Yiming Ma, "These Memories Do Not Belong To Us" (Mariner Books, 2025)

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Chris Holmes (Burned by Books)
Guest: Yiming Ma, author of These Memories Do Not Belong To Us (Mariner Books, 2025)
Date: September 19, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on Yiming Ma’s debut novel, These Memories Do Not Belong To Us—a speculative and structurally inventive book that explores the intersection of memory, technology, state surveillance, resistance, and human connection in a near-future world ruled by an all-powerful Qin Empire. The conversation dives into the inspirations and craft behind the novel, the geopolitical and technological anxieties it channels, resonant literary influences, and the power of stories to inspire action and shape identity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to the Novel’s World

• Setting: The story takes place in a future dominated by the Qin Empire (a reimagined, monolithic China) which has conquered the world and re-engineered society with mind bank technology—devices installed in the brain to store and share memories.
• Plot Mechanic: The narrator inherits a collection of illicit memories from his mother, whose stories resist the erasure and censorship of the regime.
• Themes: Surveillance, censorship, preservation of the past, personal and collective resistance.

"Our narrator has just received an illicit inheritance from his mother...a series of shared memories stored in a technology called a mind bank."
—Chris Holmes [03:01]

2. Opening Passage Reading (04:16–06:29)

Yiming Ma reads from the opening of the novel, immersing listeners in the relationship between mother and son and the threats posed by memory-sharing technology.

“Some of the memory epics from which she drew her stories must have been censored already by the Party. Any loyal patriot would have deleted these memories.”
—Yiming Ma reading [04:26–05:10]

3. Worldbuilding: The Qin Empire and Mind Banks

• The Qin Empire’s mind bank technology revolutionizes not only warfare but daily life, education, and entertainment. It is also a primary tool for surveillance and control.
• Elements like the Gaokao (exam) and social credit are woven deeply into every aspect of society and culture.

“In the present, mind banks become something that citizens use not only for military capabilities, but it becomes a consumer product as well...and also allows the party to actually surveil their memories…”
—Yiming Ma [07:22–08:00]

4. Memory as a Literary and Technological Concern

• Ma began writing during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting on memory as a final refuge amidst societal trauma and isolation.
• The core speculative question: "What if even our memories were no longer safe?"

"When everything else was stripped away, at least we all had our past...But...what if even our memories were no longer safe?"
—Yiming Ma [08:34]

5. Structure: Time, Non-Linearity, and Reader Agency

• The novel is often compared to Cloud Atlas and other “constellation novels” for its non-linear, memory-driven narrative.
• Ma intentionally gives readers the option to choose the order in which they read the memories, reclaiming agency.

"As much work as I did creating the order, I also thought it was important to give the reader that option..."
—Yiming Ma [11:57]

6. Story Spotlight: The Chanko Nabe / Sumo Wrestler Memory

• Inspired by Ma's own time in Japan, this story is a microcosm of the novel’s broader themes: family, survival, memory, and resistance under pressure.
• The food and cultural details serve as touchstones for identity and continuity against erasure.

“I attended my first grand sumo tournament…chankonabe started there. But I think in many ways the story there is a microcosm of the whole book. It's a mosaic...”
—Yiming Ma [14:53–16:13]

7. Blending Real Historical Figures into Fiction

• Historical and cultural anchors like sumo legend Akebono root the speculative stories in the recognizable past, grounding the reader across shifting timeframes.

"I was very inspired by wrestlers and by people throughout history and just wanted to pay homage...Placement of these historical figures...important for time."
—Yiming Ma [19:48–20:20]

8. Literature Versus Technological Interiorities

• The novel explores whether fiction and literature can retain their role in cultivating empathy and interiority as technologies like mind banks and AI arise.
• Anxiety over AI, attention economies, and literature's diminishing space is a recurring concern.

“In the race to attract eyeballs and attention, even Netflix and other media...were taking the space that novels previously held.”
—Yiming Ma [21:22]

9. Orwellian Parallels and Surveillance

• Direct reference to Orwell’s 1984 and the notion that "those who control the present control the past."
• Ma insists the book is not just a critique of China, but an exploration of what happens when extraordinary circumstances force ordinary people to adapt and survive.

"One quote from 1984 was always in my head...those who control the present control the past, and those who control the past control the future."
—Yiming Ma [24:15]

10. Contemporary China as an Influence

• Shanghai, Ma's birthplace and 'anchor,' serves as inspiration for the evolution depicted in the novel.
• The novel flips the global racial hierarchy, making Asian characters the default and placing readers within the majority perspective.

"The mind bank and...memory transfer allowed me to kind of flip the racial hierarchy and envision a world in which the Asian protagonist could be seen through the lens of the majority..."
—Yiming Ma [28:10]

11. Watchmakers and the Value of Manual Craft

• The story “After the Bloom” explores watchmaking—a metaphor for discipline, artistry, and the slow, careful persistence required for survival and storytelling.
• Ma reveals his fascination with horology, drawing parallels to literary craft.

"Watchmaking and horology are interests of mine. I do collect vintage watches...I love learning how different people tick..."
—Yiming Ma [31:09–34:33]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Perhaps that was why she told me all those stories via voice in the privacy of our bedrooms, back when we were permitted to stop our mind banks from logging data at home...”
  —Yiming Ma, reading the novel’s first page [05:45]
• “Even if the sky collapsed, she would use it as a blanket to warm her body.” (about his mother)
  —Yiming Ma, reading [06:03]
• "The speculative element of memory transfer...all of those explore themes that are important and especially urgent today, such as authoritarianism or collective memory resistance, but I think at its heart...most of the stories revolve around the themes of survival and the tension between survival and resistance..."
  —Yiming Ma [16:09]

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Book Recommendations (by Yiming Ma) [35:46]

• Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
• Archives of Unknown Universes by Ruben Reyes Jr.
• When the Harvest Comes by Michelle Norris
• River East, River West by Aubrey Nescur
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (a key influence)
• Exhibit by Ro Kwan

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Timestamps to Key Segments

• Opening & book introduction: 01:30–03:58
• Reading from the novel: 04:16–06:29
• Worldbuilding & mind banks: 06:44–08:05
• Discussion of memory & origins of the novel: 08:30–09:28
• On structure & reader agency: 10:02–12:21
• On the Japan/sumo wrestler/Chanko Nabe story: 13:27–17:06
• On real figures in fiction (Akebono): 19:05–20:20
• Literature vs. tech as means into other minds: 21:10–22:47
• Orwell’s influence & surveillance: 24:15–25:38
• Contemporary China’s influence: 27:13–29:37
• Watchmaking as metaphor: 29:37–34:57
• Book recommendations: 35:46–36:34

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Closing Thoughts

Chris Holmes closes the conversation by noting the novel's unique blend of speculative fiction, personal and collective trauma, and the search for forms of connection and resistance. Yiming Ma's reflections provide insight not just into the world of his novel, but into how fiction can inspire change and reflection in the real world.

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Recommended for listeners interested in:

• Literary speculative fiction
• Issues of surveillance, memory, and identity
• Immigrant narratives
• The craft of writing nonlinear/constellation novels
• Literary responses to technology and authoritarianism

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Transcript

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[IMing Ma]

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[IMing Ma]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Chris Holmes]

I'm Chris Holmes and this is Burned by Books. Here you'll find interviews with writers you already love, like Jennifer Egan and Rebecca Mackay, mixed in with up and coming voices like Alexandra Kleeman and Roman Alam. You'll find us wherever you listen to podcasts, but check out previous [e-mail] and on Instagram and Twitter BurnedByBooks. Let's start the show in the world of E Mingmaz, these memories do not belong to us. Our narrator has just received an illicit inheritance from his mother. That inheritance consists of a series of shared memories stored in a technology called a mind bank, which allows the user to inhabit the memories of others in a complete and visceral way. That bank of memories, however, proves to be the ultimate tool for the single global superpower of the novel, the Qin D Nation, formerly China, which rules as a single party monolith with endless powers of surveillance and discipline. Woven into the narrative of the Qin future are memories that dive into the past and take us to America, Japan and elsewhere in the pre global World War World, inviting us to live inside the experiences and feelings of immigrants, a sumo wrestler and a couple living through the Cultural Revolution, a Watch seller and his protege, plague survivors, and many others. Each memory stands against some element of state suppression and control while also working the magic of narrative in offering up the interiority of someone we will never meet but whose consciousness feels powerfully familiar. A speculative fiction that dazzles with its vision of a technologically driven future world, these Memories Do Not Belong to Us is at its heart about the quieter miracles of human connection, community, and resistance against sometimes insurmountable odds. IMing Ma holds MBA from Stanford and an MFA from Warren Wilson College, where he was the Carol Hoke Smith Scholar. His stories and essays appear in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Florida Review, and elsewhere. Born in Shanghai, he now lives in Toronto, New York, and Seattle. Welcome to Burned by Books, IMing Ma.

[IMing Ma]

Thanks for having me.

[Chris Holmes]

I wonder if you'd start us out by just reading the very beginning of these Memories Do Not Belong to Us, which introduces us to the the world of the Qin Nation and also to the idea of the Memory bank.

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, absolutely, Chris. These Memories Do Not Belong to Us When I was a boy, my mother used to tell me stories of a world before memories could be shared between strangers. Although all the stories took place long before she had been born, it was easy to believe that she had witnessed them firsthand. Her lips would tremble, her voice rising with excitement. Wistfully, she would describe a time when our ancestors shared their thoughts using nothing more than words, such a primitive tool to allow others to experience their most vivid personal memories. Some of the memory epics from which she drew her stories must have been censored already by the Party. Any loyal patriot would have deleted these memories. For instance, the tale of an armless swimmer during the Cultural Revolution, when citizens still raise children with disabilities. Or the meta creational epic revolving around the incineration of Ruben, a military campaign that our youth no longer study. Why keep any of them if they might put us at risk of the Party's wrath? Had one of our neighbors reported us, our family's entire collection of memories might have been confiscated. And not only the ones we should have known to hide. Since I was a child, I accepted that my mother was not an ordinary woman, not least because of her choice to raise me alumni. Late in life, she decided that she wanted to be a mother, and she had refused to allow the absence of a suitable partner or the downgrading of her social credit score to stop her. I always thought that one Chin proverb epitomized her fearlessness. Even if the sky collapsed, she would use it as a blanket to warm her body. So why would the memories stored in such a woman's mind bank be any less remarkable? Since the devices are. Are directly installed into the hippocampi of our brains, I like to think of our mind bank as simply the extension of our mind. Still, my mother was careful never to send any sensitive memories to my mind bank to avoid unwanted attention, now that I reflect on that precious time together. Perhaps that was why she told me all those stories via voice in the privacy of our bedrooms, back when we were permitted to stop our mind banks from logging data at home and away from any neighbors who lived in our tower. All my life, my mother had tried to protect me. So why would she risk everything by leaving me such a dangerous inheritance?

[Chris Holmes]

Thank you so much. That was so nice to hear you read it. And I wonder if you'd give us a little gloss of where the world stands geopolitically and culturally in the present of the novel.

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, so at the beginning of the novel, a moon millennia has already passed since this war in which the Qin Empire has taken over. And I guess where it stands today. The Qin Empire is a reimagined China. And around some time in the past, they had invented this technology known as mind banks, which allows people to share memories and therefore actually allowed their military capabilities to also improve exponentially. And so in this world, they took over the west, and America became colony known as Chin America. And kind of different elements of culture that were in China actually kind of evolved as well. So, for instance, the standardized exam known as the Kaoka became a test of resilience that people in other countries also took, potentially with disadvantages. And in the present, mind banks become something that citizens use not only, you know, that the country uses not only for military capabilities, but it becomes a consumer product as well, where citizens use it for entertainment, for communication, for education, and kind of permeates every aspect of society, and also allows the party to actually surveil their memories as well, in case of resistance.

[Chris Holmes]

So the idea of a mind bank, a place for storing memories, seems both deeply science fictional, but also frighteningly close to a contemporary reality. Why were you interested in thinking through the repercussions of a world where memories are stored like data? And is it something that felt like you were edging up to in. In the world outside the novel?

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, to. To give some context, when I started, these memories do not belong to us. The world was very different. Right. It was actually during the first days of the COVID 19 pandemic in early 2020. And the virus was still kind of news from Wuhan. And as the world shut down, I kind of became obsessed with memory as this great equalizer, right? That when everything else was stripped away, that at least we all had our past, that we could reflect on whether we were rich or poor or, you know, anything else. But I think I had this chilling thought that I couldn't get rid of. And that thought was, what if even our memories were no longer safe? And that created ultimately the container in which I was able to explore all these stories written in different styles, set before the war, that the Qin Empire takes over right afterwards, when the racial hierarchy kind of flips. And then in the future as well, when it becomes a way of life and surveillance.

[Chris Holmes]

So there have been comparisons made between your novel and David Mitchell's Cloud. Apparently both treat time in a non linear fashion in order to still tell stories that feel at first as though they are worlds apart, but which end up dovetailing in unexpected ways. First, is this a comparison that you welcome? And second, how did you treat the time periods in the novel as something that you would need to map out for the reader so that they could stay with you while being essentially jerked back and forth across a universe of time?

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, I consider it an honor to be compared to works by David Mitchell such as Cloud Atlas and Ghost Written and others. I think another inspiration for the novel was Oga Takar Six Flights, which was the first time I had heard anyone describe the term constellation novel. And I think that was something that gave me permission in a way. Oga's incredible novel has 116 different narratives spread out across time and style and, you know, revolve around travel, but in. In really surprising ways. And I think, you know, seeing the works of amazing authors like Mitchell Takarsik, Sequoia Nagamatsu and others, I felt like I had the permission to explore this structure of memories within my book and the process of actually figuring it out in terms of the order that took a lot of time to get right. I think there were the craft elements. Yeah, I think there are the craft elements of figuring out, you know, how to build the world slowly in the mind of the reader who is new to it. So for instance, in general, more of the stories that are before the war or right after war, they tend to appear a little bit earlier, while the more speculative stories appear later. But a lot of the times I was listening to the voice. I was listening to the Voice of the 11 memories that are inherited, that are illicit, and listening to how they change over Time, the rhythm of them, and as much as what they were actually saying, even as I was hoping that what was being revealed in each memory would build upon one another in surprising ways. The other aspect of it is actually in the opening, I invite the reader to read these memories in whatever order they so choose to reclaim that authority, which is fairly uncommon when reading a book.

[Chris Holmes]

Yeah.

[IMing Ma]

So as much work as I did creating the order, I also thought it was important to give the reader that option. And I felt in some ways I was reclaiming my authority because I think the. The reader actually has that freedom. Right. Every reader has that freedom whenever reading a book, whether a story collection or a novel. And I was really, really curious what percentage of my readers would actually take on that freedom.

[Chris Holmes]

The I, I, I'm not sure. Has it officially been published yet? Yes, it's out now.

[IMing Ma]

Yeah. Yeah. Today I'm starting my tour at the center for fiction in the U.S. but we launched it in Canada just over two weeks ago. And yeah, I've been really, really excited and by the reception and I Have you heard finds its readers, right?

[Chris Holmes]

Have you found anybody that is reading it out of turn?

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, actually I have, but I would say, I will say that the majority of readers do read it in the order and I think there's a delight at the end when they realize that that was honestly the hypothesis that I saw when, when I. When I constructed the book. But occasionally I have received notes of folks who have read it out of order. And I've also received wonderful notes of folks who have been inspired and, and used it as inspiration to. To act and to make changes in their lives and try to improve the world in some ways ways that perhaps I'm not even brave enough to explore.

[Chris Holmes]

I love that. That's amazing. The best of what we would hope fiction can do. My favorite story in the novel is the Chanko Nabe story, in part because it seems at first innocuous. A young sumo wrestler in Japan, before it is incinerated entirely in global war, trains at a stable and remembers his mother's chankonabe soup that allowed him to gain the weight he needed to compete. There is the return of the boy to his mother after loneliness and not matching up to his expectations in the stable of wrestlers. But I'm very interested in. In why the the Japaneseness of this story was important to thinking of it as a dissident memory in the world of Chin.

[IMing Ma]

Hmm, that's a great question. I'll just share that. I think I had a whole life before I Started writing. I'm a first generation immigrant. I think I moved between eight different schools, between New York and Shanghai and Toronto and. And I didn't write until my mid-20s after I had built this entirely different career in business and tech and actually impact investing in education. And so a lot of the memories were drawn from my experiences living in other countries, working in different jobs, and specifically chankanabe that came out of my time living in Japan. I had an internship, actually working at a sake factory.

[Chris Holmes]

Oh, cool.

[IMing Ma]

Had an experience, yeah, cutting rice, you know, in the fields, wearing these hazmat suits and just completely boiling inside under a 100 degree heat within those suits as I was cutting and experiencing what farmers go through, even though of course they have more advanced technologies now. But during that time I attended my first grand sumo tournament and then actually returned on a couple different occasions when Japan kind of brought me back for various reasons. And so chankanabe started there. But I think in many ways the. The story there is a microsm of the whole book. It's a mosaic of sorts in which the. The actual memory itself is layered and between recipes by these mantras by the. By the mother as she's. Sorry, these recipes by the mother as she's making chankanabe, and these mantras from the sumo wrestling stable, as the young boy and the mother kind of their paths eventually intertwine and as he goes through the struggle. And I think at the end, you know, this book explores a lot of different things. And the speculative element of memory transfer and the reimagined China taking over the world, all of those are true, and all of those explore themes that are important and especially urgent today, such as authoritarianism or collective memory resistance. But I think at its heart, and I think because of. And this stems from my own background, most of the stories revolve around the themes of survival and the tension between survival and resistance in many ways. And the young sumo wrestler there and the. And the mother. I think in many ways they're trying to survive as well. There's a reason why the young boy was actually sent to. Sent to study sumo in the first place. And at the same time there's a pull against that. And even as they're trying to survive and trying to, you know, get through all the horrors that their lives present to them, I think at the end they have to figure out what to do under these extraordinary, devastating circumstances. And that's a theme that actually resurfaces across many of these stories.

[Chris Holmes]

Yeah, it absolutely does.

[IMing Ma]

So good.

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[Chris Holmes]

Learn [e-mail] I was so tickled to find Akebono, the Yokozuna of the of the 90s sumo world. He was at the very end of his career. When I lived in Japan, I lived there as well. Which is fun that we share that and you bring not only Akebono but other real figures into your fiction to place us in. In some way in time and space. And so why do we get those historical figures? They're surely be something beyond just a time placement for you. And, and specifically why Akebono the. The tallest and heaviest of the sumo wrestlers?

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, I think I was very inspired by wrestlers and by people throughout history and just wanted to pay homage in some ways when I was choosing these characters and their names. I think the same is. I think the placement of these historical figures, as you mentioned, is also important for time. I think as a novel that moves so much between time, I felt it was almost necessary and yeah, ultimately that. That's why I made those creative choices.

[Chris Holmes]

One of, one of the very contemporary figures that pops up is Kaveh Akbar, poet and novelist of quite recent fame. His poetry is contraband. In Chin, the twin brothers read and talk about his poems in secret. And this connects to a larger question in the novel. What happens to literature if technology allows us to simply exist in the minds of others in seemingly more direct ways? And that, of course, had been the novel's purview since the 18th century. Looking into the interiority of others in a way that we always long to do but never can. Does the novel predict a moment where fiction will have less of a role in that enterprise? And what were your own anxieties?

[IMing Ma]

So, as I mentioned, I started writing this novel in early 2020 and that was a period where our main concerns were also survival through the pandemic. And about two years later, of course, ChatGPT launched. And we're in this age where there's tremendous innovation and fear and hype around AI and whether that will ultimately, you know, lead to literature having a lesser role that can be replaced in some different ways. I think this was an anxiety that, that I had as I was finalizing the book. But the truth is, even before AI, we can see that other medias were taking the role that, that literature was what was having, I think, in. In the race to attract eyeballs and attention. Even Netflix and other media where. And TikTok and, and Facebook, all of these things were taking attention that, that the novel previously, the space that novels previously held. And so at the same time, what can we do about it? Right. I think that lays at the core of one of the other stories as well, in which a young writer, during the early phase of the mind bank, where mind banks begin to take all the attention of citizens rather than books. This, this writer is obsessed with, with creating something before it's all over. And I Think at its core, it's. It's very similar to kind of the survival theme that I mentioned earlier. Right. I noticed that you actually wrote a book previously about Kazu Ishiguro.

[Chris Holmes]

Yeah, I did.

[IMing Ma]

And something that, you know, one inspiration that he gave me, one of his interviews about the novel Never Let Me Go, is how much of the book is about resignation. Right. About the fact that under such devastating circumstances, the characters, instead of resisting and breaking the system, ultimately decide to make the best of it. And I think a lot of the times in my novel, that's what the characters are doing as well. And I think it's to mimic in some ways what we're seeing today with citizens and under, especially in the US Governments that are taking away rights, that are deporting migrants that are doing all these things. And yet for most of us, we're struggling with the fact that we're living in a time of immense economic inequality, of technological uncertainty. And I don't think it's a coincidence that both are happening at the same time.

[Chris Holmes]

A novel about a single party global system of surveillance can not avoid comparisons to Orwell's 1984, a book that looks more prescient by the second thought. Control is, after all, the final frontier of a disciplinary society. How does Orwell figure into these memories do not belong to us? And are we seeing an equally technology driven surveillance state emerge in China and globally right before our eyes?

[IMing Ma]

So I think one part, one quote from 1984 was always in my head. I was writing this book which is those who control the present control the past, and those who control the past control the future. I think in a way that's why the book moves so much between the past and in some ways, this future society. You know, I didn't write this book as a critique of China in any way. I think it was a worry that I had with my editors and publishers. In some ways, I didn't even intend it to be dystopian. I just saw it as people trying to make the best of things under these extraordinary circumstances. But it's impossible, I think, in these days not to think about the US China tensions and to think about how toxic in some ways the rhetoric has been ever since, you know, Trump's first regime. And I think we're now seeing the byproducts of that, the unintended consequences. I think the race for AI dominance in some ways is driven by the fact that any tech company in San Francisco can say, oh, we need to, we need to beat China, we need to get ahead of them. And as a result, the US has been very lax about AI regulation. What is the right amount of AI regulation? I don't have the answer to that right now, but I know that fear of not coming out first because of China and the geopolitical tensions, it's, it's all related.

[Chris Holmes]

Yeah, that's, I, I, I think that's a really fascinating way to, to think about it and certainly seems to be bearing out, especially in the total failure of regulating technology, that we just don't understand how it will change the function of our lives. Which made me think so much of the memory bank, which is something you can imagine in the world of your book, began as like a wondrous invention. You can save memories, and maybe those memories are memories of a loved one or something who has passed away. And you can live in their, in their past, as some characters do in your, in your novel, but then you can see it just kind of, you know, spreading its tentacles and becoming more and more involved in the state's desire for power and to use it for military means and surveillance means. And I, it, it brings me back to your great, great point about never let me go, which is a society can invent a technology that seems, you know, like it will have beneficial effects and then end up putting people in circumstances where their, their very lives become disposable. And what do you do once you've become one of those disposable lives? But you, you reference some things like, for example, China's use of a social credit system. And I, and I wonder how kind of contemporary China played into how you imagined this future Qin dynasty.

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, absolutely. So I guess for reference, I was born in Shanghai, and although I moved away when I was fairly young, I feel like my life isn't, is intrinsically tied to China and the city of Shanghai in particular. When I was seven, I actually returned to China and schooled in the system. And then in the summers, every other summer I would go back. And so I saw in some ways how Shanghai evolved over the period. And then also interns in Shanghai when I was in university as well and at a consulting firm. So I kind of saw China grow through the lens of Shanghai. And a lot of these things that are mentioned there, a lot of parts of these memories do not belong to us because this reimagined China has become the sole global superpower. These things like the GA call and the social credit score are embedded in that society potentially in different ways. But I think culturally it was important for me and I think one reason is that when I. Is that the mind bank and the speculative element of memory transfer that allowed me to kind of flip the racial hierarchy and envision a world in which the Asian protagonist could be seen through the lens of the majority rather than through the lens of the minority, often in relation to whiteness. I think part of that is that I identify as a first generation immigrant, but also really kind of this 1.5 generation because I lived between Asia and North America. And most of the authors who write in English are Asian American who grew up in the States the whole time. So what they write about is often in relation to identity, in relation to race. And while this novel has a lot of different identities, has Japanese characters, has characters on an island that we. That is not named, it's not really an identity novel. Right. They're just characters who are trying to make the best of things. But I wanted these cultural elements, such as the social credit score, such as the Gao Kao, unless there was a reason to explain them. I wanted to make it so that the characters knew them intrinsically and it was the default kind of mindset rather than something that was exoticized or something that had to be explained unless there was a character that needed it to be explained too.

[Chris Holmes]

So the. Another one of my favorite stories within is the watch seller and his young protege and the. The beautiful relationship that they build at. Even as the. The, you know, surrounding world of their moment becomes more and more perilous, including a. A virus that is. That is threatening the much of the world. And there is something about the attention given to the watches, given to the beauty of something that was made by hand by someone with a particular aesthetic vision. And it seemed to be you speaking through the book, almost imploring us to. To kind of slow down and look at things that are. That are made artistically by people's hands and to understand the kind of depth of that work. And I wonder if that was something important to you and. And how it played out in crafting that section.

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, it was something that was important to me. And. And I actually find it fascinating because it's a. That that story after the bloom is one that folks often bring up and is actually where the chrysanthemum cover of my novel is. Is driven from. But I think I was.

[Chris Holmes]

It's the chrysanthemum virus, right?

[IMing Ma]

Or flu or. Yeah, yeah. So the funny part is that that was actually the last story that I wrote when I submitted.

[Chris Holmes]

Fascinating.

[IMing Ma]

Yeah. When I submitted the novel to my agents, there was mention of a chrysanthemum virus, because I had started writing a story about a pandemic at the early days of the pandemic, actually, when it was largely in China, and as it started to consume the whole world, it felt too real. And I actually abandoned that story. But because it was mentioned in a number of parts throughout the book as a historical element, my agents asked me, is there a chrysanthemum virus story? And at that moment, something about horology and literature and the virus that I had already imagined in my head as existing in this world, they all came together, and I told them that I knew. I knew what I wanted to write. I wanted to write the central story, and. And it all kind of came together. Watchmaking and horology are interests of mine. I do collect vintage watches from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, very rarely kind of modern ones, although I have a few to deal with. Rain, mostly because nothing in the past is truly rain proof with time. But during the pandemic, I became embedded in some ways with some different watch communities. And it's very different than the literary communities, I think, even economically, and.

[Chris Holmes]

Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

[IMing Ma]

But it's just crazy. I've been to these meetups where, first of all, people hide. Like, we're not doing it at a coffee shop, we're doing it at someone's office. And then everyone brings like five pieces and lays it out on a table, and then you take a photo. And these pieces can be tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes like five figures. And yet people just allow other collectors and hobbyists to play with them. And it's just a completely different world and economic system. And I guess in some ways, because I've lived in all these different worlds, having worked in business and tech and been part of the literary world, I love learning how different people tick. People who've grown up in different ways, who work in different industries, who. And then acting in some ways as that bridge between them. So I was nervous about including so much about horology in there, but in some ways I wanted to provide a bridge as well for people in literature to understand how beautiful that can be, how much craft goes into it. I remember the first time I was at a watch boutique. It was at London Watch Week, and there was a watchmaker who had studied in Switzerland, and she told me that the schooling there, it was like a grad school for four years to become a watchmaker, which was longer, actually, than the UK typical degree. If you go to Cambridge or Oxford, it's Three years. Oh, and then she talked about the sacrifices, the fact that a lot of watchmakers who fix watches actually have astigmatism. They're always looking through a tiny magnifying glass on one eye. Oh, and actually there's a huge shortage of watchmakers today because not enough people, young people, want to train in it. And it's very hard to find someone that you can trust. So you often have to ship your watches to another city or country to get them properly or find the right parts. But I think the complexity of that, the detail oriented of that, that is actually the heart of hobbyists, I think, who are into vintage and it was a way for me to share that. And I think the obsession that people have there is similar to the obsession that writers have for their art, for their craft. And in some ways, although the money aspects are completely different, I wanted to create that parallel for people and share that love that I have for these pieces.

[Chris Holmes]

You and, and Gary Steingart share this in, in common.

[IMing Ma]

I remember, I think his collection is worth far more than mine. I think mine are, are probably about 10% as valuable as, as his. But yeah, he is the figure in the watch world that he's the main author that everyone knows in the watch world and, and I remember you tuned into Times article recently about him too. So yeah, I'm a bit shy about all of this, but I have made wonderful friends and there are a lot of authors actually who enjoy watches as well on the literary space.

[Chris Holmes]

Well, I think you two need to get together and yiming, before I let you go, I was wondering if you would share a little bit what you've been reading and loving recently. I know my listeners would love to hear any recommendations that you have.

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, absolutely. I just read Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle which I thought was absolutely incredible. I think last night I was at a dinner with three writers whose books have come out in the last year or two. Ruben Reyes Jr. He just had Archives of Unknown Universes. Den Michelle Norris, her book is when the Harvest Comes and Aubrey Nescur came out with River East river west all in the last two years. And those are all books that I definitely recommend, folks. Check it out. I already mentioned Ishiguru, but Never Let Me Go was an incredible influence. And Ro Kwan's Exhibit and is definitely another book I read recently that I really, really appreciate. So I have something to get started.

[Chris Holmes]

Yeah, I, I read her first and, and really liked it. So I'll have to, I'll have to find exhibit and I'm always pleased to hear about the the Ishiguro influences because that's certainly how I I feel about him in my own life, writing and thinking and being in a world where we, as you say, so often have to figure out how to just survive. But in thinking about things that are more pleasureful than just surviving, I want to recommend these Memories Do Not Belong to us by IMing Ma A Cloud Atlas like journey through times and places. In thinking through whether in just surviving, we can find new forms of community and connection and perhaps even resistance and yiming. It was a real pleasure to get to talk to you about it.

[IMing Ma]

Absolutely. Thanks so much Chris and have a.

[Chris Holmes]

Great event tonight at the center for Fiction. I know that I'll be excited to hear about it if it was a great one.

[IMing Ma]

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for having me and looking forward to more conversations in the future.

[Chris Holmes]

Me too. Well, that's all for me for now. My thanks to IMing MA for coming on to talk about his debut novel, these Memories Do Not Belong to Us. You can find links to purchase these Memories Do Not Belong to Us and all of IMing Ma's recommended books at the website burned by books.com there you'll find all of our previous episodes, links to buy a podcast T shirt, and ways to get in contact. As you listen, take a moment to rate the show on itunes, Spotify, and now YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts. Until next time, this has been Burned by Books.

[IMing Ma]

Sam.