Since the 1980s, waves of economic migrants from rural China have left their homeland bound for Italy but little attention is paid to them in the international press.
Determined to bring their stories to light, Suzanne Ma, a graduate of the 2006 Ryerson journalism class, spent five years shadowing a handful of Chinese economic migrants. The result is her debut non-fiction book, Meet Me In Venice, published in February and funded by a Pulitzer fellowship she won after graduating from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2009.
The story centres on the experience of Ye Pei, a courageous teenager who emigrates from China right after high school in order to earn money to send home.
Ma spoke with the RJAA about navigating the publishing world, the importance of honing your writing skills (even if you don’t stick with journalism) and having Jan Wong as an editor. Ma lives in Vancouver, where she juggles a freelancing career alongside managing Routific, the tech company she co-founded. She is also in charge of communications for Axiom Zen, a start-up accelerator.
When you were at Ryerson there were still defined “streams” – what did you specialize in?
It was actually TV because that was the goal and the dream for so long. But from the time that I started at the program I was so lucky to have Don Gibb as my teacher. And it was really after taking his print 101 class that I thought that a career in print would be something really interesting and exciting for me. And even though I decided to stick with the broadcast stream, because I thought I could benefit from the hands-on training that Ryerson had to offer, I made sure to keep on writing. I think that’s the biggest piece of advice that I give young people. I always tell them the best thing you can do to prepare for any career you end up doing, whether it’s staying in journalism or going elsewhere, is to be a good writer. And that will take you anywhere you want to go.
What were you up to between Ryerson and working on your book?
After Ryerson, I worked at the Globe and Mail for the summer internship and then I was a reporter in Toronto and then I went to Ottawa where I did the one-year reporting internship at the Ottawa Citizen. And then from Ottawa, I went to Beijing to study Mandarin because when I was working I would sometimes write stories about the Chinese community. I felt that my Chinese wasn’t up to the standard that I wanted it to be for professional use. And so from Beijing, I went to Columbia and then had the chance to work in the States after my degree. I worked at the Associated Press in New York, and then I worked at a place called DNAinfo. It’s a really popular hyper-local news website in New York and Chicago. I was their Chinatown reporter. That’s when I started using my Chinese everyday and really getting involved in the community.
Were these experiences the genesis of the book? When was the seed planted?
The seed was planted in 2007 when I was in Beijing and studying abroad. I was surrounded by other international students and a lot of them were Chinese like myself: Chinese Canadians, Chinese Americans, but also a lot of Chinese Europeans. This was my first real intimate exposure with Europeans of Chinese heritage and one of the friends I made ended up being my husband years later. It was really through him that I started asking him, “Okay where are you from?” He happened to be from Holland and I was like, “Oh, what’s your family story and how did they end up in Holland?”
Which is interesting because North Americans don’t typically hear about immigrant Chinese populations in certain northern European and certainly in southern European countries.
The immigrants in the Netherlands are quite settled. There’s a 100-year history of Chinese going to Holland. So they’re quite established in that way but there’s still a lot of work to be done. I’ve been very, very vocal about the way Chinese are being treated in that country. And it caused a firestorm because I had been writing some op-eds for a Dutch newspaper. And just being very critical and trying to be constructive about what I, as an outsider, believes needs to be changed. And it’s caused a lot of discussion in the country. I think that’s a whole other issue. That’s why this year I was invited to speak at TedX in the Netherlands.
How did you meet the book’s heroine, Ye Pei? And for our readers, who is she?
She’s the one who pushes the narrative forward. At the beginning of the book she’s a 16-year-old girl, and I meet her in her high school, not knowing that she’s going to be the main character of the book. It really happened quite organically. When I was in Qingtian province, I was hanging out in places where I would meet interesting people – so the cooking schools, the language schools. I went to her high school not particularly looking for a migrant, but looking for the children of migrants and Ye Pei was one of the kids.
Do you still keep in touch with her?
We talk about once a week and I don’t want to say what she’s been up to since because it will spoil the ending.
What do you want readers to take away from this book? I’m sure many readers won’t be familiar with migrant populations in southern Europe.
When I first started looking at migration to Italy, it really changed the way I looked at Italy as a North American. We have these really popular mainstream narratives about women going to Italy and living the good life in the beautiful country. The other point, which you alluded to earlier, you didn’t realize there were immigrant groups there. You have so many North Africans and Middle Easterners who are fleeing conflict, going up to Italy as a way of entering the EU as refugees. The problem with Italy is that it’s been in an economic depression for the last few years and Italians in general are not used to this kind of influx. They’ve always been a country that has sent people abroad. It’s been a place where people leave.
Jan Wong helped edit your manuscript. What advice did she give you about writing?
She actually went through the manuscript and edited every page. I know she definitely pushed me on the details. I would have a scene and she would say, what colour was it? How heavy was it? What were the smells there? What did you taste in the air? What’s good about that is her keen sense of observation. It’s not an easy thing to have. Sometimes it’s natural and sometimes it’s trained. I think it’s a mixture of both for me. And she really trained me to pay attention to everyone I talk to.
How did you link up with her in the first place?
She came up to my high school to speak. I was already a big fan of hers, I read the Globe and Mail, I read the “Lunch With” column, I read Red China Blues, she came to my school I had brought the book and asked her to sign it. I asked her if I could mail her my newspaper clippings because I was working at the school newspaper and she gave me her address. I would send her clips of my articles and she would actually take the time to read them. She would tell me what she thought of the story and she was very positive and encouraging. And when I graduated I worked at the Globe and she was still working at the Globe and so she took me out to lunch, which was a huge thrill to me – to be lunching with Jan Wong. Slowly we became like colleagues.
Was it difficult to get Ye Pei as a girl to get her to consent to be in her book and then eventually be the main character?
I had to work up the courage to ask her. I talked to Jan about this as well as Leslie Chang, who wrote Factory Girls. She said if you present yourself as a reporter, which I did, and you have your recorder out, you have your notepad out, and you’re always making notes and snapping photos and it’s very clear that this is an interview, you’re covered. When I approached Ye Pei about being the main character, she thought about it for a while and she said, “You know I don’t really like the spotlight and I’m kind of taken aback and nervous about it but I think it’s great that you’re writing this book because then I have something to remember my life by. I’m already forgetting so much that happened even just a year or two ago.” And then she gave me her blessing.
You went with a traditional publisher and a lot – it must be difficult to get a book picked up.
It was extremely difficult. I searched for literary agent in New York because I wanted to reach a larger market. I found a literary agent after a few months of looking and she started pitching and it took us a year to sell it. It was a year of rejections. I’m very open and honest about the process with young writers who dream about writing a book because it’s really, really not easy and we were actually ready to give up. I thought about self-publishing. I would’ve made more money if I self-published but I really wanted, as a debut author, to understand exactly what it took to get published. The publishing industry is extremely broken, its bureaucratic, writers don’t have any access to it unless they go through all these layers. Unless you have an agent, the process is very long, very frustrating and disheartening. I think if you stick with it long enough it can work and you always need to have a Plan B and a Plan C, which I did, but I was very happy to work with Roman and Littlefield. They have an excellent reputation for smart books and the editor I worked with had published many books on China and they also have a lot of connections with libraries and bookstores. Self-publishing is great but you lack that distribution network. These are the reasons I went with a traditional publishers.
By going the self-publishing route I assume you also don’t get the expertise of in-house editors, either.
Yeah, you would have to hire your own editor. Also, as a debut author, it gives you that authority. There are so many people self-publishing out there and there’s a lot of good stuff but there’s a lot of crappy stuff out there, too. So when someone takes your book, and has a really good record of smart books, that really helps your career. Whatever it is you want, get your work out. If that doesn’t work out, you can try self-publishing, if that doesn’t work out you can try pitching to The Atlantic, or The Walrus. But the most important thing is to get it out there.
What are your future plans?
Right now it’s just about book promotions. I’d love to write another book. I’d like to stick with the theme of immigrants because that’s the theme that really gets me excited but it would definitely be in North America so I wouldn’t have to travel as much as I did for this book.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
For more on how Ma got published, see her blog post: So, you want to be an author? Here’s how I did it.