When Anchee Min came to the US in 1984, she spoke little English. She had barely slipped through on a student visa granted by an American consul impressed with her "crazy determination" - a decidedly American trait, she recalls in her new memoir The Cooked Seed.

In her courses at the Art Institute of Chicago, Min realized she might interpret the assigned essays in the context of her own turbulent upbringing.

"Each day I survived in the classroom, I regarded as a triumph," she writes. "I dragged the composition topics into my own territory, against the backdrop of Chinese culture and history, where I could make comparisons and comment intelligently. I wrote slowly with my baby English, but it worked."

Later, she found success with a similar formula in Red Azalea, her celebrated 2006 memoir in which she detailed her "cultural revolution" (1966-76) experience as an actress with Madame Mao's Shanghai Film Studio and her love affair with a woman, among other events.

The Cooked Seed picks up where Red Azalea left off, with Min's journey to the US and her subsequent struggles with marriage, friendship, money and her eventual career as a writer. The title of the new book refers to the Chinese name for a seed that has no chance of sprouting.

Min has also written the novels Pearl of China, The Last Empress and Wild Ginger, among others. Although she had always been an avid reader of Chinese literature, Min never considered writing in Chinese, she told China Daily.

"In China, I wasn't a newborn, but in English I was a newborn calf who wasn't afraid of any tiger," she said. "I realized that what I had to offer in America was my knowledge of China, and the voice I could give to my experiences."

She found her voice when she began combining the poetic influences of Chinese classical literature with the directness of Western authors like Hemingway and Anais Niin, she said.

"In China when you're thirsty, you might mention that it's hot outside, that the crops are dry - anything but the fact that you're thirsty," she said.

"In America, you simply ask for a cup of water. It's the same way with Chinese and American writing. When you look at essays on friendship, the one that's considered the best in China might be one that doesn't mention the word friendship once.

"Eventually I learned to combine the influences of both styles, and writing finally started to work for me."

Anton Mueller, who edits Min's work, also noted her straddling of cultures and influences.

"She is concrete and direct, but she is also poetic," he said. "You see both cultures in her work, emotionally and intellectually and stylistically. English is very much her second language, and that's preserved in her writing. We want to preserve that."

Min's detailed accounts of the various conflicts she has faced in personal relationships, whether romantic or platonic, are often less than flattering. She is disarmingly honest about her flaws, and the ways in which she has clashed with alternate modes of thinking.

But she believes that Western readers only accept authenticity when an author's flaws are on display. Criticism is not only expected in America, but often encouraged, she said. She noted that if her book were to be published in China, Chinese readers might view her stance as anti-American, for her descriptions of life as a poor immigrant.

"Chinese have a tendency to present a picture that's either 100 percent positive, or to present nothing at all," she said. "They're often uncomfortable with demonstrating any weakness. You see this in Chinese dealings with the world in recent years, but what Chinese need to learn is that showing some flaws actually makes people see you as stronger in the big picture."

In detailed descriptions of her marriage with the artist Qigu Jiang, who is now a professor at the Art Institute of Chicago, Min notes the dueling Chinese philosophies that led to their divorce. Jiang's Buddhist-inspired attitudes about accepting what life has in store butted up against her Chinese pragmatism, she recalls in The Cooked Seed. They were both deeply influenced by their heritage, but their opposing philosophies laid bare the contradictions in Chinese attitudes, she said.

For a woman who had essentially talked her way into America despite a rudimentary grasp of the English language, "sitting back" was never an option, she said.

"Qigu's thoughts on relaxing and enjoying life were fine too, but when it comes to life, you also have to pay the bills. That's where his Chinese qualities came up against mine. If I had just let life happen to me, I would be working as a construction worker in China today. I would never have made it to America, and if it weren't for America I couldn't have become a writer, or sent [my daughter] Lauryann to Stanford, or had my happy ending," she said of her second marriage, also detailed in the book.

Mueller notes that Min's strong-mindedness was in some cases her own obstacle. Her strength and determination to charge forward occasionally amplified her struggles, but in The Cooked Seed she parses those challenges in a process of growth, he said.

Min will continue to write about China, because she will always feel connected to her homeland, she said.

"I was born in China but I discovered myself in America, and what I could do for China," she said. "I've realized as time has gone by that China is not mine to miss because it has never once left my thoughts."

kdawson@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily 05/17/2013 page11)