Interview with Tiffany Hsieh, Author of Pork Fluff

Natalie Gardner: Food obviously plays a major role in this collection. Can you tell me a little bit  about the title, Pork Fluff, and its connection to the poem of the same name? 

Tiffany Hsieh: Growing up in Taiwan, pork fluff was something that I’d ask for at mealtime if I  didn’t like the food on the table, either because they were grown-up foods like bitter melon or  because I was being picky. It was the one thing that made everything taste instantly better. Just  nothing but pork fluff over steamed rice is a classic, or if my mother wanted me to eat something I  didn’t like, pork fluff made it easier to swallow. 

Later, after we moved to North America, I remember being so exhilarated to see pork fluff on the  shelves of our local Asian supermarkets. It made me feel like everything was going to be okay, that  I could always reach for a bag of pork fluff and face what’s in front of me. I think that reassurance  you get from your childhood comfort food doesn’t change when you get older, lose a spouse, or  when your doctor wants you to eat boiled broccoli for breakfast every morning. 

NG: One of my favorite poems in this collection is also a food poem, “Bok Choy Love.” Can you  tell me about the story behind this poem? And the symbolism of certain foods in general? 

TH: There was a time when driving to and from work took me about an hour each way, sometimes  longer, and I hated every minute of it. I often found myself thinking about how I can make better  use of this time than just sitting in traffic and listening to the radio or a CD. I’ve never liked the  idea of listening to an audiobook—it makes me feel like I’m cheating the book for some reason— and so I ended up spending a lot of time just sitting in the car and thinking about what To do and  about life in general. In fact, the idea for this poem probably came from one of those times that I sat  in traffic feeling annoyed and helpless. 

In terms of symbolism of certain foods, I think that different foods can mean different things for  different people and at different times. For example, bok choy is a very ordinary leafy Asian  vegetable that you can find in grocery stores across North America. It’s definitely not one of my  favorite Asian vegetables, not even in the top five or top ten. So, at times, bok choy can be this  Asian stereotype for me. But in other times, it can simply be the only Asian vegetable you can buy  if you want to have something Asian and leafy. It just depends. 

NG: Can you comment on how the collection is structured? I got the sense that events were  progressing chronologically, to some extent, but was there any narrative in particular you were  attempting to convey through the structure? 

TH: That is actually the most challenging aspect of putting this collection together for me! I  struggled with it quite a bit because most of the poems in this book were written individually over a  few years. Some make sense chronologically, others don’t, and I went back and forth on a number  of different structures before settling on this one. I really owe it to my editor, Rita Mookerjee, who  came up with the brilliant idea to order the book into five sections, with each one progressing in its  own grouping while moving the collection forward as a whole.

NG: “Middle America” seems to voice the complicated feelings associated with being a member of  the Asian diaspora. I thought the lines “Always here, not there. Always there, not here” were  particularly evocative of this feeling. How has this feeling of displacement informed your writing? 

TH: Well, I think it has made me question a lot about my writing every time I sit down to write.  More and more, I see displacement as a positive rather than a negative. You are in the middle of  two very different things. You can go left and you can go right. Or you can draw a line between the  two and walk in the middle. So, for me, all these different things come into play when I write,  whether consciously or not, whether I like it or not. It’s the reality of my life and I try to work with  it rather than against it. 

NG: In “Arigatou, Sayonara” you discuss the Japanese occupation of Taiwan and its complicated  legacy. What are the roles of ethnicity and colonization in this collection? 

TH: I think that what the Japanese occupation did to Taiwan would probably make for a very  interesting and fascinating study. I mean, it definitely colored many aspects of life in Taiwan, or at  least it did in my family because my grandparents lived through the occupation. I remember my  mother talking about going to a clothing store that sold exclusively Japanese imports the way  people talk about buying Chanel or Gucci. If we went to a Japanese restaurant for a meal, it was  considered better than a steak house. But I also have vivid memories of my grandfather cursing  about how cruel Japanese people could be while he watched his beloved Japanese soap opera on  TV. 

NG: “Fried Chicken,” “Insect Killers,” and “Marching Band” all seem to use the same characters.  How are these poems related, and what were you trying to achieve with them? 

TH: These three poems started out as an experiment in giving people names and seeing how that  might change the writing or the direction of the piece. I started out with one name, Fred, and it led  to another and I ended up with four names. So I made Fred, Kim, Jerry, and Jenny a family. From  there, I thought it’d be fun to write a series of interconnected poems, like linked stories. I hope to  write more about these characters in the future. 

NG: The poems “Legs and Pits” and “Lipstick” seem to be concerned with your own relationship  to femininity. How has this relationship informed your writing? 

TH: Actually, I didn’t write either with femininity in mind, but you are right in that the speaker in  “Legs and Pits” is basically telling his sister how to be a girl in the new country, and it’s a list of  things he has observed. So, it’s coming from a masculine lens and it’s one-sided. On the other hand,  the speaker in “Lipstick” is reflecting on an experience that’s probably not that uncommon, but she  was a newcomer when it happened and her memory of how she thought she was perceived by  others was what mattered more to her than the actual incident. 

NG: Family also comes up a lot in this collection. How do familial relationships inform other  themes within this collection, and what role do these relationships play within it? 

TH: In some ways, you can say that this collection is about families and immigrant families. When  a family moves to a new country, I think people become closer to one another. You are on the same  boat together, and that sink-or-swim mentality can haunt you in the beginning. If one person jumps,  the whole family falls apart. So you stick together for as long as you can.

NG: Can you tell me more about “that bad crab feeling” in “The Common Trap?” How has this  sympathy for things that no one else wants (like the last slice of bread) informed your writing? TH: Hmm, perhaps I tend to write about things that no one cares about? Joking aside, though, I  think it’s made me more observant as a writer because I might be paying attention to something that  most people wouldn’t think twice about it.

Order your copy of Pork Fluff today!

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Natalie Gardner is a trans writer hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee. She is currently pursuing a BA in English with a minor in philosophy from the University of Tennessee. She loves transgressive fiction, hiking, and schlocky, B-tier horror movies. When she isn’t working, you can find her haunting the coffee shops of Fort Sanders and DIY shows across East Tennessee. Her work in the field of linguistics can be found in Feedback Review in Second Language.