I think we often write because we feel a loneliness, and people read for the same reason, and then they come away feeling a little less lonely.
Shanghainese people are good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality, Shanghai personality becomes part of yours.
Sometimes you change to survive, and some things you don't give up, or you're too prideful, and then you think well, what's pride? Is it a good thing? Maybe it's a bad thing. That's what I look at in my life. It's always a question in my life I look at, and I never find the answer, because if I did, probably I wouldn't have books to write.
You have to be your own person. You can't let people's opinions determine how you think about yourself. There's a difference between identity and self-identity.
Mothers have the huge influence, and I feel like they're always teaching us from the day we're born what to be afraid of, what to be cautious of, what we should like and what we should look like. Then we spend half of our life trying to be not like them, and then we reach another part of our lives where we see these things we can't get rid of.
I feel I've always been writing about self-identity. How do we become who we are? So I'm just writing from experience what's concerned me.
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