30 pages • 1 hour read
Alexander WeinsteinSaying Goodbye to Yang
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Alexander Weinstein
In writing “Saying Goodbye to Yang” and the other stories collected in “Children of the New World,” Alexander Weinstein, who was 39 when the book was published, mined his own experiences and the contemporary American culture around him. Weinstein, who is white, was born in New York, attended Naropa University, which was founded by a Buddhist teacher, and then pursued masters degrees at Indiana University. He resides in Michigan.
“Saying Goodbye to Yang” was inspired by Weinstein’s observation of society’s growing infatuation with technology:
Around the same time, a lot of my students were getting iPhones, and talking about how much they loved them—saying that, if they lost anything, please don’t let it be their iPhones. I got the sense that we were all starting to forge this very deep emotional connection with technology (Raferty, Brian. “Don't Worry, This Author's Got Our Dystopia All Figured Out.” Wired, 20 Sept. 2016).
Using speculative fiction to extrapolate a future that is even more reliant on technology than the time of publication, Weinstein comments on contemporary issues by exaggerating our obsessions with devices. After experiencing his computer crashing and losing a lot of his important files, in addition to witnessing his students anthropomorphizing their phones, Weinstein was able to imagine a world in which grief for obsolete technology would be normalized. Furthermore, Weinstein posits their relation to technology can make his characters “discover what it means to be human” (Raferty).
A hallmark of Weinstein’s work is the juxtaposition of technology and spirituality. Several stories in Children of the New World are directly influenced by Buddhist teachings. In some forms of Buddhism, certain inanimate objects are thought to have sentience. Weinstein takes this premise and questions how technology such as our phones and inboxes interacts with our universal human emotions and fears:
I think the future is intrinsically linked with our universal human problems. In fact it’s these very problems, and how we deal with them, which will determine our future. I set many of my stories in a gritty 'realist' world, but one that is plagued by an overuse of technology, which is akin to the world we find ourselves living in now. The problems we have with our current technology often reveal our own human foibles, and it’s these new emotions of cyberspace which reveal our struggles. What is the emotion of an empty inbox? (Powell, Garry Craig. “Alexander Weinstein Talks About Children of the New World.” Late Last Night Books, 2017).
By combining genre tropes and philosophical questions, Weinstein examines what it means to be human by viewing his characters through a lens of technology.
Socio-Historical Context: 21st-Century Current Events and Politics
Alexander Weinstein wrote the stories in his debut short story collection, which includes “Saying Goodbye to Yang,” for a decade before Children of the New World was published in 2016. Though his work often takes place in a dystopic future, real events inform his stories and critique contemporary social structures.
Weinstein has mentioned “disasters [such] as the BP oil spill [2010] and the Flint water crisis [2014-present]“ influenced his world-building, particularly the stories in which characters face challenges because of environmental changes or catastrophes (Raferty). Xenophobia is a theme in “Saying Goodbye to Yang,” as expressed by the casual racism the family of adopted Chinese children encounter throughout the narrative. The xenophobia in the story stems from reactions to America invading North Korea. The bigotry they face echoes post-9/11 normalization of hatred and even violence against Muslim Americans. In this fictional conflict, it is apparent that racism against people of Asian descent has been normalized across the country. Weinstein anchors his futuristic stories in current domestic or international issues in order to connect with his readers, and to critique humanity’s response to man-made calamities:
I don’t think the critique would be as clear. One of my central approaches to writing speculative fiction is to take an absurd situation, which we presently feel is normal, and then push it to an even further absurdity. It’s only in this light that we can see the reflection of the disturbing state of our present-day affairs (Powell, Garry Craig. “The Problem with the Future: An Interview with Alexander Weinstein.” Rain Taxi Review of Books).
Advances in technology in the early 21st century also inform Weinstein’s work. The period in which he wrote Children of the New World encompasses the introduction and proliferation of iPhones, released in America in 2007. In 2016, Weinstein cited Pokémon Go as an obsession that separates its users from the natural world, becoming an at-times dangerous distraction (Raferty). Weinstein extrapolates contemporary awe and fear of technology into a near future to both reflect our current anxieties and contemplate consciousness and humanity.
