Diaspora diaries
Her petite frame, round eyes, long dark hair and tightly fitting cheongsam draw attention on the streets of New York, but it's those who shake hands with Mingmei Yip who discover just how delicate she is. Her stunningly long, slim fingers can only have been created to produce beauty.
And they do. When they fiddle the guqin, a traditional Chinese instrument, music flows; when they hold a brush, calligraphy sweeps across paper; and when they run over the keyboard of a computer, they write novels.
Song of the Silk Road, Yip's third novel - her successful debut, Peach Blossom Pavilion, was published in 2008 - is a story of love between a Chinese girl and a mixed-race boy that unfolds in the treacherous Taklimakan Desert. The tale is based on a dream the author had - a common source of her inspiration.
Born in Hong Kong to a father who loved music but was addicted to gambling and a mother who loved painting but was consumed with worry, Yip was taught piano, painting and calligraphy as a child, but that failed to charm some members of the family.
When her maternal grandmother, a Chinese-Vietnamese who owned a Pepsi-Cola factory in Vietnam, visited Hong Kong, she showed a clear preference for Yip's brother.
'She thought that as a girl I was 'money losing merchandise',' says Yip, who rebelled in her own way. 'I sat in a chair staring out of the window without speaking a word for a whole day and my grandmother even asked my mother whether I was retarded.'
The habit of immersing herself in imaginary worlds lasted throughout her school days.
'I was not very responsive to the teachers. I was always daydreaming,' she says.
By the time Yip was 15, her father had gambled away the family's savings. To put food on the table, Yip started to teach piano, and her mother travelled to Vietnam, to ask for help from her own, rich mother. Unfortunately, it was a case of bad timing; the communists took over the country soon after she arrived and confiscated the factory. Mingmei's mother and grandmother were sent to a labour camp. Yip would not see her mother for eight years.
During this period, she kept a diary in which she recorded her fears, confusion and how much she missed her mother. This cathartic exercise helped develop her writing and Yip became a published author before her 16th birthday, more than 30 years ago.
'It was a short art-review piece, written in Chinese and published by a Chinese-language paper. I got HK$10,' says Yip.
During her 20s, Yip's poetry was published frequently in the Overseas Chinese Daily and attracted a loyal fan base.
After winning a scholarship to study at the Paris-Sorbonne University, where she earned a PhD in ethnomusicology, she returned to Hong Kong and took up faculty positions at the Chinese University and Baptist University.
After marrying an American endocrinologist she had met at a conference in Taiwan, Yip relocated to the United States in 1992. She says the move 'forced' her to become a novelist.
'We lived in Cleveland then and it was very hard for me to find a job teaching Chinese music. I had nothing else to do, so I decided to pick up writing,' says Yip.
She spent 15 years training herself to write in English, attending workshops and reading books.
Keeping all her arts alive, Yip performs on the guqin regularly and offers calligraphy training to the children of Manhattan, where she now lives.
If there is one thing she can't do so well, though, it is cook.
'My husband is a vegetarian. He had hoped that I would cook for him. I tried, but it was a disaster.'
Maybe those slender fingers are too delicate for that.
