Emma Pei Yi (3:41)

Thank you. Yay.

Zibby Owens (3:43)

Okay, tell listeners please, what your book is about.

Emma Pei Yi (3:47)

So my book is a historical fiction novel. It's set in Japanese occupied Hong Kong during World War II. So it spans three years, eight months, and it follows the story of three remarkable women. We have a mother, her daughter and their maid. And when the Japanese invade, they're basically torn apart. And the rest of the book is just kind of them trying to find their way back to one another.

Zibby Owens (4:11)

Oh my gosh. And you start way back in the early 1900s and you take us all the way through. How did you come up with the idea for this? And I know you did so much research. So tell me a little bit about the inspiration and then how you accomplished this feat.

Emma Pei Yi (4:28)

Okay, so it was inspired by family stories. So growing up, I was born and raised in the uk, but you know, I always went to visit my grandparents in Hong Kong for mid autumn festivals and Chinese New Year. And it was during those times that my grandfather spoke really fondly about, you know, the Japanese occupation. He was, it was always filled with like anger and, and despair. But when I was younger, I didn't fully comprehend the stories that he was telling. You know, I would just think, okay, he just seems very angry all the time about, about the Japanese people. And it wasn't until I was a bit older that I started to learn the history behind it and I started to learn more about Japan occupying other Asian countries. And that's when it hit me. I thought, okay, we have a story there. But I think most importantly the fact that my grandmother who was a baby at the time. When the war broke out, she was always so quiet, and she pretty much refused to talk about anything Japanese related. And so I think it kind of ignited something in me. I wanted to know why she wasn't willing to talk about things or what her story was. And that's kind of how it came about. Yeah.

Zibby Owens (5:44)

So then what did you learn about your own grandmother's story that you were able to put in the book? Like, how much is it? You know, tell me the whole thing.

Emma Pei Yi (5:53)

So a lot of the stories that I heard from my grandfather, I've put into the book. So we've got the east river column resistance. We've got what happened to local civilians, what happened to, you know, American, Canadian and British civilians in Hong Kong at the time, how they were interned in the camps. Unfortunately, the last 15 years, I actually have had no contact with my grandmother, just due to family issues, which obviously happens with a lot of families. But we actually reunited last year, so I managed to reach out to her through my uncle, and we spent. We just WhatsApp all the time now. But I still never learned the stories of what she knows about the war. And so it's mainly fictional analyzed through the accounts of my grandfather.

Zibby Owens (6:40)

Wait, can we go back to not speaking to your grandmother for 15 years? Wait, you can't just gloss over what. What kind of family issues kept you apart?

Emma Pei Yi (6:49)

I feel like every family has their problems, you know, and so when I stopped talking to my grandparents, I was only 17, 18 at the time. So when the family sort of had that breakup, I wasn't very much part of what was going on. And then, you know, my parents and I. I had just graduated from high school, and then I moved myself to Australia, away from my parents as well. So I think there's, like, a lot of things to unpack there. Maybe I'll write a book about it one day, but. Yeah, so. But it's really nice that I have managed to connect with my grandmother again. And she's really happy about the book. So that's good.

Zibby Owens (7:29)

That's great. And you moved by yourself at age 17 to Australia with no other family there?

Emma Pei Yi (7:35)

I moved when I was 19. So when I was 17, I finished up high school. And then I worked for one year in Hong Kong and I was teaching English, and the plan was to actually move back to London to go to the New York Film Academy. And so I was accepted to do screenwriting there. But again, you know, I come from a very strict Chinese family, and my parents were really not Interested in anything creative or the arts. And long behold. I ended up just kind of running away from home, but still felt like I had to please my parents in a way and ended up studying, you know, marketing, which was something that my dad thought was quite useful at the time. And. Yeah. Anyway, so when I turned 30, I realized I can't continuously please my parents on everything. And I enrolled back into university, into creative writing, and that was that.

Zibby Owens (8:32)

So what is your relationship with your. I'm sorry, I'm totally praying this is none of my business. What's your. What is your relationship like with your parents now?

Emma Pei Yi (8:41)

You know, when I moved to Australia, we didn't talk for eight years. It was really on and off. So my dad and I spoke. We spoke through emails here and there sporadically. But my mom just was not interested in wanting to get to know me as an adult. And I think, you know, mother daughter relationships are so difficult to understand sometimes, but they recently visited. I'm 36 now, and I feel as though our relationship is slowly mending in a way.

Zibby Owens (9:10)

Yeah, that's really hard.

Emma Pei Yi (9:12)

It is really difficult. Yeah. And I think that translates into the book why I felt I had to have Mingjie and Tian as, you know, like, I really needed the mother and daughter relationship to be loving and loyal and trusting of one another. I needed that somewhere in my life. And so I think I just put it into the book.

Zibby Owens (9:35)

Wow. And did you feel better somehow? Healing of some sort. A healing of some sort after 100%?

Emma Pei Yi (9:43)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did.

Zibby Owens (9:46)

Oh, my gosh. Well, I feel like when and if you're ready to share the actual story of what happened, that was very juicy and dramatic, and I would read that book in a heartbeat.

Emma Pei Yi (9:56)

So it sounds like one of those really, like, soapy dramas.

Zibby Owens (10:01)

It does, right? Oh, my gosh. As she tosses the next historical novel and starts writing her own life. I'm kidding. Okay, so you go back to school for creative writing and then you decide to write this book. Where did you even begin? You knew you wanted a loving relationship or maybe that somehow came out through the history. This is an epic. One of these epic books that will be on a history list type of thing. This is a story of a time where you learn a lot about the culture and the history. You also connect with all of the characters. Like, that's no easy feat. So tell me a little bit about structuring this, figuring out how to even accomplish this. Like, how do you just do it?

Emma Pei Yi (10:44)

It's years of research, but it all. It all Comes back to the east river column resistance and the stories that my grandfather told me. So I knew that I wanted that in the book. And then I knew I wanted to kind of give voice to, you know, women in my family that I feel are very into creative arts, but they could never express themselves. So my mum is extremely creative and I have an aunt who's extremely good at, you know, painting and illustrating and. But no one ever pursued those kind of goals in my family. And so I think putting, you know, women's wants and needs and then putting, you know, my granddad's stories, I was like, okay, we can make something out of this. But the research took a long time because I'm currently away from Hong Kong, so. And then with COVID and everything happening, it wasn't as easy as, okay, I'm just going to hop on a plane and go visit all the museums and all the different places. So I had to kind of go off memory of what I did already know and then look into the National Archives. And I think I tried looking through Google Scholar, reading all the essays. It was a rabbit hole. I just jumped right in. And from that, certain characters started to come alive, you know, and we have a few characters in the book that are based on real people as well. So. Yeah.

Zibby Owens (12:08)

Wow. How long did the actual writing part of it take?

Emma Pei Yi (12:12)

I think I start. Okay, so I started this one in 2019-2020. It was. Yeah. And then Covid hit, right? And so you've got the whole lockdown. And I'm like, great. You know, all my friends and were just distraught at lockdown. And I was just sitting there at home like, this is the best thing ever. Like, I can actually, I don't have to go to work. I can just write.

Zibby Owens (12:37)

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Zibby Owens (15:18)

So when you're going through a hard time, who do you turn to? Is it the. Is it friends? Like, how do you get through a challenge with the book integrating all this information, a day where maybe a chapter is not going your way or you're upset about your family or whatever? How do you get through if it's family related?

Emma Pei Yi (15:38)

I always talk to my aunt, so my mum's younger sister and I have a very good connection. We have a really great relationship. So when I do struggle with feeling lonely because I don't have family here in Australia, and it kind of does impact you, especially around Christmas or, you know, your birthdays and Mother's Day, Father's Day, you do feel very alienated and Quite alone. So I do tend to talk to my aunt a lot. And then there's my partner as well, Mark, who. I mean, he's just incredible. He's like the best assistant ever. So, I mean, he was, like, setting up, like, my webcam and everything, because I bought a new one tonight. And you get this already.

Zibby Owens (16:19)

Looks great. It looks great. Tell him. Check plus fantastic.

Emma Pei Yi (16:22)

He gets 10 out of 10.

Zibby Owens (16:25)

Oh, that's great. And what books inspire you? What do you like to read in your free time, if you have free time?

Emma Pei Yi (16:30)

I've always loved to historical fiction. I mean, I grew up watching historical Chinese dramas with my grandma and a lot of Hong Kong TVB dramas, too, so I've always loved history. And then growing up in the uk, I was obsessed with the Tudors and Amberlynn. I lived in Tunbridge Wells, and I remember my dad taking me to Hever Castle, and I was just, like, breathing in the air that Amberlynn once breathed. You know, it just feels amazing to be in those places. There's just something about history. It's. And the events and the things that occur to people. I feel like it's always very timeless. You know, it's always relatable, even if, you know, the clothing's different and the buildings all look different. The relationships that people have with one another, that's timeless. And it just always translates, you know, as the years go on. So, yeah, I really like the aspect of it. Historical fiction, so true.

Zibby Owens (17:28)

I feel like sometimes history class at school gets it wrong with, like, all the documents you have to analyze. What about the people? Tell me the stories.

Emma Pei Yi (17:36)

Yeah, right.

Zibby Owens (17:38)

That makes everything real. Oh, my gosh. So much easier to remember when you connect with somebody and all of that. So that's great. Are you working on a new project at this point?

Emma Pei Yi (17:49)

I am. I am working on my next book, which I think is already very difficult because I was able to spend many years researching for When Sleeping Women Wake. But my next book is due to my publishers a year from now, and so I feel like I have to sort of cram in all this research and then go ahead and write the story. And it did change. I. I had a story where I was going to write about two sisters in, you know, 19th century China, rural China, but that's actually been scrapped. I came across some declassified documents from a particular country's government recently, and there's something really great in there. So I'm working on that, and hopefully I can bring that story to life. I know. Yeah.

Zibby Owens (18:40)

Really intriguing there. How did you come across Unclassified documents nobody else has found.

Emma Pei Yi (18:47)

Well, it's not that nobody else has found it, there's just really not much news around it.

Zibby Owens (18:52)

Okay.

Emma Pei Yi (18:53)

And I think when it, when it comes to, you know, minority stories, it's, it's never front page news anyway, so it's right there. It's, it's, it's online. Several news outlets have spoken about it and it came out in 2016, so. But I was shocked that I didn't hear anything about it until I went digging for, you know, Chinese migrant stories and.

Zibby Owens (19:18)

Yeah, wow, okay. Well, that sounds really good. And then you have a backup story about the sisters if you ever need it. Right. You can take all the deleted pages, save them.

Emma Pei Yi (19:28)

That's a good idea, right?

Zibby Owens (19:30)

Yeah, delete them at the land of lost stories or something. How is the literary scene in Australia, where you are and what part are you in Sydney or where are you?

Emma Pei Yi (19:41)

I'm in Canberra, in the capital.

Zibby Owens (19:43)

You're in Canberra? Okay.

Emma Pei Yi (19:44)

Yes. It's really lovely here. It's a nice city. It's comfortable. And I always say to my friends, if you're going to have kids and you want to raise a family in Australia, Canberra is the place to be. You know, everything's just at your fingertips or just, you know, 10, 15 minutes, car ride away.

Zibby Owens (20:01)

But yeah, awesome. That's great. We have an author who we publish in Canberra, Emma Gray.

Emma Pei Yi (20:08)

I'm trying to think about the literary scene in Canberra. It's quite small. We definitely have, you know, the writers center here, Marion as well, and I know a couple of local authors, but it's nowhere near as big as, you know, like Sydney or Melbourne or even globally. When you think about, you know, the festivals that you see online that happen in the US and the uk, those are massive. Right. So I think Australia, yeah, just thinking about it, I think Australia is. The literary scene is extremely rich and very cultural, but I think when it comes to stories from, you know, Chinese authors or even women of color authors, we're quite far behind compared to the U.S. yeah.

Zibby Owens (20:53)

Okay. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Emma Pei Yi (20:56)

I'm really bad at giving advice. Right. But I think what works for me was I knew I always wanted to write and I just kept pushing it off, you know, and telling myself, oh, now's not a good time, now's not a good time. But I don't feel like you will ever find that good time or that it will really come unless you just sit down each day just for even half an hour and write something. And that will that's all you need? Yeah.

Zibby Owens (21:26)

Okay. It's motivating. I need that advice. Very motivating. Okay. Well, Emma, thank you so much. Congratulations. I can't wait to read about the ins and outs of your family, all of your hidden secrets. And of course this was wonderful. So thank you so much for coming on.

Emma Pei Yi (21:41)

Thank you so much, Zibby.

Zibby Owens (21:42)

Okay, take care.

Emma Pei Yi (21:44)

Thank you. Bye.

Zibby Owens (21:45)

Okay, bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram Iby Owens and Spread the Word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.

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