Reading Diary: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Here is a synopsis from the author's website:

Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.

Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer.

What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?

This book was such a fun read! It’s a bit like Miss Marple in Chinatown. The found family element is really heartwarming, and the reveal about the murder is heartbreaking and interesting. I loved the way the characters come together, and I love Vera.

Reading Diary: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, trans. Eric Ozawa

Here is a synopsis from Kirkus Reviews:

Even though her boyfriend broke her heart and, in despair, she lost her job, 25-year-old Takako doesn’t want to leave Tokyo. Her uncle Satoru, though, owns a cramped, musty bookstore in Jimbocho, Japan’s famous book town, and he offers her a room in exchange for her assistance. Surveying her temporary abode among the piles of books, Takako says, “If I got even the slightest bit careless, my Towers of Babel would collapse.” Yagisawa’s short and engaging novel is simply structured, following the ordinary events of Takako’s days at the bookstore.

This novella is just under 150 pages long, and it’s a really nice story. As someone Satoru’s age rather than Takako, I did find myself more interested in his story and wished to know more about him, but I still enjoyed reading the story. When I looked up the synopsis for this book, I saw that a sequel had been published. I don’t know if I’ll read it. It introduces more of the bookshop customers, but I think I’m done dipping into this world. I enjoyed the time I spent there, and I’m ready to move on.

I read a book with a similar premise last year, the Korean novel Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum, and I liked it better because we get the POV of multiple characters. Still, this book was an easy read, a nice palate cleanser between doomscrolling the news.

Reading Diary: Run Wild/Sa Ye vol 1 by Wu Zhe

Here is a synopsis from the publisher's website:

Unwanted by his adoptive parents, Jiang Cheng leaves home to live in a cold, gray city with his deadbeat dad whose only talent is feeding a gambling addiction. Alone save for his suitcase, the rebellious teenage boy arrives at the train station ready to face his miserable new life.

But the moment he steps off the platform, Jiang Cheng meets the peculiar young girl Gu Miao, along with her big brother Gu Fei—a boy his age with a musical staff shaved into his hair. Rumor has it that Gu Fei is bad news with dark secrets of his own, but Jiang Cheng still finds himself pulled toward the withdrawn delinquent thanks to Gu Miao and, perhaps, fate. The unlikely friendship that blossoms between them shows Jiang Cheng the hidden depths of Gu Fei…and the hidden depths of his own feelings.

I really got into this book. Even though it’s danmei, it’s less about the romantic relationship (especially in volume 1) and more about how these boys are navigating life in a rough place. The town is based on declining manufacturing cities in China. In the book, it’s a closed steelworks. The depiction of public school life, especially in a school that is not top-tier, was really interesting to me as a teacher. I know my experiences as a teacher in China are very different from the average teacher’s life, even as I’m now in a bilingual school and not an international school, but I could see some similarities between the teachers in the book and some of my colleagues, and I have a lot more sympathy for what they go through (even as I’m annoyed by a lot of things I have to deal with).

I’m looking forward to the rest of the volumes. I really hope Gu Miao turns out okay. She’s got some rough stuff going on for such a little kid.

Teaching Diary: Madness

Today, I got a little taste of what dementia might feel like, and I am NOT thrilled. So I was already feeling low due to a combination of cramps and chronic disrupted sleep (only got about 4 hours last night, and not consecutive). I go to class. There are 25 kids on the roster and 25 desks, so I rely on my seating chart for attendance. Three desks are empty, so I go through -- who’s absent? Curry, Anna, and Matthew. Great. But wait, the attendance program says Victoria is absent, not Anna. And there’s a kid in Anna’s seat. But it’s not Anna, is it? (I’ve gotten worse with faces as I’ve gotten older. It’s better since kids mostly stopped wearing masks, but still not great.)

So… are there four kids absent or three?

I’m talking through this, trying to make the attendance math work, and the kids are giggling but they aren’t saying anything. I figure they’re just giggling because Ms. Debra is a weird teacher and they like to laugh at me. Fair enough. Except the math isn’t mathing, especially as I hand back papers. I call for Anna. I look at the girl in Anna’s seat. She doesn’t come up. I call again, more insistently. Is… she Victoria? And just being cheeky and sitting in another seat?

I tell the kids to go to their assigned seats. No one moves.

I call Anna and look at her. She doesn’t get up.

I move on. I can’t deal with this right now. I have a headache.

I still have Anna’s and Victoria’s tests at the end.

I call William over. I trust William. He’s an outsider (his mom is Chinese and dad is American and he’s got a special schedule) like me. I point to Anna.

“Who is that girl?”

William looks at her. He hasn’t seen her all semester. He remembers -- it’s OLIVIA! Olivia, who moved at the end of the first term and WAS in this class before today. Olivia, who put on her old uniform and snuck (?) in to hang out with her friends because her new school is on holiday. (IIRC -- and that’s a big IF -- she and her family moved to New Zealand, so they might be on Easter break.)

Y’ALL. I LEGIT thought I was losing my mind. I recognized her, but once she moved and my class rosters got rearranged at the start of the new term, I put her out of my mind. So my brain recognized her as My Student but gave me no other information. None of the other kids offered information as I was clearly having a breakdown.

Or maybe not so clearly. I’m pretty silly a lot of the time, pretty dramatic, so maybe they thought I was just being silly and dramatic. They aren’t malicious kids, although they are sometimes naughty.

But none of them said, “Miss, that’s Olivia,” so I had to fight my brain and figure it out.

And that made me think -- is this what it was like for, say, my Granny, all the time? Seeing people that weren’t actually there and wondering why we were not backing her up? Asking for people who were long gone and being angry that we were keeping them from her?

Maybe I’m just being my silly and dramatic self, but it was a genuinely distressing ten minutes to not be able to trust my own mind because I couldn’t figure out what was going on.