Author’s Inspiration ~ Iris Yang
Writing changed my life.
I was
a very negative person in an unhappy marriage, and
I tried hard to change the situation. One book I read said that if you keep
writing down five positive things a day, in twenty-one days you can change your
negative thoughts. Being desperate, I was willing to try anything.
So I
jotted down five positive things a day. It started with words or simple phrases. In time, words became
sentences; sentences turned into paragraphs; paragraphs grew into pages. All
positive. I didn’t change in twenty-one days. It took me two years. But the end
result is remarkable. I’m no longer a negative person. This happened fifteen
years ago, so it is a lasting transformation.
The side effects of this practice? I started writing short
stories, then novels.
Wings of a Flying Tiger is my first full-length novel. Its sequel, Will of a Tiger, has also been accepted
by publication by Open Books.
It is a work of
fiction. But to me, a Chinese-American, it is also personal. I was born and
raised in China. My mother and grandma had lived in Nanking and escaped from
the city just days before the notorious Nanking Massacre
when the Japanese soldiers slaughtered 300,000 innocent Chinese and raped
20,000 women in six weeks. Both my mother's
and father’s families fled to Chungking, where Japanese frequently bombed the
wartime capital. My father told me the repulsive smell of burning flesh, and as
a young child, he had nightmares about the raids for several years. A good
friend’s father drowned when Japanese attacked his boat; even unable to swim,
he jumped into a river to avoid being blasted. A Japanese friend sincerely
apologized for the atrocities her fellow countrymen had committed. She knew a
former soldier who forced naked Chinese women to
march with them to bring up their morale.
China was an
isolated country while I was growing up. We were told that the Americans were
“devils” and the American soldiers were crude and coward. I didn’t read
anything about the Flying Tigers until I came to the US as a graduate student.
I was touched once I learned the truth. And the more I read, the more I was touched. I wanted to thank the Flying Tigers.
What is a better way to show my gratitude than writing a book about them?
The story of the
Flying Tigers, a group of American volunteer pilots who helped China fight
Japan in WWII, has been a fascinating and enduring topic for over seventy
years. Most of the books, though, were nonfiction written from the perspective
of the pilots. This novel is a rescue story from the points of view of both the
airman and the Chinese who saved him.
As a Chinese, I’m thankful
for the Flying Tigers’ bravery and
sacrifice; without their help, the course of the Chinese history might have
been changed, my family might not have survived, and I might not have existed.
As a U.S. citizen,
I’m honored to write a book about the American heroes. It’s a privilege. A
duty.
Wings of a Flying Tiger
In the summer of 1942, Danny
Hardy bails out of his fighter plane into a remote region of western China.
With multiple injuries, malaria, and Japanese troops searching for him, the
American pilot’s odds of survival are slim.
Jasmine Bai, an art student who
had been saved by Americans during the notorious Nanking Massacre, seems an
unlikely heroine to rescue the wounded Flying Tiger. Daisy Bai, Jasmine’s
younger cousin, also falls in love with the courageous American.
With the help of Daisy’s
brother, an entire village opens its arms to heal a Flying Tiger with injured
wings, but as a result of their charity the serenity of their community is
forever shattered.
Love, sacrifice, kindness, and
bravery all play a part in this heroic tale that takes place during one of the
darkest hours of Chinese history.
Iris Yang
Iris Yang (Qing Yang) was
born and raised in China. She has loved reading and writing since she was a
child, but in China creative writing was a dangerous career. As famous writers
and translators, her grandmother and her aunt were wrongfully accused as
counter-revolutionary Rightists, so Iris had to choose a safer path—studying
science.
After graduating from Wuhan
University and passing a series of exams, she was accepted by the prestigious
CUSBEA (China-United States Biochemistry Examination and Application program).
At age 23, with poor English, little knowledge of the country, and 500 borrowed
dollars, she came to the United States as a graduate student at the University
of Rochester.
Later, she received a Ph.D. in
molecular biology, trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory, and worked at the University of North Carolina. Although she has
published a number of scientific papers, she has a passion for creative
writing, and her short stories have won contests and have been published in
anthologies. Currently, Iris is working on a story based on her grandmother,
who was the first Chinese woman to receive a master’s degree in Edinburgh in
the UK. Iris now lives between Sedona, Arizona and Chapel Hill, North
Carolina. Besides writing, she loves hiking, dancing, photography, and
travel.
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