Harry Potter & The Conditions in China, Part II

In last week’s post I grappled with the choice to write fiction or nonfiction. After I tried writing a novel and, to my abject dismay, realized that I was no J.K. Rowling, I turned my back on the fiction world and turned to historical nonfiction. History, after all, already had the stories. I just needed to pluck them from the lowest branch I could find!

This week, my problem is trying to hone history down into a story that makes sense. History, it turns out, isn’t just a bunch of little happenings or events that randomly take place. Ah Toy didn’t see a boat on the Hong Kong harbor one day, say, “Ah, what the hell!” and ship herself to California. Twists, turns, and events big and small both pushed and pulled Ah Toy onto that ship bound for Gold Mountain. She was a part of something bigger.

History is full of stories, and they’re more interconnected than we think at first. Ah Toy wouldn’t have arrived on the golden shore if it weren’t for the discovery of gold, which was discovered on land worked by Mormons, who were in California because of religious persecution, which was based on countercultural beliefs, and so on. Meanwhile, the discovery of gold was also made possible by the Mexican American War, which was waged because of an idea called Manifest Destiny, which is rooted in an ideology of racial superiority, and so on. For your next family game night, may I suggest a few rounds of Six Historical Degrees of Kevin Bacon?

The problem is, where to begin the story? I don’t yet know the precise reasons why Ah Toy skipped country and crossed the ocean; although, when we look at Chinese immigration on a larger scale in the 1840s and ‘50s, there were some major “push” and “pull” factors involved. For example:

Push: These are the conditions that pushed people out of China. It starts with the Qing, also called the Manchu, who were the ruling family in China and had been for roughly 300 years. Their time was drawing to a close because of deeply rooted corruption, which, in combination with the elements of nature, led to a series of devastating floods and famines. Upset with all this, the Chinese people rose up and led a series of even more devastating rebellions, most notably the Taiping Rebellion which killed millions.

Pull: These are the conditions that pulled people away from China, and I already listed quite a few of them above: the gold, mostly, but also the chance for more freedom (political and economic) and to join other Chinese immigrants who had already left and started life over in a new country.

All of this is fascinating for me and I could go on and on, both in the researching and the writing. This is a problem. What’s to stop me from reading a book about the dynasty before the Qing, or from reading the letters from disaffected Mormon leaders as they’re driven west? I would never get this book to print! And even if I did, I would lose too many readers. No one wants to read a manuscript about ancient Chinese history (or Joseph Smith’s golden plates) when I’ve advertised a story about Ah Toy and the gold rush. The trick is to give enough background information to readers so they know Ah Toy didn’t act in a vacuum, but not to give too much where I’ve lost the original story. As I’m researching and writing, I’ll be experiencing my own “pushes” and “pulls” to strike that balance.

As I said last week, maybe J.K. Rowling was on to something when she eschewed nonfiction for the wonderful world of Hogwarts!