What is the fantasy series about?
Novels in the Twig: 枝丫 series are set in an unnamed Beijing hutong in a contemporary, alternate reality where the 树, a mysterious, tree-shaped organism implanted at birth, monitors and directs each individual’s thoughts.
The series is written at an intermediate level for adult readers of Simplified Chinese characters. It’s available on Substack for free.
What is the first novel in the series about?
In 枝丫1, Xiao Li has obeyed the tree’s rules all his life, limiting his words and actions to avoid its punishments. But when his father, Lao Li, begins – painfully, twig by twig – to remove the tree from his own body, and Xiao Li meets a woman at work whose tree has been almost entirely removed, he faces a life-changing dilemma. Will Xiao Li continue living as he always has, following the tree’s dictates? And what will he do about the 树 and his young son, Xiaoxiao Li?
枝丫1：Chapter 1 | 枝丫1：Table of contents | Complete 枝丫1 story, just 汉字
What is 枝丫2 about?
Zhang Laoban has worked hard to build a quiet life of principle after enduring hardships in his youth, then losing his wife and daughter in a tragic accident. In his seventies and deeply introspective, Zhang Laoban is the proprietor of a hutong bookstore and a member of a secret group opposed to the 树. As have many of the group’s members, he has cut most of the tree from his body with his own knife. When his sandtimer – a gift from his late wife used in the group’s meetings – disappears, Zhang Laoban finds himself in anguish from old wounds he thought were scars. With the help of his new assistant, Yang Zhuli, Zhang Laoban becomes a reluctant detective, navigating complex relationships with hutong locals, co-traveling with loss – of innocence, of loved ones, of independence, and with the intentional loss of the 树 – and seeking the location and return of the sandtimer.
枝丫2：Chapter 1 | 枝丫2：Table of contents | 枝丫2 so far, just 汉字
Why are you writing 枝丫？
To attempt to create art. To explore the opposites-can-both-be-true power of 树-like ideologies to offer order and predictability while, at the same time, restrict human creativity, connection, and possibility. To imagine interaction in Chinese while living in a place with few opportunities to speak Chinese in person. To attempt to give myself and other learners the 3 to 17 exposures to a new word needed to learn it. To attempt to be of service to fellow adult learners of Mandarin Chinese who struggle to find texts that take on the human condition at a readable level.
Do you write it by yourself?
I write and type the first draft of each chapter in the Chinese I know, inserting English words for words in Chinese I don’t know. I consult multiple sources to find the likely Chinese characters that convey my meaning. I consult with several italki teachers. I present the final draft to my editor, Mary, 侯慧颖 Hóu Huìyǐng. She and I meet three times per week to discuss the chapter, correct errors, and refine wording.
How long have you been studying Chinese?
I took one semester of Chinese in 1981 at the University of Connecticut. I returned to studying Chinese in 2020. I speak and read Mandarin Chinese at a lower intermediate level.
Aren’t you too old to study Chinese?
At 66, no, I am not. The findings of neuroscience contradict the myth that second language learning is ineffectual in adulthood. In fact, the intricately, deeply and extensively networked mature adult human brain may be primed for second language acquisition, particularly Mandarin Chinese.
Why do you study Chinese?
To connect. To attempt to discover the depth and breadth of insight and understanding available to a human who can speak one of the world’s oldest continuously spoken and written languages, perhaps so close to the language used by the very first human able to utter a sound, expressing the deepest human longing inherent to any communication: “I see you. Please see me.”
“[Mandarin Chinese is] one of the most geopolitically important languages in the twenty-first century.”
– Jing Tsu, Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution that Made China Modern, 2022
“China…is the defining political reality of our time. He [Adam Tooze, Columbia University], called it the ‘master key’ to understanding modernity. The ‘biggest laboratory of organized modernization that has ever been or ever will be.’ A place where the industrial histories of the West now read like prefaces to something larger.”
– Kaiser Kuo, The Thing We Still Can’t Say, 07/17/2025
Have you ever been to China?
In my imagination, I’ve been in China for over 50 years, ever since I read a Margaret Beeks Elementary School Scholastic book fair copy of Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. I studied Chinese history in college with Dr. Young-tsu Wong, one of the people to whom this work is dedicated. In real life, no, I have not been to China.
Where did you get the idea for 枝丫?
When I was thinking of the process of becoming aware of, and extricating, problematic beliefs that can deepen pain and create suffering after traumatic experiences, a ghastly image came to me. Beliefs can be so deep, so corporal, so mythical. Questioning legacy beliefs can feel like disobedience to a revered, totalitarian regime. Removing problematic beliefs can require torturous self-determination, akin to cutting the tip of one’s own finger, using tweezers, and pulling out a living thing, a dark, thin, branch-like twig, broken from a larger tree within one’s own body. Chilling. The image of that tree – 树- became the central theme and motif for the story.
What do you have in mind as you write 枝丫?
I do my best to “show, don’t tell” in the story. I attempt to follow the guidance of William Carlos Williams: “No ideas but in things,” William Zinnser: “Is every word doing new work?”, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge for poetry: “the best words in their best order.” Although it is difficult to do, I have in mind Ralph Waldo Emerson’s guidance in “Self-Reliance” – an essay I read and studied with Dr. Doreen Hunter in 1980 – “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
Against injustice, I may not have physical might, wealth, power, or connections. But I have a voice. And my voice is bilingual. If they come for those who speak Chinese, they come for me. Through my art, I stand up and speak up.
Illustration by Lear for 枝丫2： 03: 第三章: 沙漏不见了.
Updated 07/20/2025
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