
Or I may just have a nap.
Well…Diya Mirza and Lisa Ray are both half Bong and half white. Katrina Kaif is half Indian and half English. Ben Kingsley is a proper Anglo-Indian, although admittedly not a Bollywood star, but very big nevertheless. Rhona Mitra (Boston Legal & the first Lara Croft), Melanie Sykes (model…yeah you won’t have heard of her outside the UK), Norah Jones, Navi Rawat (from SM favourite Numb3rs, 24, House of Sand and Fog), Saira Mohan (another model), Michelle Saram (half Singaporean half Indian) and Ayesha Kapur (Black).
I know my half Indian girls. They’re hot. What the hell went wrong with the boys?
*’Black’ meaning the film, not the race!
Like who? The only stars of yesteryear I know of obscuring their ancestry are Muslims.
poohbear- I knew you’d ask and shame on me, I don’t have the book with me… I’ll check tonight and get back to you
BB- not to say that half-indians aren’t there, but Diya Mirza is still a relative newcomer and has yet to step out of a supporting role situation (though she is very attractive), Lisa Ray has barely dipped her toe in the pool of leading roles (and if B/H is any indicator, she’s not so great an actress), and Katrina Kaif has barely 3 films under her belt (one of which was Boom and almost entirely discredits her, in my book 😉 )
I don’t know of many half-Indians these days taking a really substantial leading role.
hm, perhaps the opportunity is ripe for us to strike!
Don’t forget the opposite, part-desi actors who passed as white:
Photos.
Hi,
Quite a few actresses in Bollywood were Anglo-Indians in early 20th century. Also, Marlene Oberon (Hollywood) was originally from Calcutta and a mixed race but hid that fact.
Kush
And apparently it’s so double-topsecret-probabtion that no one knows about ’em! Thanks for the exhaustive list.
Hi,
On a quick search, one of the early Eurasian actress in Bollywood was Solchana. My quick research indicates quite a few from silent film era had a real hard time getting roles when the talkies came around because of language barriers.
http://www.upperstall.com/people/sulochana.html http://www.upperstall.com/hindisong1.html
Kush
More on Eurasian actresses in Bollywood
“The mythological films of the twenties and thirties, intended to produce visual icons of Hindu identity, usually had Eurasian or Anglo-Indian actresses playing the role of the heroines”
From http://www.sussex.ac.uk/development/archive/CDEnewsletters/spring96.html
More………Patience Cooper who was even successful in talkies
http://www.upperstall.com/people/pcooper.html
I am not a movie academic but a buff. I bet in 20-30 minutes, I can dig dozens of them.
Kush
Whew! Oh okay…I actually thought by some sweeping comments made on the thread that some of the actors we actually care about were mixes. Silent-era films are to classic 50s/60s Bollywood what the Wright Bros’ planes are to commercial jets.
what would be wrong with that?
You’re the one implying I said there’s something wrong with that.
It would have been noteworthy because it would have not been the norm. And since race and cultural experience is so important it would been interesting as they would have been playing Indian characters in the post-Independence era…yes I understand that’s what actors do..play other people. But they would have brought a whole different set of experiences to the table than Indian actors to a role.
Not that I think there’s something wrong with rooting for the home team. I think you miswrote when you said many of the classic starlets were of mixed origin. The post was probably written in haste as we all shoot from the hip/keyboard, but a casual reader would read your comment and get the impression that many of the actors from our parents’ generation were mixed, and that isn’t true at all. Not by a longshot.
no, I meant 50’s-60’s, golden era. That probably makes our parents still a bit young.
Sorry if it read strangely and implied otherwise.