The Teller of Small Fortunes

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.

Julie Leong describes herself as Chinese Malaysian American. The daughter of Chinese Malaysian immigrants, Leong spent her childhood between a suburb of New Jersey and Beijing, and she says that she felt like she didn’t belong in either place. She felt “too Asian for suburban America and too American for China” (“Julie Leong.” Penguin Random House), and this shapes her portrayal of Tao’s experiences in The Teller of Small Fortunes. 

Like Leong, Tao feels like she is stuck in between cultures. The novel is set in the land of Eshtera, which Leong describes as “the prototypical Western European medieval fantasy world” (“A Little Bit of Magic and Humor – An Interview With Julie Leong.” KPOP-TV). Tao is an immigrant from the neighboring Empire of Shinara (which is based on China), and she looks unmistakably Shinn. Her appearance constantly invites scrutiny, and she is aware that many Eshterans regard her with a mixture of fear, suspicion, and hostility. One of the innkeepers she encounters on her travels embodies these views, calling Shinns “cheats” and “dirty,” and claiming they “live in caves” and “worship demon-gods” (69). As a result of the constant racism and xenophobia Tao faces, the novel depicts her resigned to a life of solitude even though she craves companionship. 

On the other hand, Tao also regrets the loss of her Shinn heritage though she worked hard to assimilate in Eshtera and speaks flawless Eshteran. In one scene in the novel, she meets a Shinn shopkeeper who is excited to speak to her in their shared first language. Tao feels a deep sense of shame when she admits that she has forgotten the Shinn language. Leong describes a similar experience she had as a teenager: When she was traveling in China, a stranger spoke to her in Chinese, and when she realized that Leong couldn’t speak the language fluently, “she turned away in disgust” (“A Little Bit of Magic and Humor”).

The novel ultimately suggests a bicultural resolution by allowing both cultures to coexist within Tao. Even her wagon pantry blends cultures—rice wine vinegar shares shelf space with goat cheese—echoing the notion of a hybrid self that can claim two homelands at once.