美国国家公共电台 NPR Navigating Culture And Crushes In 'Frankly In Love'

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

David Yoon's debut¹ novel has set off commotion², excitement and a movie option. It's "Frankly³ In Love," in which we meet Frank Li, a high school senior and self-described nerd who, with his best friend Q, plays video games, watches obscure movies, gets high SAT scores, doesn't talk about girls - except, of course, when they do, which is a lot.

Frank's parents are Korean. He doesn't like the hyphen before his own American. He develops what I'll call age-appropriate feelings for a Brit, a girl in his calculus⁴ class. But his parents say Frank should only get crushes and go out with Korean girls. What's Frank to do?

David Yoon joins us from NPR West. Thanks so much for being with us.

DAVID YOON: Thank you so much for having me.

SIMON: And how much is this story drawn⁵ from your own life?

YOON: The inspiration came from when I had - when I became a parent myself. I don't know about you, but when I had my daughter, all these random⁶ memories of my own childhood came kind of flooding back.

SIMON: Sure.

YOON: And one of them was when I was in high school, my parents were pretty set on having me only date Korean girls. And so as a result, I would wind up hiding my entire love life from them, which in hindsight, it's kind of a strange thing to do, is hide something so important from people who are so important in your life.

SIMON: Yeah. Frank's parents own and run a store. They're in Southern California. They work hard and love him, but (laughter) they're tough on him, aren't they?

YOON: They are. And they come from that very classic immigrant mentality⁷, where they do all the dirty work so that their kids should never have to. And part of that deal is the kid's job is to hunker down and study and kind of not mess around too much. They also have ideas about maintaining sort of this concept of Korea that they brought to America. And that burden falls on Frank's shoulders.

SIMON: Yeah. His sister has been cast out of the family, essentially⁸, hasn't she? Goes to Harvard, but gets cast out of the family.

YOON: Right, yeah, yeah. And his sister is sort of a cautionary tale for Frank because on paper, she did everything right. You know, she studied. She got into the best school.

SIMON: Winds up as a venture capitalist, I believe.

YOON: Venture capitalist, yeah. So she's in an extremely well-paying professional job. She ticks all the boxes, except she marries a black man. And for that reason alone, she is disowned by the family.

SIMON: If white parents did that, we would have no compunction about calling them racist⁹.

YOON: That's very true, yes. And it's very easy to call Frank's parents racist. And one of my missions in writing this book was to really write from a point of view of acceptance and understanding because it would have been very easy for Frank to be the angry teenager who just kind of shakes his fist at the sky and says my parents are racists.

But if you really look at your parents - Frank really looks as his parents as human beings instead of capital-M Mom and capital-D Dad. Then he'll see that they're people who came from a very ethnically¹⁰ homogenous¹¹ country with extremely ethnically rooted ideas of identity. And they come to this country, America. And we're all about diversity and multiculturalism¹², or at least we're trying our darndest. And for them, you know, what was that culture shock like? And how did they navigate¹³ this upside-down concept for them that anyone from anywhere could come here and become American because there's no such notion in Korea.

SIMON: Without giving away too much, Frank has a childhood friend, Joy, who's in a situation similar to his. So they kind of hatch a plan, don't they?

YOON: They do, yeah. It's OK. You're not really spoiling anything because the fake dating troupe¹⁴, it's a time-honored tradition in rom-coms. And so essentially, you know, Frank's got - he's got these parents. And his friend Joy has her parents, who are also kind of very traditional. And so they team up to fake date each other so that they can see whoever they want behind their parents' backs. What could possibly go wrong, right?

SIMON: I can't imagine. Oh, wait...

YOON: I know (laughter).

SIMON: ...I've read the book. A number of scenes in this book show, even in polyglot¹⁵ Southern California, just because of the way he looks, Frank is often expected to be some kind of ambassador of Korean culture.

YOON: Yeah. There's one scene in particular where Frank is with his white girlfriend's parents, and he's taking them out to - or they just sort of find themselves at a Korean restaurant. So as you'd expect, they start peppering him with all these questions like what is this, what am I eating, what is this made out of. And Frank feels this intense pressure to be the expert, to be the Korean food tour guide.

And one thing that I learned as I was writing this scene was that Frank - at some point, he runs out of answers. And so he's forced to say the words I don't know. And I myself have a hard time saying I don't know when I'm confronted with this expectation of myself to be somewhat of a Korean expert, you know? And I love those words, I don't know. They say to me and they say to Frank you know what? You don't have to be an expert in everything Korean.

And it never really occurred to me until I wrote this book that I had to call - I've been calling myself Korean American my whole life. Why don't we call it the other way around? Why don't we say an American of Korean descent? There's always this qualification that I am Korean first and American second. Whereas, you know, the white majority in this country, they don't have to deal with that kind of thing. They just call themselves Americans.

SIMON: Recognizing that you have a whole other career as an artist - in fact, you're an illustrator of your wife's great books - my God, such success with your first YA novel. You're going to continue down this path?

YOON: Oh, my gosh, it's been an absolute dream come true. I was there, I mean, of course, every step of the way for my wife's success, too. And the community in YA is - it's just so supportive. And I like to say they keep the flame. They hold the light. They keep hope alive. And they're very relentlessly¹⁶ positive, relentlessly understanding kind of empathetic group of people. So I'm really happy to join their ranks. And yeah, I'm actually going to continue down this path. I have some other things in the work, but I am a proud YA author for sure.

SIMON: David Yoon, his novel, "Frankly In Love." Thank you so much for being with us.

YOON: Thank you so much for having me.

1 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

2 commotion   

n.骚动，动乱

参考例句：

• They made a commotion by yelling at each other in the theatre.他们在剧院里相互争吵，引起了一阵骚乱。
• Suddenly the whole street was in commotion.突然间，整条街道变得一片混乱。

3 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

4 calculus   

n.微积分；结石

参考例句：

• This is a problem where calculus won't help at all.对于这一题，微积分一点也用不上。
• After studying differential calculus you will be able to solve these mathematical problems.学了微积分之后，你们就能够解这些数学题了。

5 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

6 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

7 mentality   

n.心理，思想，脑力

参考例句：

• He has many years'experience of the criminal mentality.他研究犯罪心理有多年经验。
• Running a business requires a very different mentality from being a salaried employee.经营企业所要求具备的心态和上班族的心态截然不同。

8 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

9 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

10 ethnically   

adv.人种上，民族上

参考例句：

• Ethnically, the Yuan Empire comprised most of modern China's ethnic groups. 元朝的民族成分包括现今中国绝大多数民族。 来自汉英非文学 - 白皮书
• Russia is ethnically relatively homogeneous. 俄罗斯是个民族成分相对单一的国家。 来自辞典例句

11 homogenous   

adj.同类的，同质的，纯系的

参考例句：

• Japan is a wealthy,homogenous,developed nation with a stable political system.日本是一个富裕的同质型发达国家，政治体制稳定。
• My family is very homogenous and happy.我们这个家庭很和睦很幸福。

12 multiculturalism   

n.多元文化

参考例句：

• Switzerland is well known for cheese fondue, penguin parades and its multiculturalism. 瑞士一向以芝士火锅，企鹅游行和多元文化等特色闻名于世。
• That may be one reason why multiculturalism came easily to it. 这也是多元文化容易适应发展的原因之一。

13 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

14 troupe   

n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团

参考例句：

• The art troupe is always on the move in frontier guards.文工团常年在边防部队流动。
• The troupe produced a new play last night.剧团昨晚上演了一部新剧。

15 polyglot   

adj.通晓数种语言的；n.通晓多种语言的人

参考例句：

• He was a round old man with a guttural,polyglot accent.他是一位肥胖的老人,讲话时带有多种语言混合的多喉音的声调。
• Thanks to his polyglot aptitude,he made rapid progress.由于他有学习语言的天才，他学习的进度很快。

16 relentlessly   

adv.不屈不挠地；残酷地；不间断

参考例句：

• The African sun beat relentlessly down on his aching head. 非洲的太阳无情地照射在他那发痛的头上。
• He pursued her relentlessly, refusing to take 'no' for an answer. 他锲而不舍地追求她，拒不接受“不”的回答。