When I first learned about Duanfang—my infamous, assassinated ancestor—I thought his story was a myth my family liked to tell—our version of the Grimm fairytales. It seemed improbable that my great-great-great grandfather was a prominent Manchu politician, had founded a university, visited America, stood doggedly against foot binding, and was killed by his own army. But after my grandmother took me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see his bronze artifacts in the Asian Art wing, and after my cousins traveled to China to learn about our apparent shared ancestor, I realized that this famous politician from the late 1800s was in fact, related to me.
And then, I immediately wanted to write about him.
But despite the myriad accomplishments listed on Duanfang’s Wikipedia page, I still didn’t know who he really was. What emboldened him to accomplish so many things in such a short lifetime? Who was he to his family? To his children?
My ancestor, Duanfang, who was a prominent viceroy in China and plays a large role in Foreigners.
I learned a key part of Duanfang’s story my senior year of college, when I went to my Chinese history professor’s office hours. We were sitting in a carpeted room the size of a closet when she told me my ancestor’s biggest secret: he actually wasn’t Manchu. He was biologically Han Chinese, and had only pretended to be Manchu to rise in power during the Manchu Dynasty. And rise in power he did—becoming one of China’s most preeminent and powerful politicians until he was eventually forced into retirement. A few years later, the Han rebelled against the Manchus in what would become the Xinhai Revolution. Duanfang left retirement to once again prove his worth. It was then that he was ironically killed by his own Han army, who mutinied against him. My Chinese professor told me that as Duanfang pleaded for his life, he revealed his true ethnicity to them. Of course, the Han army didn’t believe him—thinking that he was lying to avoid death. They beheaded him anyway. She told me the army presented his head to his family, who became destitute after Duanfang’s death. And so, I realized my ancestor wasn’t simply a politician, a before-his-time feminist, or an avid bronze collector. He was also a liar. He was ambitious to a fault.
I was struck by Duanfang’s clear flaws and the dire and long-term consequences of his great yet dangerous ambition.
A few years later, more intrigued than ever, I talked to Professor Elya Zhang from the University of Rochester after she responded to my cold email.
Professor Zhang noted that my ancestor was her first “academic love,” who, like Icarus, had flown too close to the sun. He wanted to be someone history remembered, and that’s likely why he created the first kindergarten in China and traveled to America to meet with international diplomats. Professor Zhang described him as charismatic and charming around others but introverted and detail-oriented when he was alone; everything about his work and travels was meticulously documented in his journals. She told me that after he died, some of his colleagues—despite being Manchus—actually maintained their positions of power. With that in mind, if he had stayed in retirement, if he had bided his time, he would have lived. He could have even become more powerful and politically prominent than he already was. And perhaps then, my family wouldn’t have sold his antique collection to curators around the world, perhaps we wouldn’t have immigrated to Taiwan, and then America, perhaps I wouldn’t be writing this today.
As a writer, I was struck by Duanfang’s clear flaws and the dire and long-term consequences of his great yet dangerous ambition. It got me thinking: what do we all do to succeed? Morally, what do we give up? Who do we pretend to be?
Duanfang’s life was of course, dramatic, but it was in many ways, relatable. I thought about all the ways I pretended in my own life—as a child to get the outcome I wanted, during a work presentation to put my “best foot forward,” when meeting a stranger in the hopes that they’d like me. In my everyday life, I fully admit to being a shape-shifter—and sometimes even an imposter—to achieve my goals, both small and large. And I think lots of other people feel the same way. We all must “perform,” and we never know when that performance will take things too far. Ambition is a risk with an unknown future.
Duanfang’s bronze altar set at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This thought, coupled with my ancestor’s life, drew together the threads for my novel, Foreigners. The idea of being an imposter bled into other storylines swirling about in my head. I created my main character, Yi, an immigrant from Taiwan to America in 1965 who struggles to find her place in a strange country. Halfway through the book, she changes her name from Zheng Yi to “Audrey”—a turning point that enables her to literally become someone else and make subsequent, enormous choices that impact not only her life, but her future descendants. Indeed, in the present day, her granddaughter, Dawn, has severe imposter syndrome (another form of pretending!) as she feels she does not belong at her expensive, elite boarding school. When tasked with interviewing a family member for a year-long history project, she begrudgingly interviews her estranged grandmother and unwittingly realizes that her grandma has been lying this entire time about her life history. Dawn can’t figure out why, setting her on an investigation to figure out the truth.
Strung through these dual timelines is a folktale about Duanfang, whose story provides the thematic foundation for Dawn and Yi’s. Ultimately, his choices force the other main characters to reckon with their own pretending, and the shame that comes with that and is passed down to later generations.
My initial mission was to understand Duanfang on a deeper level. But in doing so, I interrogated all the ways in which I, my family, and my characters are imposters—foreigners in their own land, in their own bodies. In this way, I am grateful to my ancestor and feel closer to him than ever, despite the century between us.
I can say confidently now that my ancestor is no longer just a myth—nor is he a faraway hero or a deceitful villain. He is a complicated, flawed member of my family; he is simply a man.
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Foreigners by E. L. Shen is available from Quill Tree Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.