Sean Wang’s ‘Didi’ highlights a uniquely Taiwanese American experience

At Sundance Film Festival this year, I was aghast at the lack of cultural fluency in reviews of Dìdi, which arrives in theaters Friday, even if they were glowing. Writer-director Sean Wang imparted the story of the mischievous 13-year-old Wang Wang (Izaac Wang), a first-generation Taiwanese American boy growing up in fits and starts in Fremont, California, in 2008. I knew these characters, where they came from, the baggage they carried and the reasons behind their choices because I lived through it all. Yet other critics saw the film as nothing more than a coming-of-age story. At minimum, they should be able to tell what the similarly semi-autobiographical Fresh Off the Boat got wrong about the Taiwanese American coming-of-age experience to know what Dìdi got right. If their only exposures to us have been stereotypes and caricatures like Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles, can we trust them to know the difference?

The 2008 Fremont in Dìdi is heavily populated by immigrants. Sheltered by the language barrier, older generations stubbornly stick together and largely eschew assimilation. Younger generations reared in this cocoon are painfully aware of how their elders’ inclination only exacerbates the othering they experience outside. To many non-Asians, our existence is an inconvenience, an intrusion upon the natural order. We take up space in schools, neighborhoods, and storefronts. I mean, which of us hasn’t heard “Go back to your country” at some point?

Judging from reactions coming out of Sundance, Dìdi has indeed succeeded in spurring others to empathize with us, or at least our messy adolescent selves. But the film is so much more. It’s about our cursed way of life. It’s about why we wind up here and choose to tough it out despite being unwelcome and being restricted by both racism and affirmative action.

Locked out

Wang Wang’s mother, Chungsing, is played by none other than Joan Chen, whom you may remember from Twin Peaks. The actress is from mainland China, not Taiwan. But her casting is no accident, as if she were interchangeable to the casting director. She’s perfect as a waishengren.

I am a product of what the Taiwanese call a mixed marriage. My father is a benshengren (or native islander—not to be confused with Taiwan’s indigenous population); his folks were around during the 1895-1945 Japanese occupation. My mother is a waishengren (or mainlander); her parents fled China with the Kuomintang post-Chinese Civil War around 1949.

Politically, the benshengren have largely been driving the island’s independence movement, while most waishengren have staunchly resolved to reunify China. Clinging to the false hope that they may one day reclaim the mainland, these waishengren have remained uncommitted to Taiwan. For decades, the Kuomintang resisted investing in basic infrastructure; just as an example, Taipei’s rapid transit system wasn’t operational until 1996.

Subconsciously, though, waishengren have probably conceded that reunification on their terms is a pipe dream. That, coupled with prospects of a potential Chinese invasion, has prompted many to seek status in the States. My maternal grandparents, four out of their five children, and respective grandchildren are all U.S. citizens. Most of them have indeed wound up in California.

Broken promised land

The General Scholastic Ability Test is the Taiwanese equivalent of the SAT. It’s the culmination of K-12 education for which every student endlessly preps. Cram school is a rite of passage; my middle school math teacher in Taiwan even taught one as a side hustle. Instead of questioning the appropriateness of such self-dealing, parents (mine included) are all too eager to get kids signed up. With the General Scholastic Ability Test, at least there is no catch. Your score alone determines which school you land in.

Many Taiwanese naïvely hold on to that same mentality even in the States. In Dìdi, the immigrant kids in 2008-era Fremont are not spared cram school. When I first settled in Vancouver in 1991, the Taiwanese-cram-school-in-a-garage as seen in the film was nonexistent. I enrolled myself in Sylvan Learning just the same. It was all we knew and all we had; our only tried-and-true path to success. Other American arenas such as sports or entertainment were out of reach. Even to this day, most Asian American singers only find success through K-pop. Of course, we know all about Jeremy Lin’s time in the NBA.

Wang Wang’s older sister, Vivian (Shirley Chen), gives the model minority goal the old college try, and disappointingly only manages admission to the comparatively middling UC San Diego. This I can certainly relate to, having overcome English as a second language to score in the 95th percentile on the SAT only to wind up at Indiana University-Bloomington.

Even Wang Wang endures the requisite cram school grind despite the fact that his passion lies in making skateboarding videos. If only we had been clued in, we’d all have been better off taking up lacrosse or squash instead. Sadly, Chungsing, much like my own mother, doesn’t have the wherewithal to find out how things really work here.

On our own

Chungsing has given up her art career to be in the States. We never see her husband, Vivian and Wang Wang’s father, at all. He works overseas to support an American dream that seemingly neither of his kids has asked for.

My own family was in exactly the same predicament. Both of my parents were accountants, which meant their Taiwanese professional certifications were not recognized in Canada. My mother retired early to look after my sister in Vancouver, while my dad stayed behind in Asia to stave off underemployment.

I distinctly recall, when we traded up to a bigger house, my parents hiring their old college buddies to facilitate the relocation. Essentially, these former classmates of theirs forfeited finance careers in Taiwan to haul furniture in Canada. After a while, my father’s Canadian permanent residency lapsed as he failed to meet the annual requirements.

Wang Wang desperately needs some life direction from his dad. I sure did. Navigating my teenage years as a parachute child was not easy. On the one hand it was liberating to keep some distance from overbearing parents; on the other it was brutal learning the ways of the world through trial and error, especially when second chances weren’t always guaranteed.

The adults I turned to instead didn’t always have my best interests at heart. Only in hindsight did I realize how many teachers short-changed me, perhaps due to unconscious bias. My high school journalism teacher nearly flunked me. Yet I’ve been working in journalism for the past two decades despite her.

Comfortable in our skin

As soon as skaters Donovan (Chiron Cilia Denk), Cory (Sunil Mukherjee Maurillo) and Nugget (Montay Boseman) anoint him as their videographer, Wang Wang wipes cringy videos from his YouTube channel and drifts away from his nerdy old crew, Fahad (Raul Dial) and Soup (Aaron Chang). Wang Wang hasn’t ingratiated himself fully with the skaters, so he assumes that they will reject him if they ever get to meet his fresh-off-the-boat mom.

In due course, Wang Wang comes around. I am not sure if I myself am ready to tell my mother I love her just yet. I do send her Lady M cakes on her birthdays. Much to my surprise, she has voiced no complaints. Now retired and relieved of obligation to care for his late parents, my father has joined her in Vancouver at last thanks to my sister’s sponsorship. My maternal grandmother, who suffers from dementia, has moved back to Taiwan permanently, with her children taking turns to return and care for her.

I have not discussed anything disclosed herein with anyone—not friends, not even loved ones, most certainly not strangers on social media. Perhaps I’ve taken a hint— microaggressions left under my Turning Red review—that absolutely no one cares. But the truth is I’ve also been deeply embarrassed about who I am and the rich history and culture I embody. I’m still traumatized by my first date scolding me for chewing food with my mouth open—a faux pas never repeated since.

Dìdi has not only given me the impetus to share all this with you, but the urgency. You need to hear a story like mine to know Sean Wang has told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Our truth. Not quite Taiwanese. Not exactly American. But Taiwanese American. Laowai critics and commenters be damned.