Books and Boba

#298 - Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Listen on

Episode notes

On this episode, we discuss our November 2024 book club pick,  Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, an award winning novel about a guy living in cop show version of Chinatown who dreams of becoming a "Kung Fu Guy" but is stuck playing generic Asian guy roles, a metaphor for not only how Hollywood treats its Asian actors, but for the model minority myth as well.

To help us discuss this book, we've invited our friends Ada Tseng and Brian Hu from the Saturday School Podcast who provide their perspectives as longtime Asian American pop culture journalists and scholars.

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

Support the Books & Boba Podcast by:


Follow our hosts:


Follow us:


The Books & Boba November 2024 pick is Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective

Mentioned in this episode:

Imagine what our democracy could be in this new hit history podcast from More Equitable Democracy and Larj Media

American Democracy sucks right now! More specifically, the United States' electoral system is outdated and needs reform to better represent its diverse population. George Cheung and Colin Cole from More Equitable Democracy probe what the U.S. can learn from Northern Ireland's adoption of proportional representation to overcome political divisions and achieve fairer representation. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts!

Listen to The Future of our Former Democracy now!