The Americanization of Sammy Tsai (fiction)
This is an old story that I wound up reading aloud the other day. I actually wrote it more than twenty years ago not that long before I more or less stopped writing. I stopped largely because I couldn't get anything published. Anyway, this story was rejected by at least twenty five magazines-journals.
I was part of an online conversation a few days ago about the "slushpile" and an article
that mostly made the point that the stories that wind up on the slushpile belong there (though shse does admit at the very end to having missed a future bestselling author). I thought it might be interesting to just post one of my own contributions to the slushpile.
There are probably a number of reasons why it never got published including the simple fact that there were better stories out there. Way back when, I thought this was the best I could do in some sense and it just struck me that it wasn't going to get me anywhere. It did eventually occur to me that I liked writing despite that.
Anyway, what better place to leave a story that no one would publish than my blog?
Labels: circumcision Vietnam foreign exchange stories refugees Chinese candy
posted by Chancelucky @ 1:43 AM
4 Comments:
I understand that it's possibly accurate in a historical context, but today such a medical nightmare is much less likely (especially in California, where fewer than 30% of babies are being circumcised).
We now have definitive evidence that the foreskin is the best part of the penis. http://www.nocirc.org/touch-test/touchtest.php
-Ron
Ron,
thanks for reading and commenting. One reason I wrote the story was to catch the shift in American culture around the topic of circumcision.
It's fascinating to contemplate how its much more ritual than science, but I remember the period when the custom was treated as "scientific" and a "health" measure.
btw, thanks for the link.
Another interesting story, at first I wanted to wince but then was caught off guard by the humour. And then I winced again.
Dale,
thanks. I wasn't really expecting to write a funny story back when I started this one. I think it was either be funny or treat it as ritual mutilation, so I chose the former.
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