Process for Bing’s Cherries

Typically I use this section to discuss how the book was made, whether it’s inspiration or process. I’ll discuss process below, but I thought the Illustrator’s Note from the back of the book would be the best way to share the inspiration behind Bing’s Cherries!

I grew up reading centuries-old Chinese mythology alongside relatively recent American folklore. At school, I learned about the charming adventures of Paul Bunyan and the can-do attitude of Johnny Appleseed, relating to the pioneer spirit while absorbing the inherent individualism underneath. Never mind that the adults in my life looked nothing like these white, bearded men. At home, my parents picked epic and often tragic bedtime stories from a large illustrated volume of Chinese mythology. I admired the flowing hair and gowns of the Chinese goddesses while also sympathizing with the demands of filial piety—despite the fact that I’d never before set foot in China. In a time when few products or experiences were crafted with Asian Americans in mind, I was satisfied floating between these clearly demarcated East and West stories.

As an adult, I’ve gradually learned about notable Chinese and Taiwanese Americans who came before me. The names are few enough that an unfamiliar one will make me pause, as I did when I saw the name Ah Bing in Erika Lee’s The Making of Asian America.

She had one line on him: “Ah Bing, who bred the famous Bing cherry in Oregon.”

I was fascinated; everyone in America knows Bing cherries, but who knew the name belonged to a man with Chinese heritage? Further research provided sparse but intriguing results: Ah Bing was around six feet tall and often sang a sad song. This prompted me to imagine other forgotten immigrants with legacies that still touch us today. Had Ah Bings been roaming the country alongside the Johnny Appleseeds all this time?

I wonder if there are stories that Asian Americans are slowly turning into myths at this very moment. Perhaps there’s no story told to us more often than that of our parents and grandparents who fled traumas or hardship for a fresh start. When our own lives are difficult, we remind ourselves that they faced immense loneliness and prejudice but created something incredible in the process. And sometimes we get it wrong. I thought I knew my parents’ story until they undid the fiction I’d been spinning in my head. I had always thought that my parents’ reverse immigration to Taiwan in the ’80s occurred because they had been struggling to acclimate to America and to find work. I recently learned that that was not the case at all; they moved back to Taiwan because my grandparents wanted them to take over the family business.

I loved the idea of a tall tale to capture the way my community’s stories have been passed down from generation to generation with reverence, admiration, and perhaps a bit of well-intended exaggeration. Maybe there could be room for another story to sit on the shelf between the Chinese myths and American folktales!