Unemotional? Camy Tang shares her thoughts...

God uses broken vessels. He works through us in all the difficulties we experience to help others. Camy Tang shows us that in her book, Sushi for One. Here's a little about the thought process Camy put into the families of Sushi for One.


Sushi for One?
(Zondervan, September 1, 2007)











by CAMY TANG













I have a Sep 5th feature of this book posted here. Please check it out!
Take it away, Camy...



Even though I write chick lit, my characters are not perfect and happy all the time. I try to give them realistic backgrounds, realistic families.

Asian Americans (at least the Asian Americans I know) are very much into family, whether their own immediate family or extended family, too. Family influences everything not directly related to work, pretty much.

In Sushi for One, my heroine Lex has a male-dominated family. Her mom died and she’s been living with her dad and her older brother.

Asian men are not encouraged to show emotion. To be emotional, even. Therefore, any time a woman gets emotional, the men either get lost or stand around being uncomfortable.

Lex has been raised by her dad and brother, and so she’s a tomboy. She’s been taught not to get emotional over things, and most of the time, she’s pretty cool-headed. When she needs emotional support, she’ll often go to her female cousins.

Lex’s family isn’t dysfunctional. It’s actually quite normal for an Asian family (notice the qualifier). But it isn’t necessarily healthy to not show emotion in front of each other.

This comes to a head in the book (but I promise not to give away anything). Even though a lot of terrible things happen to Lex, they act to bring healing to her family—to a place she didn’t realize needed healing in the first place.

I wrote the scene in the hopes that other women with unemotional families can find encouragement. God is with us, God is with our families, and God is working through the tough things that happen.

Thanks for letting me blog with you, Angie!

I'm so honored you did!
Thank you,
Angie


ABOUT CAMY TANG:
She is a member of CFBA and is a loud Asian chick who writes loud Asian chick-lit. She grew up in Hawaii, but now lives in San Jose, California, with her engineer husband and rambunctious poi-dog. In a previous life she was a biologist researcher, but these days she is surgically attached to her computer, writing full-time. In her spare time, she is a staff worker for her church youth group, and she leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service.

Sushi for One? (Sushi Series, Book One is her first novel. Her second, Only Uni (Sushi Series, Book Two) comes out in February 2008!


To celebrate the launch of her debut novel, she's got a huge contest going on. Camy is giving away baskets of Christian novels and an iPod Nano! Only her newsletter YahooGroup subscribers are eligible to enter, so join today.


For more information about the contest, visit her website.


Contest ends October 31, 2007!