Amy Tan

Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from China, leaving behind their family members, including her mother’s three daughters. The Tans wanted Amy to become a doctor. So she started out as a pre-med student in college but later decided to become an English major instead.

When she first wrote fiction, she created stories about people who were not Chinese, who had always been successful and also well-to-do. When she gave up on the idea of ever being published, she simply wrote stories based on the confusion she felt as a child growing up American in a family that was Chinese in outlook, expectations, and cuisine.

She encourages young people to find their own philosophy in life--to know what is meaningful to them, for example, what they mean by family, love, kindness, and honesty, and to write their own sayings that remind them to find those things in themselves and in others. She believes that the American Dream is the freedom to create your own identity--to be who you want to be and not limited to what people think you should be.

Sometimes she carries freedom of expression too far. For example, most people think she can’t sing that well, yet for many years she has been a member of a rock band called the Rock Bottom Remainders, whose members are all published writers, including Stephen King, Scott Turow and Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons. At least they have raised $2 million for charity. While she may not be a great singer, she is a pretty good skier and an excellent dog trainer of her two Yorkies. Her husband, Lou DeMattei, will tell you this is true. He is a tax attorney who also volunteers his time serving on the board of Half the Sky, an organization that helps develop programs for orphanages in China. Amy and Lou both share commitments to charities serving children, the elderly, literacy, the arts, and the Asian community.

What is one skill or talent that has helped you achieve your goals?

Is imagination a skill or a talent? Or is it something we all have in plenty and we simply need to find it?

Whatever the case, I think imagination has been my talent, my skill, as well as my friend, my passion, my private place, and the door I walked through to get to where I am today. When I was young, I found that my imagination grew when I read stories or looked at pictures. When I was lonely, I wrote stories that I was someone else who lived somewhere else, and I drew a picture of that fantasy person. When I had to practice the piano one hour a day, I made up stories that matched the mood of the music I was playing, because otherwise piano practice would have been pure torture. I wrote stories about secret wishes that were too embarrassing to tell anyone. Over the years, I learned that my imagination has a lot to do with what I am feeling at the moment.

Today, I use my imagination to tell stories about people with secrets or sadness or unspoken wishes. And often people who read my stories tell me that the feelings in the book are the ones they have as well.

Name someone you admire and briefly explain why you like and respect this person.

I have a niece named Patty. She is 16 and was born with several congenital problems. She has significant hearing loss and wears hearing aids. Yet when she was in junior high school, she took up playing the flute and worked as a young activist to save her school’s music program. She also loves horses, so she cleaned horse stalls in exchange for free rides. She has had two major operations, one to correct her spine and another to adjust her jaw and airway so she could breathe properly. Even though she had to be in bed for months at a time, she never said, “Why me?” She asked only to borrow a lot of books to read. I’ve noticed that when I have given her money as a gift, she often gives some to a good cause and she saves the rest for college. She has a great understanding of kids who feel they are “too different”. She encourages them to be who they really are. I feel lucky to have a niece who is so spunky, sensible, and kind.

What is an important lesson you learned from a parent or mentor?

My mother taught me to be an honest person. That meant being genuine in how I treat people. She disliked it when people acted friendly and concerned about you and then talked behind your back. She taught me to look for honest friends, to be careful of people who are what she called in Chinese, “eat meat drink wine” friends, those who are nice to you only when times are good, who will abandon you when you are no longer popular or able to give them what they want. That also meant I had to be a true friend in the same way. As an honest person, she told me, you should not hide behind a mask. A real person does not always feel confident or cheerful. Real people also have worries and troubles. If you let people know you are not perfect and that neither is your life, people will also trust you are telling the truth about many other things. Her lessons have helped me as a writer. Even though I write fiction, my stories are not about telling lies. Rather, they are about the true things we feel.