Your first duty as a writer is to write to please yourself. And you have no duty towards anyone else.

Often, what you see in the media is driven by economic forces.

Its a wonderful thing to see a segment of our population that is open and eager to learn more about Chinese culture. It has filtered into the mainstream. You see credit-card ads on TV with white couples and Chinese babies.

The whole story of the comfort women, the system of forced sexual slavery, the medical experiments of Unit 731, is not something that is in the US psyche. That is changing because many books are coming out.

For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

There isn't much discussion of ruling class in America even in Boston, probably one of the most class-conscious cities in the country?

It is very difficult to hang onto the relics of history.