The Loneliness of Only-ness (In Defense of Mora, Illy, and Neel)

Julia Izumi said in her playwright’s statement, “I was feeling like a lot of plays being produced were positing, ‘what if the consequence of being a marginalized voice or body in this country is the worst thing that happens to you?’ I wanted to write characters for whom that’s not the worst thing that happens — what if there are also other things on top of that, as often many people have? I wanted to give my characters room to be messy — which I don’t think is often granted particularly to Asian American women characters — as well as charismatic, strange, funny.”

Here is the official description from Playwrights Horizons: 

Arson. Affairs. Incest. Murder... are only the beginning of problems for the Whistler siblings. Mora’s gotta find her birth mother, Neel’s gotta find himself, and Illy’s gotta keep her piece of the sky... but the birds have other plans. Julia Izumi’s Regretfully, So the Birds Are is a mad-cap comedy that gleefully flips the human quest for self-discovery on its head.

And my description:

This play is a mad-cap comedy about three transnational, transracial Asian adoptees raised by clueless white parents that fuck them all up in different ways. And birds.

Illy, the youngest of the Whistler siblings is going to make a home in the sky.

ILLY
(sings.)
I, I bought the sky.
I bought a part of the sky And now it’s mine.
I, I bought the sky
And on my part of the sky I’ll make a home

Illy wants to live in the sky. So she's literally bought property in the sky. I don't think that's so far-fetched. She doesn't have roots. She doesn't know where she comes from. So she can't go back to the past. Her present is confusing. So naturally she gravitates towards something beyond the present and the past. The sky. The future. In the fight-or-flight trauma response, Illy has literally chosen flight. 

Neel, the middle Whistler sibling, questions if he has arms.  

NEEL
Isn’t it just insane that I had to learn something crucial about myself from someone else? Like, what else am I wrong about? Am I not 28? Is my favorite food not banana ice cream? Do I even have arms? Illy—could you list all my traits for me? Just off the top of your head. What you can think of? Right now. List them, please, Illy, please, please, please, pretty Illy, pretty please, pretty, pretty—

Neel doesn't know who he is, so he's developed a codependent pattern of asking others who he is and trying to determine his identity from external markers. He doesn’t have a birth story or a country of origin. If his trauma response is fight or flight, he is frozen and developmentally stuck in the past. He has no history he can attach to, doesn't have a present he can rely on, so he's asking who am I? Please tell me who I am. Do you know who I am? Do I know who I am?  

Mora, the oldest Whistler sibling, has a great plan to find her birth mother.

MORA
I’ve got this great plan to find my birth mother!
I’m gonna walk up to every person in Cambodia.
And I’m gonna say,
“Hi. I’m sorry to interrupt your day.
But I was wondering.
Did you give up a baby girl for adoption thirty years ago?”

MORA
I’m kind of loud?
And emotional.
And...some people say I’m...and I, too, would, say I’m a— Oh! I’m an older sister. That’s important.
I mean I don’t really act like one but I...I am one.

Mora is the classic transracial, transnational AAPI adoptee on a quest to find her birth mother because she thinks that will fix her.  This will heal the wound. This will undo the trauma. This is the prototypical abandoned transracial, transnational AAPI adoptee fantasy / delusion. 

When tasked with the honor to write a personal reflection on Julia Izumi’s marvelous and hilarious play, I immediately said yes, because a) it was paid b) I would get to see the play! c) I knew the play was about transracial AAPI adoptees and that it was directed by an adopted Korean (like me) and written by an AAPI playwright -- so yes, of course I’m the correct artist to write an inspired artistic response to a play about adoptees. 

I saw the play twice. I laughed. A lot. I cried. A lot. Twice. It was surprising and empathic and absurd and wonderful and soulful. Of all the twists and turns in the play, the one I didn’t see coming was how the predominantly white audience (on the nights I saw the play) would react. They were aghast and in shock at these characters. “So quirky! So weird!” I overheard them saying after the show. I overheard them saying after the show and continued to remark about how absurd some of the themes were and how bizarre the characters were and I thought, “Hmmm. F**k you! This is all really accurate. Being adopted is strange and messy. Being a transracial Asian adoptee in America is downright bizarre!”

This play is what it feels like to exist in a constant, endless identity crisis. I wanted to hug Illy, Neel and Morra tightly and tell them it’s not their fault. I can’t do that so I wrote a piece inspired by each of their specific adoption trauma responses.  

FOR MORA 

PART 1  (THE LONELINESS OF ONLY-NESS)

Picture this. An Asian woman. Who has no idea how to use chopsticks. What does she do? Does she learn from YouTube? Does she study Asian identifying people around her? Should her hands come downloaded with the ability to use chopsticks from her Asian identifying DNA? Is she self-loathing if she doesn't use chopsticks and eats Chinese noodles (I don't know if she's Chinese or not, I just know she's Asian identifying, which the majority of Americans default to Chinese)? Do chopsticks even matter? Will she cause a scene at said Chinese restaurant if she asks for a fork and eats with her AAPI identifying and caucasian identifying friends at a Chinese banquet where people assume she is in fact Chinese but she's Korean - ish?

Koreans use chopsticks also. Maybe she’s Korean. But we don't really picture Koreans when we think “Asian woman.” When we say Korean we imagine Kim Jong Un or the Kpop group BlackPink or the movie Parasite. We think of Koreans as being trendy, or dictators, or trendy dictators like those who have lower-class people working for them, and who maybe also hide people in the basement, because classism in Korea is seemingly insurmountable.

When I say Korean American woman, what do you imagine? I hope you think of Margaret Cho or Chloe Kim or fill in the ________________(with your favorite Korean American woman here).  Now imagine Margaret or Chloe or your fave KA woman at a Chinese banquet with a ton of people. Everyone is using chopsticks. E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E!  The three year-old niece of the bride (see, banquet) is using chopsticks to eat her noodles. The white colleagues of the banker groom are using chopsticks. The former college roommates of both parties all use chopsticks with their spouses and children. (I'll leave it to you here to imagine a *diverse group of people eating a large Chinese feast at a round table all eating noodles with chopsticks*†.) Now imagine the ONE Asian woman in whatever table you've imagined, with x, y, z people staring at their noodles, staring at the server, who just politely said something in Chinese to the woman. (Was it Mandarin? Was it Cantonese? How the f**k would she know? SHE'S NOT CHINESE!!!!) Or is she? She doesn't know because she's adopted and has not done a 23andMe test, but she does, however, "admit" to really loving pandas and that waving good luck cat. (But who the f**k doesn't love adorable, clumsy, giant fluffy pandas and smiling cats who wave and supposedly give you good f**king luck?)

Do you feel it? The heart pounding. The heat rising. The dan dan noodles calling. (Are they dan dan noodles? She doesn't know but everyone loves gd dan dan noodles and that must be it because wouldn't one have the most delicious Chinese noodles at a celebratory Chinese banquet?) You're not some gd Chinese noodle EXPERT!  You just like to eat noodles like everybody else, even if you are mostly gluten free and these are probably made of white flour but you can't not eat the noodles that EVERYONE is eating that you are NOT eating because you are wearing your full Asian costume, and by costume I mean you are Asian with a monolid (what is that you say? Ask the Internet! Also, come back to me with which noodles are FUN!)  LOL, but seriously.  Back to you. You have dark blackish hair, golden poreless skin, the color that white women have spray tanned onto themselves to look "healthier" (pats oneself on back for having the color of "healthy" spray tanned white woman skin)  and you have high cheekbones and a face that looks roughly ten years younger than your caucasian peers (WHERE IS THE LIE?!) but you CANNOT use chopsticks PROPERLY! The people from Caucasia sitting next to you are using chopsticks EXPERTLY and talking about the ginger they can taste. They LOOOOOOVE ginger. They make fresh ginger tea all of the time and they leave the peel on. Do you? Do you looooooove ginger? They just LOOOOOVE ginger tea. Fuck you white people! Of course I love ginger!

You pick up the chopsticks.  The same chopsticks the waiter handed you when he didn't ask if you wanted a fork like he asked the "others." (Choose your own "others" in this scenario so I don't have to describe an entire table of people. Just like when people use the word “diverse” and you fill in the____ .) THE CHOPSTICKS that have haunted you your entire life because you know you don't use them correctly and you don't want to draw attention to yourself by using a fork. 

You pick up the chopsticks. You start to eat the noodles.

The bride's cousin stops by the table. She is an Asian woman. An Asian American woman.  She says, "Oh you hold your chopsticks like a pencil.  That's so much harder."

You say,  "HAHA, my parents are white. I learned from the chopsticks package how to use them." 

You start using a fork because you are hungry. Some people at your table have already moved on to a fork. You think about pandas and good luck cats and wonder if you're going to have good luck because you can wave your arm and smile at the same time.  

She says, "Here, let me show you how to eat with chopsticks so it's not so hard."  You say, "thank you, but it's too late." 

FOR NEEL

PART 2 (FUN GAME!)

A fun game! Let's play!

What if your life was fill in the ____?

Let's play a game. Imagine your mother. Think of a few words that describe her.  

Write them here 1 _______.  2_______.  3_______.

Now imagine your father.

What are three words that would describe him?

Write them here 1 _______.  2_______.  3_______.

Ok, now if you have a sibling or a cousin describe three things you have in common

(can include physical traits, beliefs, hobbies, interests, sports teams, food, animals)

1 _______.  2_______.  3_______.

If no thoughts come to mind, here are some adjectives for each category:

Tall, Short, Funny, Kind, Adventurous, Prankster, "" Team Fan,  Harry Potter, Sushi, Fried chicken,

Bowling, Cat Lover, Doctor, Lawyer, Paralegal, Fair, Honest, Gambler, Hunter, Wise, Soothing, Beautiful, 

Great Cook, Grill Master, Cold, 

Now describe your family

My family, the "                    ", are  1 _______.  2_______.  3_______.

A favorite family tradition is _________

Every holiday we _________

People say I get "                     " from my maternal side

People say I get "                     " from my paternal side

All of Neel’s answers would be _____________. 

FOR ILLY

PART 3 (FINIS)

What about the sky? Humans need narratives. It’s how we go from point a to point b, or at least the story behind why we go or even want to go or need to go from point a to point b.

But what if there is no point a or point b.

What if they are just points with no narrative, no start, no finish, no objective, no context, no story.

Then what? How do you get point a to point b?

You fill in the ________________. The sky’s the limit.

NOTES

†Diverse - Imagine a diverse table. What does that even mean, you say? Exactly.

Featuring the author's own family photo—as a mirror, if you will:

Deborah S. Craig (actor, singer, writer) is best known for creating the role of Marcy Park in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Based on her own overachieving childhood, she received a Drama Desk Award and the distinction of creating the first Korean American character on Broadway.  She can currently be streamed in the movies “Meet Cute” on Peacock and “Me Time” on Netflix and in lots of TV shows. Miss Craig was the first/writer actor to be accepted into the Ma-Yi Writers Lab. She is a transracial, transnational adoptee from South Korea and a self-taught Asian. IG: @thedeborahscraig