War veterans, gang members help writer

Maxine Hong Kingston, who has been credited with opening doors to a generation of Chinese… Maxine Hong Kingston, who has been credited with opening doors to a generation of Chinese writers, said her mother “squeezed the stories out of [her]” by dangling her out of windows to sing to her grandfathers as a child.

On Monday night, Hong Kingston gave an hour-and-a-half lecture in the Carnegie Music Hall.

Hong Kingston is noted as the writer of “The Woman Warrior” (1976) and “China Men” (1980), and has an upcoming release, titled, “The Fifth Book of Peace.”

The petite, 63-year-old Chinese-American woman stood behind a podium on a nearly vacant stage as she recounted her development as a writer.

She spoke of the Chinese “talk-stories” that passed through generations, and of their influence on her writing. She said she first became a writer after she learned the alphabet and received her first library card, which gave her “identification as a reader.”

Named as a “living jewel of Hawaii” by a Buddhist sect in Honolulu, Hong Kingston is acclaimed for integrating memoir, fiction and mythology into her semi-autobiographical accounts of Chinese immigrant heritage in the United States.

Born during World War II, she “inherited questions about war” and asked, “What can one individual person do about it?”

She began writing “The Fourth Book of Peace” as her own addition to the elusive Chinese “Three Books of Peace” her mother had told her about as a child.

But after a fire destroyed her home and writing in 1991, she could not continue, she said.

“I lost my ability to read. I lost my ability to write fiction, [because] fiction is a compassionate form. We care about the people [in fiction],” she said.

“I regressed. I became a child,” she explained of her attempts to work in isolation.

Hong Kingston invited veterans from different wars and their families to form a “writing community” permeated with Buddhist “compassionate listening” activities. More than 200 people, ranging from WWII and Gulf War veterans to ex-Vietcong and gang members, took part in the community.

“When we feel stuck and can’t write, just breathe and the inspiration will come,” Hong Kingston declared.

The members of the community engaged in breathing exercises, as well as eating and walking meditation. For therapeutic purposes, Hong Kingston rang the Buddhist “bell of mindfulness” to initiate silence when they were not listening to each other’s stories. She described the organization as a writing workshop, and not a cult.

After the healing sessions, Hong Kingston was still at a loss for an ending to “The Fifth Book of Peace,” so she waited for inspiration.

“I could allow myself to just receive gifts from the muses,” she said, adding that her plan was successful.

The soft-spoken, white-haired woman proceeded to recount her trip to Washington, D.C., where she read her poetry for International Women’s Day last March.

She and other female authors, including the not-exactly-incendiary Mormon nature writer Terry Tempest Williams, were arrested for throwing things at the White House. According to Hong Kingston, the police in the U.S. capital were “very nice,” even in their application of handcuffs.

At this point, the older members of the audience applauded like she was a standup comic.

Following her lecture, inquisitive audience members asked Hong Kingston an array of questions, mostly unrelated to her writing. Some inquiries targeted her thoughts on Ralph Nader, the possibility that the wrath of her ancestors was responsible for the fire that destroyed her home, and how to host a peaceful candlelit vigil for the National Rifle Association.