Jiayang Fan

Jiayang Fan was born in Chongqing, China in 1984. In 1986, her father went to the United States as a visiting scholar to study biology at Harvard.{{Cite web|title=紐約客樊嘉揚的兩個祖國|url=https://theinitium.com/article/20210526-international-united-states-fan-jiayang-new-yorker/|website=The Initium}} As a child, she lived with her mother in a residential complex in Chongqing's military zone.{{Citation|title=Jiayang Fan on Her Childhood in Chongqing|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZONBLS3YVo|language=en|access-date=2021-07-18}} The complex was run-down, had no hot water, and had shared bathrooms, while the sole nearby convenience store served around 20,000 residents.

In 1992, she immigrated to the United States with her mother. They first settled in New Haven, Connecticut, while her father was at Yale University. Fan's mother found out that her father was having an affair. She subsequently divorced him, and was left unemployed with only 200 dollars. Fan and her mother briefly stayed with a family in East Haven to avoid being evicted. After some time, they moved to Greenwich, one of the most affluent towns in the United States. Fan's mother believed that living in a wealthy neighborhood would be necessary for her daughter to attend a good public school. To support the family, Fan's mother worked as a live-in housekeeper while making a plan for Fan's education.{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|title=How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/how-my-mother-and-i-became-chinese-propaganda|access-date=2021-07-12|magazine=The New Yorker|date=September 4, 2020 |language=en-US}}

Fan attended Greenwich Academy as the only Asian student in her year. At that time, she could barely speak English and was struck that the teacher and classmates' perceived her as an outsider. She spent a lot of time watching CCTV, the state channel of China, with her mother, at the house she worked. In 1998, she attended Deerfield Academy, a co-ed college-preparatory school in Deerfield, Massachusetts. She studied Philosophy and English at Williams College, an elite liberal arts college, and graduated in 2006.{{Cite web|title=Jiayang Fan|url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiayangfan/|website=LinkedIn}} In a personal essay published in 2017, Fan said that even with greater familiarity with the English language and the American culture, she still felt like a "putative insider and perpetual outsider."{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2017-08-18|title=An Immigrant's View of Charlottesville|url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/an-immigrants-view-of-charlottesville|access-date=2021-07-19|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}}

Fan and her mother later moved to New York City. In the fall of 2011, Fan's 59-year-old mother was diagnosed with A.L.S., or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,{{Cite web|title=What is ALS?|url=https://www.als.org/understanding-als/what-is-als|access-date=2021-07-12|website=The ALS Association|language=en}} a progressive neurodegenerative disease that gradually paralyzes the patient. Her mother had since then frequently visited the ICU and once stayed in a nursing home. In 2014, Fan's mother was moved to the Henry J. Carter Speciality Hospital in Harlem, New York City.

Fan's mother passed away on January 12, 2022.{{Cite tweet |user=JiayangFan |last=Fan|first=Jiaying|number=1481356823185743883|date=12 January 2022|title=It’s the end. I already miss you so much, mom.}}

{{Summary style|section=y|date=October 2021}}

Jiayang Fan became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 2016. She was the first China-born staff reporter at the magazine, and became its third writer known for reporting on China, along with Peter Hessler and Evan Osnos. Her works include cultural and political commentary, personal history, and food critique. Before achieving staff writer status, her reporting on China, American politics, and culture had appeared in the magazine since 2010. Before becoming a staff writer, she also worked for the outlet as a fact-checker.

For a profile published in June 2019 in The New Yorker, Fan interviewed Chinese sci-fi writer Cixin Liu about the rise of China.{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2019-06-14|title=Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war-of-the-worlds|access-date=2021-10-09|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}} In the writer's most-known fiction, The Three-Body Problem, which was published in the U.S. in 2014, he wrote about two fictional civilizations that are modeled after the U.S. and China, Fan wrote.{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2019-06-13|title=Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war-of-the-worlds|access-date=2021-07-19|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}}

The interview was cited by five Republican U.S. senators in a letter to Netflix.{{Cite web|date=2020-09-24|title=Blackburn, Colleagues Raise Concerns About Netflix's Choice to Adapt and Promote Film by Proponent of Uyghur Internment|url=https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2020/9/blackburn-colleagues-raise-concerns-about-netflix-s-choice-to-adapt-and-promote-film-by-proponent-of-uyghur-internment|access-date=2021-07-19|website=U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee|language=en}} In September 2020, then-Senator Marsha Blackburn ({{U.S. politician abbreviation|R|TN}}) raised concerns over the streaming platform's decision to adapt and promote "The Three-Body Problem." Blackburn argued that Liu propagated the genocidal rhetorics regarding the Muslim Uyghurs and supported the Chinese's government's internment camps. She wrote, "In an interview with the New Yorker last summer, when asked about the ongoing atrocities in XUAR, Mr. Liu stated… ‘If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty…If you were to loosen up the country a bit, the consequences would be terrifying.’" The letter was signed by then-Senators Rick Scott ({{U.S. politician abbreviation|R|FL}}), Kevin Cramer ({{U.S. politician abbreviation|R|ND|link=yes}}), Thom Tillis ({{U.S. politician abbreviation|R|NC|link=yes}}), and Martha McSally ({{U.S. politician abbreviation|R|AZ|link=yes}}).

Netflix responded to the letter that Liu's view does not reflect the view of Netflix or the show's creators, and they will not be part of the production or its themes.{{Cite web|last=Li|first=Jane|title=Netflix's "Three-Body Problem" has to figure out how to not be the next "Mulan"|url=https://qz.com/1908838/netflix-called-out-for-three-body-author-cixin-lius-xinjiang-remark/|access-date=2021-07-19|website=Quartz|date=September 25, 2020 |language=en}}

In an article published by the Chinese online platform Sohu, Fan's interview was criticized as full of "leading questions" that intended to bring the topic to "the China threat theory," "but Liu smartly circled those questions".{{Cite web|title=你爱美国，美国爱你吗？华裔女记者老母医院等死，大哭求救无人理_樊嘉扬|url=http://www.sohu.com/a/387399829_587233|access-date=2021-07-19|website=www.sohu.com|language=en}}

Fan went to Hong Kong during the 2019 Anti-Extradition Amendment Bill Movement as a reporter for The New Yorker. She joined the rally and offered saline solution for those who were attacked by the police with tear gas.{{Tweet

| name = Jiayang Fan

| username = JiayangFan

| date = Sep 21, 2019

| text = I brought saline solution for protesters if they r gassed. But I'm afraid to go to frontline until my white friends arrive so I can have legitimacy in their eyes. I'm not angry, I just wish the frontliners would have the saline solution I brought for them in case they get hurt.

| ID = 1175324597148930051

|ref-name=duMMy01

}}

In a tweet she sent during the protest, Fan said that protestors questioned her identity and motivation because she spoke Mandarin. Fan had to show her press identification, passport, and business ID to prove that she was a reporter from the United States. Along with a video she posted, Fan wrote, "my Chinese face is a liability." She also said that she had to wait for other white reporters to come so that she could go to the frontline with "legitimacy".{{Cite web|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=Sep 21, 2019|title=Twitter|url=https://twitter.com/JiayangFan/status/1175324597148930051}} In her story published in December 2019, she voiced her support for anti-Beijing protestors.{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2019-12-06|title=Hong Kong's Protest Movement and the Fight for the City's Soul|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/16/hong-kongs-protest-movement-and-the-fight-for-the-citys-soul|access-date=2021-07-19|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}}{{Tweet

| name = Jiayang Fan

| username = JiayangFan

| date = Sep 21, 2019

| text = My Chinese face is a liability. Just got asked if I'm from the US and am reporter why I have Chinese face. I showed press identification, passport, business iID . “But why I speak mandarin?” Old man asks hostilely. And I'm surrounded by huge mob. Are you really from west? I'm asked.

| ID = 1175319171892207616

|ref-name=duMMy02

}}

Her comments caused mainland Chinese to attack her on the internet, accusing her as a traitor to China. Some Hongkongers also criticized her for not fully supporting the protestors in her story, which recorded discrimination that Mandarin speakers faced in Hong Kong as well as violent acts of protestors.

When Fan worked for The New Yorker as a fact-checker, she had the opportunity to visit restaurants in New York City; that was when she started to write food critique for the magazine. Her writings include Salon de Ning, a high-end Shanghai-style rooftop bar in the Peninsula New York,{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2014-06-15|title=Salon De Ning|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/salon-de-ning|access-date=2021-07-23|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}} Sichuan restaurant Málà Project,{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2016-04-21|title=The Hot Pot's Newer, Hipper Cousin|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/mala-project-tables-for-two|access-date=2021-07-23|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}} and California-Mediterranean composite Covina.{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2016-07-14|title=Covina's Simple Pleasures|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/covina-tables-for-two|access-date=2021-07-23|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}} In NYMag's food section Grub Street Diet, Fan wrote about a food diary where she recounted that "food is our language" between her mother and her.{{Cite web|last=Drinkard|first=Jane Starr|date=2020-10-09|title=Writer Jiayang Fan Misses Chinatown's Muscadines|url=https://www.grubstreet.com/2020/10/jiayang-fan-grub-street-diet.html|access-date=2021-07-23|website=Grub Street|language=en-us}}

In March 2020, during the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Fan and mother became the target of Chinese nationalists.

In early March, the Henry J. Carter Speciality Hospital closed to visitors per state policy regarding COVID-19. Meanwhile, the two health aides who had been taking care of Fan's mother were not permitted to stay in the facility. Upon learning that a few positive COVID-19 cases were found in the hospital, Fan called the hospital's nurse station and the Patient Relations Department, while not receiving a response on what protective measure is taken to prevent patients from contracting the virus.

After a nurse facilitated a brief FaceTime call between Fan and her mother in early April, weeks since the COVID-19 lockdown and visitor ban started, Fan decided to seek help on Twitter. She tweeted with a screenshot of the FaceTime video and mentioned Mitchell Katz, the president of New York City Health and Hospitals:

{{Cite tweet|number=1248363246379241479|user=JiayangFan|title=⁦.@DrKatzNYCHH ⁩this is last photo of my last vid call w my mom who is sobbing as hospital police drag out my moms crying aside. Henry j carter patient relations lied to me entire day abt state of her discharge until last min. Moms nurses collectively anguished for her.|author=Jiayang Fan}}

The day after her mother's aide returned to the hospital, Fan received a Twitter private message telling her that she was being targeted on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. She had received malicious threats on her and her mother's life: “I never know what happiness is until I see your sobbing bitch face”; “Authoritarianism rescues the injured and saves life: democracy takes the life of your bitch mother.” “Brownnosers will brownnose until they have nothing,” Fan quoted in her essay.

A WeChat Chinese-language publication, College Daily ({{Lang-zh|c=留学生日报}}), published a letter titled "College Daily is willing to send you a ventilator," after Fan's twitter received attention on the Chinese internet. The letter criticized the "non-behaving American politicians" who led to the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., and made reference to Fan's previous reporting on Cixin Liu.{{Cite web|last=网易|date=2020-04-12|title=被纽约客"起底抹黑"235天后，留学生日报向纽约客记者捐赠呼吸机|url=https://www.163.com/dy/article/FA0A9PJQ05128ELF.html|access-date=2021-07-19|website=www.163.com|archive-date=July 19, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210719030323/https://www.163.com/dy/article/FA0A9PJQ05128ELF.html}} The letter said that, the fact that Fan made the analogy between Earth-Trisolaris in The Three-Body Problem and China-U.S. is "not worth commenting" and reflective of her view on China and U.S.-China relations. It also pointed out that China sending ventilators to the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic is as "absurd" as Earth sending supports to Trisolaris.

In August 2019, The New Yorker published a story about College Daily, calling it a "post-truth" publication where Chinese students in the U.S. receive their news.{{Cite magazine|last=Zhang|first=Han|date=2019-08-19|title=The "Post-Truth" Publication Where Chinese Students in America Get Their News|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post-truth-publication-where-chinese-students-in-america-get-their-news|access-date=2021-07-19|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}} In the letter to Fan College Daily said that while The New Yorker editorial board ignored their "reasonable request for taking down the story," they still decided to send ventilators to Fan in the principle of humanitarianism. It was an attempt to "combat evil with kindness," the publication wrote.

As Fan received threats on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, Fan's family in China also faced harassment.

In an interview with New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden, Fan said that she became the target because of the ongoing, intensifying social media war between U.S. and China, while her story existed at the intersection of anti-America sentiment and nationalistic feelings that Chinese people have. "The fact that I had covered the Hong Kong protests, not too long ago and have written stories about China that was not purely congratulatory, I think that's upsetting and considered a betrayed by many Chinese living in China," Fan said in the interview.

A study conducted by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) found out that Fan, and other journalists and China analysts of female and ethnic Chinese heritage were targets of an ongoing, coordinated and large-scale online information campaign on Twitter led by a pro-Chinese Communist Party network known as Spamouflage. It involved inauthentic Twitter accounts engaging in online harassment against the journalists by issuing threats of violence and racial insults, and spreading accusations of being a traitor.{{Cite web|last=Allen-Ebrahimian|first=Bethany|date=2022-06-03|title=Report: China-linked Twitter harassment targets female Asian journalists outside China|url=https://www.axios.com/2022/06/03/china-twitter-harassment-female-asian-journalists|access-date=2022-06-21|website=Axios|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|last=Scott|first=Liam|date=2022-06-20|title=Female Asian Journalists Face Harassment in Allegedly Beijing-Backed Campaign|url=https://www.voanews.com/a/female-asian-journalists-face-harassment-in-allegedly-beijing-backed-campaign/6622387.html|access-date=2022-06-21|website=Voice of America|language=en-US}}

In her 2022 and 2021 The New Yorker articles, Fan talks about Asian American women starting self-defense classes in response to the anti-Asian racism in the United States and discussed the surge in violence against Asian Americans, and why women are a particular target.{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2022-03-25|title=Asian American Women Fight Back|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/asian-american-women-fight-back|access-date=2022-05-25|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}}{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2021-03-19|title=The Atlanta Shooting and the Dehumanizing of Asian Women|url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-atlanta-shooting-and-the-dehumanizing-of-asian-women|access-date=2022-05-25|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-us}}

She also analyzed the reasons why Asian Americans feel powerless in the battle over elite high schools in New York.{{Cite magazine|last=Fan|first=Jiayang|date=2021-06-27|title=Why Asian-Americans Feel Powerless in the Battle over New York's élite High Schools|url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-asian-americans-feel-powerless-in-the-battle-over-new-yorks-elite-high-schools|access-date=2022-05-25|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-US}}

{{Incomplete list|date=February 2022}}{{bots|deny=Citation bot}}

• {{cite web |title=The dilemmas, moral and financial, of buying books in Shanghai |department=Page-Turner |website=The New Yorker |date=June 28, 2010 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-dilemmas-moral-and-financial-of-buying-books-in-shanghai }}Available on website only.
• {{cite web |title=Turkish Delight |department=Page-Turner |website=The New Yorker |date=July 15, 2010 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/turkish-delight }}
• {{cite journal |date=July 20, 2015 |title=Puffy's Tavern |department=Goings on About Town. Bar Tab |journal=The New Yorker |volume=91 |issue=20 |pages=15 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/bar-tab-puffys-tavern }}
• {{cite journal |date=January 25, 2016 |title=Mother's Ruin |department=Goings on About Town. Bar Tab |journal=The New Yorker |volume=91 |issue=45 |pages=16 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/25/bar-tab-mothers-ruin }}Title in the online table of contents is "The provocative improvisation of Mother’s Ruin".
• {{cite journal |date=February 22, 2016 |title=The golden generation : why China's super-rich send their children abroad |department=Annals of Wealth |journal=The New Yorker |volume=92 |issue=2 |pages=30–35 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/22/chinas-rich-kids-head-west }}Title in the online table of contents is "China’s rich kids head West".
• {{cite journal |date=July 25, 2016 |title=Covina |department=Goings on About Town. Tables for Two |journal=The New Yorker |volume=92 |issue=22 |pages=13 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/covina-tables-for-two }}Online version is titled "Covina's simple pleasures".
• {{cite journal |date=June 24, 2019 |title=The war of the worlds : a leading sci–fi writer takes stock of China's global rise |department=Profiles |journal=The New Yorker |volume=95 |issue=17 |pages=28–35 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/liu-cixins-war-of-the-worlds }}Online version is titled "Liu Cixin’s war of the worlds".
• {{cite journal |date=September 6, 2021 |title=Little Mad |department=Goings on About Town. Tables for Two |journal=The New Yorker |volume=97 |issue=27 |pages=11 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/06/a-boldness-of-vision-at-little-mad }}Online version is titled "A boldness of vision at Little Mad".
• {{cite journal |date=September 27, 2021 |title=CheLi |department=Goings on About Town. Tables for Two |journal=The New Yorker |volume=97 |issue=30 |pages=18 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/27/chinese-dishes-from-fertile-jiangnan-at-cheli }}Online version is titled "Chinese dishes from fertile Jiangnan, at CheLi".
• {{cite journal |date=September 12, 2022 |title=Gugu Room, 143 Orchard St. |department=Goings on About Town. Tables for Two |journal=The New Yorker |volume=98 |issue=28 |pages=11 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/09/12/the-more-is-more-pizzazz-of-gugu-room }}Online version is titled "The more-is-more pizzazz of Gugu Room".
• {{cite book |title=Motherland |location= |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |year= }} Forthcoming.

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;Notes

{{reflist|40em|group=lower-alpha}}

{{Anti-Chinese sentiment}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fan, Jiayang}}

Category:1984 births

Category:Living people

Category:People from Chongqing

Category:Chinese emigrants to the United States

Category:21st-century American writers

Category:Williams College alumni

Category:Deerfield Academy alumni

Category:The New Yorker staff writers

Category:American women journalists of Asian descent