Reader Response to "My Father's Chinese Wives"

When I was looking up this story to try to find it online (I don't have the book! The copies were much appreciated) I stumbled upon a few sources that said that it was an autobiography, which I'm not certain I can trust because it didn't seem like that to me from reading it but it still could be true. Which might actually be a kudos to Loh's writing style, because when writing non-fiction I would say one of the biggest fears is that the story isn't going to be exciting enough, and I was engaged the entire time with this story. Unfortunately, or maybe I should say fortunately, my father isn't crazy and seventy years old and petitioning for wives from China, but everyone has a story to tell and we shouldn't second guess whether it's exciting or not - anything can be exciting if the story is told well enough.

First of all I feel like the writing workshop thing is much too real and that might be me in twenty years. I also feel as if almost every workshop class I have been in has at least one Fred in it. Please, people, if you're reading this, don't be Fred.
I think part of the success of the story is the way it is so dryly told. It does not marvel at the things that are happening, even though they're pretty crazy. It just tells them in a straightforward manner and lets the events speak for themselves:

"And 47-year-old Liu - the writer of the magic letter - is the lucky winner! Within three months, she is flown to Los Angeles. She and my father are married a week later."

  She doesn't waste any time going what in the world my elderly father just flew a woman overseas and doesn't even know this person and just up and married her in a week's time how crazy is that what is my life - she just states what happened and lets us infer that this is probably what shes is thinking, because that is what most normal people would think under such circumstances.

They probably have a healthier relationship than some of the crazy ones I've seen between friends and acquaintances, but that's beside the point.

The point comes at the end of the story:

"The song has nothing to do with him personally: it is from some old Chinese fable. It has to do with missing someone, something, that perhaps one can't even define any more.
...we are even sitting our home, and we long for it."

The entire story is of searching for something, of trying to find our place in this big planet, where doing crazy things might not seem that crazy if it helps us find out where we belong.