Antonella Moretti 00:00:00 - 00:00:21 I understand that, yes, they might have the same kind of behavior like Italians have or Americans have, but the feelings are the same among all people. The difference is the way we express them. The culture lets us express them more open or not, but the feelings are just the same.
Ali Mona (intro) 00:00:21 - 00:02:54 Welcome to the Bookish Expats Podcast, where we discuss books that help us understand the host countries that we have lived in or are currently living in. Your host is usually Steph, Stephanie, a first-generation Italian American that first got her head stuck in a book about the same time that she got her first passport at the age of four years old, and she has not stopped reading since. My name is Ali Mona, and I'm the founder and host of the Limitless Lawy and Limitless Life Podcast. And I am hijacking this intro so that I can tell you a little something extra about this episode's guest, Antonella Moretti. Antonella Moretti is the author of Parsley and Coriander, a fictional book about an Italian expat community in Suzhou, China. Antonella has lived in Suzhou for many years herself and draws upon her personal expat experience for this narrative. Now, I had the distinct privilege of meeting Antonella twice, once in Shanghai and once in Suzhou, and this woman is amazing. She's kind, she's gentle, she's knowledgeable, and she is so brave because I did an interview with her all in English when her native language is Italian, and we had a blast. Now, when I went to read Parsley and Coriander, I laid in bed one night expecting to read a couple pages and fall asleep, and I'll tell you, I read the book in one go. So I definitely recommend that you pick up a copy for yourself. Now, in this episode, we asked Antonella about her 2 bookish hats: expat reader and expat writer. We discuss her love of reading books about China, what led her to write this book on an expat experience in China, and about the publication and translation process. You see, this book was initially written in Italian but now has an English version and will soon have Mandarin version as well. Two special thanks go out to Tatjana, Steph's season four co-host of Bookish Expats starting in July of 2019, and to Russian expat living in Shanghai Marina Kush, who is Shanghai Daily Chic on Instagram, for contributing to the questions in this interview. You can find out more about parsley and coriander and chat with other Antonella Moretti fans at facebook.com/parsleyandcoriander. P-A-R-S-L-E-Y-A-N-D coriander C-O-R I-A-N-D-E-R. If you have any comments or questions about this episode, please feel free to connect with Steph on any social media platform. Steph Fuccio, S-T-E-P-H F-U-C-C-I-O. And you can connect with me on Facebook and Instagram at Positively Allymona, A-L-L-Y M-O-N-A. Now I think that's enough spelling. Let's get on to the episode.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:02:54 - 00:02:59 Well, thank you so much, Antonella, for joining us on Bookish Expats today.
Antonella Moretti 00:02:59 - 00:03:02 Hi, and thank you for having me.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:03:02 - 00:03:06 So let's start with your background. Antonella, you are from Italy, correct?
Antonella Moretti 00:03:06 - 00:03:06 Yes.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:03:06 - 00:03:07 All right.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:03:08 - 00:03:11 And, and you've lived in Suzhou, China for how long?
Antonella Moretti 00:03:11 - 00:03:13 7 years, almost 7 years.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:03:13 - 00:03:16 7 years. When is your Chinaversary?
Antonella Moretti 00:03:16 - 00:03:21 In August 9th, if I'm correct. Yes.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:03:21 - 00:03:25 Have you lived in any other countries or just in China so far?
Antonella Moretti 00:03:26 - 00:03:32 This was the first expat experience for the family. Yes, we started with China.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:03:32 - 00:03:35 That is a brave, brave decision.
Antonella Moretti 00:03:37 - 00:03:37 Wow.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:03:38 - 00:04:03 We're reshaping Bookish Expats a little bit, and because you're a writer and we'll be talking about your book Parsley and Coriander, I want to just keep holding it up because I'm so excited about this, but I understand the listeners are not going to see that. So listeners, go to my Instagram. I'll have tons of pictures and things about the book and whatnot. Okay, so we're gonna talk about you as a reader first, then we'll go into you as a writer and about this book.
Antonella Moretti 00:04:03 - 00:04:04 Okay.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:04:04 - 00:04:17 So as a reader, Antonella, how would you rate yourself? Like, how bookish are you? Like, from 0 being not very bookish, you don't like to read books, and 10 being you always have a book in your hand.
Antonella Moretti 00:04:17 - 00:04:49 I would like to be 10, but I have 3 children and I'm I think I'm on my 6th now. I would like to read more. This is my desire. And recently, I would like to read everything about China. I have a kind of obsession about books about China. I nearly don't read anything else, so I should do— I should balance this thing.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:04:49 - 00:04:57 I know what you mean, though. I mean, if you live in a place and you start to read about it, it adds so much to your experience, right?
Antonella Moretti 00:04:57 - 00:05:14 Yes, especially China. Its culture is so complex. And the more you read, the more you study, the more you realize you don't know. And the deeper you go, the more ignorant you feel. So I never stop discovering new things.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:05:14 - 00:05:23 Right. Do you have a favorite book about China that you tell people when they say, oh, well, I want to read more about China? Do you have one that you tell them?
Antonella Moretti 00:05:23 - 00:06:12 I like a lot the book by Qiu Xiaolong, the Inspector Chen series, which takes place in Shanghai at the beginning of the '90s. So it tells a lot about the changes in China and very dramatic changes they had before the 2000s. They are crime stories, not like we are used to, like the American style. It's much more slow. Slower, and the author really can describe Shanghai and the Chinese society in a very deep way. So those books helped me a lot to understand the Chinese. So I always suggest those books to people.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:06:12 - 00:06:17 Let's go back even further. What was the first book that you fell in love with?
Antonella Moretti 00:06:17 - 00:06:25 Oh, My favorite book, the book I read maybe 5 times, is The Alchemist.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:06:25 - 00:06:27 Oh, Paulo, yes!
Antonella Moretti 00:06:27 - 00:06:36 That is a very important book for me. Oh, I've read it many times, and every time I cover a different level in the book.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:06:36 - 00:06:40 Have you read his other books as well?
Antonella Moretti 00:06:40 - 00:06:54 Yes, not all of them, but at the beginning, most of them. But I have to say, The Alchemist was the And I also like the one about the Santiago pilgrimage.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:06:54 - 00:06:55 Mm-hmm.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:06:56 - 00:07:22 I'm trying to remember that book. Yeah, I haven't read his stuff in a while because the last thing— I got kind of obsessed with him for a little bit and I started to read everything I could find. But the last thing I read of his was about a divorce and it was very Hollywood and it confused me because it wasn't like the depth of emotion and thinking. It was like 2 people fighting over a divorce and I'm like, eh. This is not what I'm expecting when I read his stuff.
Antonella Moretti 00:07:22 - 00:07:51 I think he got a gift when he started writing, but after that, maybe he had to write every year a new book. That affected his writing. He's still a very deep person, but I cannot say I like all his books like others. I didn't like them so much. Yeah, as you say, they lack in deepness.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:07:51 - 00:08:19 Yeah, there's little bits, like I remember I'm looking at like a bunch of different ones online now, and like 11 Minutes was okay, Burrito was okay, like there's moments in them that were good, but The Alchemist, you're right, The Alchemist was very focused and beautiful the whole way through. Hmm, let's get into your head a little bit. When you read How do you interact with the book? Do you write on the book? Do you write somewhere else? Digitally send something on your phone? What do you do?
Antonella Moretti 00:08:19 - 00:08:37 Okay, when I read a paper book, I treat the book very badly. Poor book. I fold pages. If I don't have a pen, I use maybe my nail to highlight something. And I like to highlight the passages I like or taking some notes.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:08:37 - 00:08:46 So I write on And listeners, I'm showing Antonella me highlight, like writing all over her book. I'm like, I do the same thing.
Antonella Moretti 00:08:46 - 00:09:18 I know some readers, they don't like that the book is sacred, but for me, I need to use it. I need to know. And when I started with the Kindle, with the eBooks, of course it was different, but I get used to the Kindle very quickly and I like it, especially with our expat life. You cannot, carry hundreds of books in your luggage, so it's very convenient. And I also like to highlight and take notes on my Kindle.
Stephanie Fuccio (voiceover) 00:09:18 - 00:09:22 I've got something to tell you.
Stephanie Fuccio (voiceover) 00:09:22 - 00:10:01 Are you ready? Hey, Steph here, creator, host, and all of that of Geopats Abroad. There are a few ways you can leave some feedback if something resonated with you, or if you just want to say hi. And let me know that you are a person and not a bot. I would freaking love it. Go ahead and head to the show notes and let me know what you think, or you can head over to Geopats Abroad on Instagram or YouTube and leave a comment there. However you do it, I really, really appreciate knowing that you are listening to the podcast. Thank you so much. Have a good day.
Stephanie Fuccio (voiceover) 00:10:05 - 00:10:05 Bye.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:10:05 - 00:10:11 I've never gotten used to e-readers, but I definitely do audiobooks sometimes depending on if I can—
Antonella Moretti 00:10:11 - 00:10:12 Oh, that's something I never tried, audiobooks.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:10:12 - 00:10:24 I like them. I can do stuff while I'm listening to them, and in Shanghai it takes me at least an hour to get anywhere. So between podcasts and audiobooks, I feel like I'm not wasting my time in traffic.
Antonella Moretti 00:10:24 - 00:10:32 If you're driving, yes, or if you are in a car, the audiobook is definitely the best option.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:10:32 - 00:10:32 Yeah.
Antonella Moretti 00:10:32 - 00:10:36 Because I cannot read when I'm in a car or in a bus.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:10:36 - 00:10:37 Ah.
Antonella Moretti 00:10:37 - 00:10:49 So the best option. But here in Suzhou, distances are not so huge like in Shanghai, so it takes a very short time for me to go from one place to the other.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:10:49 - 00:10:49 Yeah.
Antonella Moretti 00:10:49 - 00:11:08 I should find a new moment for me to read. During the day, I'm always busy writing or with other projects, so I don't read. And at evening I'm busy with my children, so I don't read. But now in summer, I hope I will catch up with the books.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:11:08 - 00:11:11 How much time do you spend at the Izlip bookstore in Suzhou?
Antonella Moretti 00:11:11 - 00:11:32 I know, actually I've been a couple of times, but no, I don't go around so much because I try to focus on writing or other things. So I limit my excursions the more I can. a lot at home in front of my computer.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:11:32 - 00:11:41 So you talked about paper books versus your Kindle. Which do you prefer if you could read on either thing? Which do you like better?
Antonella Moretti 00:11:41 - 00:11:51 I like the Kindle because, because you can make the typing bigger and I don't need glasses to read it.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:11:51 - 00:11:53 I get that.
Antonella Moretti 00:11:55 - 00:12:14 I feel less tired when I read on my Kindle. And I like it very much. Most of my Italian friends, they are still very affectionate to the paper book. They don't like the Kindle, even if they change, especially expats, they need to have it. But I like it a lot.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:12:14 - 00:12:15 Nice.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:12:16 - 00:12:24 When you first moved to China, did your reading behavior change? Did you read more or less or different kinds of things?
Antonella Moretti 00:12:25 - 00:12:36 About reading less or more, it of course depends on the periods. Some periods I read 5 books in 1 month, some other time no, no books.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:12:36 - 00:12:36 Wow.
Antonella Moretti 00:12:36 - 00:13:10 But of course, yes, the topics change because I've never read about China before. It wasn't in my list of topics. And when I arrived here, I was so curious to discover. So, and I also started to read in English. Because in Italy I've never read in English. It was very difficult for me. And now I'm— I got used to that and I can understand almost everything I read. So now it's a pleasure for me to read in English because I can really understand everything in the book.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:13:10 - 00:13:15 Do you have a favorite place to read, even if it's a part of your home or a favorite cafe?
Antonella Moretti 00:13:15 - 00:13:28 I read at home. Any place is— it's I remember it was a time I read many books with my Kindle because now my Kindle has broken again for the second time.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:13:28 - 00:13:29 No!
Antonella Moretti 00:13:29 - 00:14:05 This is why I cannot read that much because the Kindle is very convenient. You can carry it in your bag and read on the subway. I was used to read while cooking, mixing the pasta. What? Reader? Yes, so that time with my Kindle I could I really read a lot, so I don't have a favorite place. I just need to have my Kindle with me. And now without Kindle, I feel very lost because I don't have paper books at home, and reading from the computer is not the same.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:14:05 - 00:14:06 It's not, no.
Antonella Moretti 00:14:06 - 00:14:09 It's not portable. You cannot have it everywhere. Right.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:14:11 - 00:14:12 Are you going to get another Kindle?
Antonella Moretti 00:14:12 - 00:14:32 Yes, of course. As soon as I go back to Italy for the holidays, I will buy a new one. And I hope it won't break again because in Italy we say everything comes in 3. So I've broken 2 Kindles already and I hope the 3rd one will be safe.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:14:32 - 00:14:40 Oh no. Okay. So maybe it'd be a good idea to buy 2 of them when you go back and then when the 3rd one breaks, you'll have the 4th.
Antonella Moretti 00:14:41 - 00:14:42 Yes, yes, yes.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:14:42 - 00:14:47 Oh, but then 4 is a superstitiously bad number in Chinese, so I'm not sure that's good either.
Antonella Moretti 00:14:47 - 00:14:51 No, okay, but I will stick to the Italian tradition.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:14:51 - 00:14:52 There you go.
Antonella Moretti 00:14:52 - 00:15:12 It comes in 3 and the 4th is another thing. So yeah, the 4th one we finally say. Because my husband always tells me, you are really treating your Kinder very badly. You put— you just throw them in the bag. You read them everywhere, so this is why they broke.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:15:12 - 00:15:15 But that's what you're supposed to do with a Kindle. They're supposed to be—
Antonella Moretti 00:15:15 - 00:15:16 Yes.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:15:16 - 00:15:17 Yeah.
Antonella Moretti 00:15:17 - 00:15:19 Sometimes you need to take care of them.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:15:19 - 00:15:20 Bah!
Stephanie Fuccio 00:15:21 - 00:15:27 Nah, nah, nah. Okay, wait, you said you read while you're cooking. How, how does that work?
Antonella Moretti 00:15:27 - 00:15:38 I have my Kindle near where I'm cooking, and when I mix Risotto or something. I just can read a couple of lines.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:15:38 - 00:15:41 That's awesome.
Antonella Moretti 00:15:41 - 00:15:44 Yes, for a period of time it worked.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:15:44 - 00:15:47 And then it didn't work?
Antonella Moretti 00:15:47 - 00:15:50 No, it's because I don't have my Kindle anymore.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:15:50 - 00:15:51 Oh, right, of course.
Antonella Moretti 00:15:51 - 00:15:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the books, you can't do this.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:15:54 - 00:16:02 No, it gets very, very messy. All right, are you reading anything now, or are you waiting for the Kindle to start the next one?
Antonella Moretti 00:16:03 - 00:17:11 The last book I read is a paper book. I went to Shanghai to listen to the author during the literary festival in Shanghai, and the book is Betwixt and Between by Margaret Sun, and it's a memoir of this lady. She's 84, and she was very poor. She was born in Shanghai. She sold cigarettes at the corners. So she tells all the things that happened. The peculiar thing of this book is that she was raised in English because her family was Cantonese and they spoke English as well. She was Christian, so she always went to church. Her English was like a native language, so she wrote the book in English. And she writes about her life during the '30s she went Xinjiang Province, and so she stayed her whole life in this remote part of China. It's a very interesting book about her life and her challenges. Very interesting.
Stephanie Fuccio (voiceover) 00:17:11 - 00:17:55 All right, let's take a moment to break from Antonella's bookish expat story and talk about some other expats that are also talking about Italy, literally talking via podcast. One of my favorite podcasts is called the Bittersweet Life Podcast, and I will let Tiffany and Katy tell you all about that, but I wanted to have them as part of this episode to show the other side of expat life. Antonella talks about Italians in China, and Tiffany and Katy talk about expats in Italy. So, let's have a listen to what their podcast is about, and I hope that you go over there and check it out because it really is extremely interesting. Here we go.
Katie Sewell 00:17:55 - 00:17:56 Hello, I'm Katie Sewell.
Tiffany Parks 00:17:56 - 00:17:57 And I'm Tiffany Parks.
Katie Sewell 00:17:57 - 00:18:05 In 2013, I quit my job as a senior producer for public radio and I moved to Rome temporarily, just for a year.
Tiffany Parks 00:18:05 - 00:18:07 A move that was completely out of character for you, by the way.
Katie Sewell 00:18:07 - 00:18:14 Yeah, no kidding. I was definitely the play it safe, get a job, hold on to it, work your way up kind of person.
Tiffany Parks 00:18:14 - 00:18:26 And when I fell in love with Italy and Rome specifically as a teenager, I just decided on a whim to move here over a decade ago with no real plan other than to find a way to stay no matter what, and I am still here.
Stephanie Fuccio (aside) 00:18:26 - 00:18:27 It worked!
Katie Sewell 00:18:27 - 00:18:38 And that's where our podcast, The Bittersweet Life, begins— in Rome 5 years ago. And if you listen, don't be afraid to start from the beginning. Rome really comes alive in those older episodes.
Tiffany Parks 00:18:38 - 00:18:57 The Bittersweet Life is a weekly show about living abroad or wanting to live abroad. Our listeners regularly ask us some pretty deep questions like How do you choose a path without regretting it? Or how can I be less lonely? Lots of our listeners have made big changes because of the show. One recently moved to Spain, another quit her job as a lawyer and moved to Milan.
Katie Sewell 00:18:57 - 00:19:06 There are lots of travel podcasts that will help you find a good piece of pizza. The Bittersweet Life explores not just how to live in a foreign place, but how to live.
Tiffany Parks 00:19:06 - 00:19:10 And we promise, if you listen regularly, you'll start to think about your own life differently as well.
Katie Sewell 00:19:10 - 00:19:16 It's weekly, it's It's funny, it's thoughtful, some of the world's best writers and thinkers regularly stop by.
Tiffany Parks 00:19:17 - 00:19:22 Just search for The Bittersweet Life wherever you get your podcasts or visit thebittersweetlife.net.
Stephanie Fuccio (voiceover) 00:19:22 - 00:19:49 Hey, it's Steph again. I wanted to give you a recommendation for a couple episodes to start with with The Bittersweet Life podcast because they have been podding for quite some time. My favorite episode so far, and there are a lot of them that I really, really enjoy, but they did one on creativity and living abroad. They also did one on the mafia in Italy, and, uh, spoiler, it's not what you think. So let's get back to Antonella's expat story of Italians in China.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:19:49 - 00:19:52 Let's switch over to your writer side now.
Antonella Moretti 00:19:52 - 00:19:52 Okay.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:19:52 - 00:21:00 So to introduce Parsley and Coriander, there is a quote from Instagram that I saw last week that I thought was really interesting. Marina is her name, and she is a Russian expat in Shanghai, and I believe she went to your book event last week in Shanghai. And she wrote this on her Instagram. Today I've participated in a lovely presentation of a book about the life of expat wives in China. Moving to China, each one is free to choose the way of living and adapt to the Chinese environment, or not. Some of the people can see a great opportunity in these changes, and some of them can't. Italian expat wife and now a famous writer, Antonella Moretti, found these changes for good, gave up her boring job as an accountant, and started what she really loves. Write a blog about the life of Italians in China, which turned into this lovely book. All of the characters are the products of the author's imagination, but if you live in China, you can easily recognize you and your friends in these characters. Enjoy reading.
Antonella Moretti 00:21:00 - 00:21:01 Wow.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:21:01 - 00:21:11 And I was so jealous because I was flying back from Japan and couldn't come to your event, but she made it, so I wanted to read part of her impression.
Antonella Moretti 00:21:11 - 00:21:13 Wow, that's great.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:21:13 - 00:21:14 Pretty awesome.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:21:15 - 00:21:24 So I did contact Marina and ask her if she had any questions that she didn't ask you yet. So in the questions today, I also have some of her questions.
Antonella Moretti 00:21:24 - 00:21:25 Oh, good, good.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:21:25 - 00:21:31 So is there anything about the summary that she did of the book that you'd like to add?
Antonella Moretti 00:21:31 - 00:22:52 I'm very happy to know that readers have this opinion about the book because in the book I, I tried to picture as many kinds of expats as I could. Some of them adapt very quickly and they enjoy, some others never can adapt and eventually they go back home. Because you cannot live here in China if you hate every day. It's a tough country and you really need to see the positive sides of the life here, so you won't make it. if you don't find something positive. So yes, this was my purpose when I started to write the book. Because when I arrived in China, of course, everything was new for me and I was excited. I didn't have a very strong cultural shock. But all the people I met, they were so fascinating for me. And of course, at the beginning, I met more expats, Italians first, then others, nationalities. And all these feelings, especially of women, because I'm a woman, so I identify more with other women's feelings. They were so, so many feelings, different feelings. I really needed to write about them.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:22:52 - 00:23:00 So was the book a way for you to understand other expats or for you to understand your own experience?
Antonella Moretti 00:23:00 - 00:23:28 I think both. To understand and also to tell other people, especially in Italy, because I'm sure you also have the same experience when you go back to your country. You have— you get always the same questions from people, and sometimes you think they are silly questions, but they are not because they don't know anything about your life in China. How can be daily life?
Stephanie Fuccio 00:23:28 - 00:23:29 Right.
Antonella Moretti 00:23:29 - 00:23:50 Not only the big things, but the small things. Where do you buy vegetables? How can you find what you need? These very basic things of life. So I wanted to describe the daily life of mothers and wives and how we deal with China every day.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:23:50 - 00:23:51 Absolutely.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:23:52 - 00:24:23 Especially with China often is in the news in the English newspaper world, they're in the news because of negative things. So when I try to share my daily life, people are like, but wait, that doesn't fit all of the negative things that I know about China. And I'm like, of course it doesn't. And all of the negative things about the US that we read about overseas isn't daily life in the US. You know, it's very, very different. And I agree that I think knowing the details of daily life gives us more insight into the people and the place than the news stories.
Antonella Moretti 00:24:23 - 00:24:56 Yes, because for me, when I arrived, I had no idea about the daily life in China. I really didn't know what to expect. So when I arrived, I was surprised about the modernity, about things that actually work, like subway, public transportations, and all these kind of things that you don't think they are— they really work from your country when you don't know anything about China. But actually, it's a modern country, and this was very surprising for me, I have to admit.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:24:56 - 00:25:21 In most of the world, we're still calling China a developing country, and a lot of the country is developing. But when you look at places like Suzhou and Shanghai and Beijing, I mean, Shanghai has— they're finishing the 18th subway line, and these subway lines are very long and they work really well. And you don't think of that when you think, oh, it's a developing country. No, this is developed. This city is developed.
Antonella Moretti 00:25:21 - 00:25:22 Very developed.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:25:22 - 00:25:27 Yes, almost overdeveloped, but that's a whole other story.
Antonella Moretti 00:25:27 - 00:25:30 Of course, depends on different parts of China.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:25:30 - 00:25:31 Exactly.
Antonella Moretti 00:25:31 - 00:25:36 Our feeling in Italy is that all China is developing.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:25:36 - 00:25:43 So during the book event last week, did you have any surprising questions or comments from the people that came?
Antonella Moretti 00:25:43 - 00:26:41 I was happy because in the audience there were also some Chinese ladies and they are very interested in these topics and they want to know what foreigners think about China, about the cultural differences. Because like we don't know what these cultural differences can be until we don't live here, they also don't know what is so different between you and us. So about family, they wanted to know about education, how is it different, how you raise your children, how you you manage your family compared to the Chinese families. And these are always very interesting questions and always some nice discussion, not only me speaking but other ladies asking questions and some other maybe answering. So this is always the best part of the book talks.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:26:41 - 00:26:48 That's really, really cool. And do I understand correctly that that was the last book talk you're going to do for Parsley and Coriander?
Antonella Moretti 00:26:49 - 00:27:13 I will need to stop for a while. I don't want to because every time I meet so interesting ladies and the conversation is always so insightful. I would never stop to organize these events. But of course, organizing this kind of events is time-consuming. And next season, I hope I finally will have the Chinese version of the book ready. Yes?
Stephanie Fuccio 00:27:13 - 00:27:14 Yes.
Antonella Moretti 00:27:14 - 00:27:29 So I will need to focus on the Chinese marketing. So I will probably organize events for the Chinese audience, and they are a little bit different from events for expats.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:27:29 - 00:27:29 Oh, sure.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:27:30 - 00:27:34 Since we're talking about languages already, let's go there. First, you wrote the book in Italian, correct?
Antonella Moretti 00:27:34 - 00:27:34 Yes.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:27:34 - 00:27:39 And then it was translated into English, or did you translate it into English?
Antonella Moretti 00:27:39 - 00:27:52 This is a funny story. Okay, translation is very expensive, and I did all by myself for the book because I self-published and I managed all the marketing all by myself.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:27:52 - 00:27:52 Wow.
Antonella Moretti 00:27:52 - 00:29:31 My goal was not to use family money for, for this project of mine because I didn't want to invest something I didn't know if I would have back. But I really wanted to have an English version because I thought that also it was a pity to limit the audience to Italians. So a friend of mine, she is very good in English, and she helped me to create a good draft, English draft. We worked together every day for 3 months because she is from Norway, so she doesn't know Italian. But finally we got this very good final draft, and I sent the draft to a professional editor. Italian and English bilingual editor. So I worked with this editor as well. Almost every line we went through together. So I think the English version, it's very similar to my style in the Italian version. It's very— it's a simple language, familiar language, like when we speak between people, because the book is about daily life. So there was no need to use literary language. And this is the story of the English version. And for the Chinese version, there's an online platform that puts the translators and the authors in contact. So it's a kind— you present your book on the platform and some translator decides to take the project.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:29:31 - 00:29:31 Mm-hmm.
Antonella Moretti 00:29:31 - 00:29:40 They will work for free, but when the book is on sale, they will get a part of the royalties for them.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:29:40 - 00:29:41 That's fantastic.
Antonella Moretti 00:29:41 - 00:29:58 It was good for me also because I wanted a Chinese version, but I didn't know how to find a Chinese publisher. I really didn't know how to do that. And when I discovered this platform, I thought it was the best option for me because it's Very easy.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:29:58 - 00:30:23 That's such a good thing to have because, I mean, let's face it, there's 1.6 billion people in China and it's a huge market. I mean, it takes years to learn Chinese and then to learn to write in Chinese, but if you can find a translator like that who can still benefit from the translation but not with a huge investment upfront, you can reach a whole new market to talk to and share stories and all kinds of cultural stuff.
Antonella Moretti 00:30:23 - 00:31:13 That's beautiful. Yes, I really hope this will be a nice project. And within— okay, the book is— the translation is done, but the book is going through all the bureaucratic things about books in China. So I have to wait a little bit, then there will be this ebook ready, I hope after summer. So I'm thinking about a way to promote this book among Chinese readers. They don't eat that much, probably. They don't read a lot, so the market is not very active. Of course, there are a lot of people, so I hope I will be able to reach at least some of them. And I will open a WeChat official account and write about Italy and the differences in culture between Italy and China.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:31:13 - 00:31:13 Mm-hmm.
Antonella Moretti 00:31:13 - 00:31:19 So I think they will be interested.
Stephanie Fuccio (voiceover) 00:31:19 - 00:31:38 Hey, it's Steph again. I'm gonna interrupt Antonella's story one more time. There is a podcast that is so inspiring that I think you'd also like to know about. It is a different way of living. It's living off the grid. I'm going to let Heather fill you in on the podcast itself, but let me just tell you, you are going to love this.
Heather (Sunshine and Power Cuts) 00:31:38 - 00:32:02 Hello, it's Heather from Sunshine and Power Cuts, the podcast that The Sunshine ones offer inspiration drawn from nature, but in the Power Cut ones, I share honest insights into my life living off the power grid in rural New Zealand. If you'd like to check it out, it can be found where good podcasts can be downloaded, and you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @SunPowerPod. Until then, be empowered by nature.
Stephanie Fuccio (voiceover) 00:32:02 - 00:32:12 Okay, so let's get back into Antonella's bookish expat story and wrap up this super fun conversation that we had.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:32:12 - 00:32:54 Oh, shout out to Alimona. She was the one, like, I asked to interview her for her podcast that I think she's taking a break from right now, and she mentioned you in your book, and I was like, oh, because I am not good at other languages outside of English, and I was like, oh my gosh, get an Italian perspective on coming to China is something I never thought I could read, but here it is in English. That's amazing to me. So that kind of language relaxation was It was really, really cool. So thank you for translating it into English. Let's talk about the people in the book. So the main 3 characters are Luzella, Astrid, and Emma, but you have a lot of other characters. Why did you choose to have such a big cast of characters?
Antonella Moretti 00:32:54 - 00:33:39 Because I wanted to describe a lot of different points of view, and this is also why I've chosen the novel instead of the memoir, because I thought the novel would be the perfect way to put all the ingredients together and mix them very well and don't make anybody too much recognizable. But being able to speak about not everybody but the most of them. So this is why I've chosen so many characters. And there's a funny story about that. When I wrote the first draft of the book, I chose a different structure. It was like emails between different ladies.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:33:39 - 00:33:40 Mm-hmm.
Antonella Moretti 00:33:40 - 00:34:18 That time I found an Italian publisher and they were interested in the book. So I sent them the draft and the guy gave me a lot of suggestions and he told me, yes, the story is nice, the idea is nice, but you have to rewrite the book with a different structure. Structure, because this kind of email between so many different characters is confusing for the reader. It's not easy to follow, and you have to think about your readers as well, not only what to, to say, but how can they understand and appreciate the story. So I rewrote the whole book.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:34:18 - 00:34:19 Wow.
Antonella Moretti 00:34:19 - 00:35:09 I kept the characters and the story, but I rewrote the structure. So it took me a long time to finish it. But I'm very satisfied about the result. After this publisher disappeared, because it was a very small publishing house and they kind of closed business, luckily before I signed any paper with them. But it was a very useful experience because he gave me this very important suggestion. So this is why I kept 3 main characters. I have only the point of view of the 3 main characters, and through them the other characters speak. Otherwise it will be too much to have too many characters that speak in the book.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:35:09 - 00:35:39 Yeah, and for the listeners, it is— the book is organized like each chapter switches between the 3 different characters, so we hear their different voices. Telling the stories that are inside the book. And it is available on Amazon, so listeners, don't think you need to be in China to get this book. You can go and purchase it outside of China. You've done some cooking analogies already just within the short time that we're talking, so I think I know the answer to the next question, but I'm asking anyway. How did you decide on the title of the book?
Antonella Moretti 00:35:39 - 00:36:09 First weeks I was here, I went to the Western Market And the lady gave me some coriander. I didn't know it was coriander. I was sure it was parsley. So when I arrived home, I was so happy. Oh yes, let's do some Italian pasta with this parsley. And when I washed it, ah, this awful smell came out of the leaves and I was like, ah, what's this? This is disgusting. This was my first reaction about coriander.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:36:10 - 00:36:10 Yeah.
Antonella Moretti 00:36:10 - 00:36:18 But after a while, I could eat food with coriander inside without feeling this disgusting.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:36:18 - 00:36:19 It is!
Antonella Moretti 00:36:19 - 00:37:08 And after a while, I started to like it, and now I use it. It was not for Italian dishes, but when I cook kind of Chinese, I really like to add coriander. And this is a kind of metaphor that when you first meet some different things in your life. At the beginning, you might feel they are too different and you really don't like them, but after a while you get used to this and without realizing you will end up loving them. And of course, I'm Italian and Italians are known to love food and I wanted something related to food for the title. Someone thinks that the book is a cookbook.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:37:08 - 00:37:12 It's a cookbook for the emotional side of expat life.
Antonella Moretti 00:37:12 - 00:37:13 Yes.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:37:13 - 00:37:14 Maybe.
Antonella Moretti 00:37:14 - 00:37:18 Pot of ingredients, expat life in China.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:37:18 - 00:37:19 Yeah, yeah.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:37:19 - 00:37:46 No, that's a really, really good point, especially when somebody first moves abroad to their first country, a new country, anything. The things they encounter that are different They can react strongly and negatively, but just give it time. Over time, you'll start to appreciate those things. That's a really good point. So before you got the idea to write the book, were there any books like it that you read that inspired you?
Antonella Moretti 00:37:46 - 00:38:39 No, I would have liked to find a novel of China, but I couldn't find it at that time. So this is also why I decided to write it. I always liked to write my whole life. I never wrote a book before because of course in Italy I had a job and a family and no time to focus on my passion. So I only wrote short stories and things like that. So when I arrived in China and I became an expat wife, I had the time And I felt it was my duty to use that time in a useful way for me. My second chance in life to achieve something in the field of writing, jump on the opportunity. And this is why also I decided to write the book.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:38:39 - 00:39:16 So we have another question from Marina. And by the way, listeners, Marina, her Instagram handle is Shanghai Daily Chic. She is the one that gave us the first overview of parsley and coriander a few minutes ago. Marina says in the book, Louisa, one of the main characters, says, quote, she began to go through the little notebook she used to write her appointment in, unquote. Do you do the same? Do you make notes during the day while you're doing other things? Do you recommend, or what can you recommend to help people pay attention to those small details?
Antonella Moretti 00:39:16 - 00:39:29 Yes, I'm I was used to write on a piece of paper, then I always lost my piece of paper. So now I use my phone, because without a phone you can't do anything in China.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:39:29 - 00:39:31 Anything, yeah.
Antonella Moretti 00:39:31 - 00:40:03 And finally I found only one place where I can write notes, and sometimes if I cannot write, I record on the phone my impressions or pictures. So the phone is actually my best way to record notes and things, write anymore. I don't have a paper calendar, old-fashioned way. No, because then I don't, I don't watch it and I forget things. The phone is much more usable.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:40:03 - 00:40:09 Right. Wait, you said you record some audio messages. What app do you use for that?
Antonella Moretti 00:40:09 - 00:40:16 I record with the recording feature of the phone. If I cannot write or it's too long, I just record myself.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:40:16 - 00:40:16 Right.
Antonella Moretti 00:40:16 - 00:40:57 If I have some idea, some passage of some story, I just— especially I use this when I— because I have a small son, he's 3 and a half years old, and he's born in China. He's born in Suzhou. And when he was very little, in the night I had to carry him to make him sleep, and my mind was going very fast. During those moments, I really need— it was maybe 3 AM in the night and all these ideas while I was walking him around to make him sleep and I recorded a lot of things.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:40:57 - 00:41:04 So you have multiple ways that you capture your ideas in audio and on paper and in app also in writing.
Antonella Moretti 00:41:04 - 00:41:06 But mainly on the phone.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:41:06 - 00:41:25 See, the thing is I moved back to putting my ideas on paper because I kept losing them where I put them in my phone. Even if I had a specific app just for note-taking, I would forget that I put things there. It was so frustrating. And months later, I'd find it and go, oh, I should have done something with that.
Antonella Moretti 00:41:25 - 00:41:28 Yeah, it's like, oh, but that was actually nice.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:41:28 - 00:41:49 Yeah, there it is. I mean, I guess I could still do it, but then the passion's gone and the energy behind it is gone. So yeah, so I've gone back to paper for a lot of things, but I still do like communication stuff. I massively do stuff online and on WeChat. Do you find it's hard to explain how much is in WeChat to people who don't live in China?
Antonella Moretti 00:41:49 - 00:41:58 It's very difficult. You can only understand when you experience it. It's like living on another planet. You cannot explain it.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:41:58 - 00:42:24 Kind of a fun book, J. Martin Troost wrote a book called— he's an Australian travel writer— he wrote a book called Planet China. It's a humorous book. He traveled a lot through China. He didn't live, live here as an expat, but it is a very funny book. Anyway, let's get back to your book. What was your writing process like? Once you got the idea for the book, what were the steps that you went through to make it happen?
Antonella Moretti 00:42:24 - 00:43:28 Okay, I tried to write a kind of structure, especially because, okay, the book is different chapters. The chapters are the months of the year. So it starts from September, which is usually the month when many expats arrive, and in a timeline of a year until September of the year after. And since there are so many characters, I really needed to have a track for their stories, not to lose myself in the different stories of the characters. So I wrote a plot before to follow. And another thing I did is to write down what was the main message I wanted each character to deliver to the readers. This was important for me because I wanted to, yes, to deliver a kind of message to people. And the message is positive. I hope this is something readers can appreciate when they read the book.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:43:28 - 00:44:05 Well, because at the beginning, I must admit, being a married person in China, I'm also working here, so I'm not like what they call a trailing spouse, which is a horrible term. But I did look at the book and see all of these marriages kind of falling apart and went, oh no, where is this going? And I was a little worried it was going to be a negative view on that. But you did have so many positive experiences, positive things that happened within those changes in those relationships. And the other women in their lives as well. So I feel like that made it more real. You didn't just show the positive stuff and you didn't just show the negative stuff. You had that balance.
Antonella Moretti 00:44:05 - 00:44:47 Yes, yes, because I always like happy endings. I don't like negative endings and positive characters. But of course, life is not always positive and the people you meet, they are not always positive. So of course I needed to describe real life and real people and so many things that actually happen in this kind of life because you are abroad, you are away from your family, and you might feel alone, especially if you have problems. And it's not uncommon for couples to have problems while abroad, and this is very, very difficult for women to deal with. Yes.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:44:48 - 00:44:58 Yeah, absolutely. So as you were writing the book, did it change how you were viewing China and Chinese culture and going about your daily life?
Antonella Moretti 00:44:58 - 00:46:01 No, I don't think it changes my view, but it made me want to go deeper and deeper in the knowledge about China because I wrote the book soon after a couple of months I arrived here. And it's a fresh view about China, like when you arrive and everything is very, very new, exciting, or frightening. So some of the characters, they arrive, it's the first month, and they have some generalistic and stereotyped view of China, because also this is real life. And I didn't want to end up with like some of them. So I try to go deeper and understand why Chinese behave in some ways we might not like, why we sometimes don't understand each other, because there are reasons, cultural and historical reasons behind that.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:46:01 - 00:46:02 Mm-hmm.
Antonella Moretti 00:46:02 - 00:46:05 So I try to discover and study more.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:46:06 - 00:47:02 Yeah, my husband and I have lived in a few different countries. We actually met in Vietnam because we were both teaching in different places. Anyway, we had this joke when we would try to be going through a door, either a train station, subway station, or just an office building. There would always be somebody standing in front of the door, just standing there, not letting other people go through. And we were like, oh, no matter where we were, I can't believe Vietnamese people do this. I can't believe Chinese people do this. And then we went back to the US and we noticed that it was the exact same, but because we were in a different country, we started to say, oh, these people do this. But Americans did it too and stayed there for a long time. And Americans were bigger than the Asian people, so they took up more space in the doorway. When you first went back to Italy, did you have any moments like that where you thought there was something that only Chinese people did and then you realized No.
Antonella Moretti 00:47:02 - 00:47:46 Like, when I was living in Italy, we have a big Chinese community in my hometown, and I was like, oh, these, like, these people, they always stay together, they never buy Italian food, they always eat Chinese food, they blah blah blah blah blah. Then I moved to China and I became part of the Italian community, and I realized that Italians always eat Italian food, never buy Chinese food. And I was so ashamed because I realized about all my ranting about the Chinese immigrants in Italy, and Italians are just the same.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:47:46 - 00:47:47 Yeah.
Antonella Moretti 00:47:47 - 00:48:06 So I was so ashamed. And this is why people should travel and try at least to live abroad. while, because this opens your eyes and makes you more open-minded and understand that people are mostly the same. Exactly.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:48:08 - 00:48:33 Yeah, and I think your characters in the book show that really, really well. Like, some of the characters keep trying to generalize and say all these negative things, and then a lot of the other characters, especially in a particular love story that ends the book very nicely. They take away all the stereotypes and just start looking at individual people, and I think that's when those ideas really, really start to go away.
Antonella Moretti 00:48:33 - 00:49:13 Yes, I realized I reached another level when I stopped to think about Chinese like the Chinese, but I focused, like you say, on people. This person, that person. And when I stop to think about them like, they're Chinese, it's something like they're other, no? They're Italians, or— I understand that, yes, they might have the same kind of behavior like Italians have or Americans have, but the feelings are the same among all people. The difference is the way we express them, the culture that lets us express them.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:49:13 - 00:49:14 Yeah.
Antonella Moretti 00:49:14 - 00:49:18 more open or not, but the feelings are just the same.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:49:18 - 00:49:45 I want to think about that for about an hour, but I have to keep asking you questions. I'm like, that's so true. The feelings are the same. And from culture to culture, we just have different ways that we're allowed to express them, that are the norm that we can express them. But yeah, we do have the same emotions. It sounds like you go back to Italy quite often. So when you were writing the book, did you write it in China, in Italy, or I wrote it in China.
Antonella Moretti 00:49:45 - 00:50:14 I really needed China to write the book. Now when I go back to Italy, I'm in a sort of bubble. After 7 years, I'm very disconnected with the culture in Italy. I consider my trip to Italy like a holiday, not my daily life anymore. I don't have my place, I don't have my time. So it's nearly impossible to keep working. China was very important for the book.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:50:14 - 00:50:20 If you could ask any of the characters in your book a question, what would it be?
Antonella Moretti 00:50:20 - 00:50:56 Okay, let me think. For Luisella, which many people ask me, okay, Luisella, it's you, because she writes a blog and she writes a lot. novel. She's not me, but these are things about me, yes. Other characteristics of her are very different from me. And she, in the book, she fights to stay in China. Okay, I don't want to spoil the story, but something happens and she might not be able anymore to stay in China.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:50:56 - 00:50:56 Mm-hmm.
Antonella Moretti 00:50:56 - 00:51:12 And she realized that she wants to stay. So I would ask her, where do you see yourself in the future? Because you are fighting to stay in China because you think your career, your new career and everything are connected with China.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:51:12 - 00:51:13 Mm-hmm.
Antonella Moretti 00:51:13 - 00:52:24 Like actually me, this is a lot of myself. But at some point you will have to change or to go back to Italy. So how will you face this? problem when it will be the moment. And this will be very interesting for me to hear her answer. And Astrid, it's also a lot of myself because she, she's a mom of 2 small children and she's exhausted and anxious and nervous. And everything that comes with having small children. She really tries to use this time she has to put herself back together and rediscover herself. So to her, I would ask, which is the next step you would like to do? Which is what you would like to do for yourself now, now that you are trying to calm down and having this relationship with your husband, trying to have a better relationship with your husband and your children? What would you like to do in your future? And Emma? Emma—
Stephanie Fuccio 00:52:24 - 00:52:27 I have many questions for Emma.
Antonella Moretti 00:52:27 - 00:52:44 Most romantic character. She arrives in China trying to save her marriage, but this ends in a very different way. And I would like to ask her, but did you really think you could save that marriage when you moved?
Stephanie Fuccio 00:52:45 - 00:53:08 I know, I know. And her— you tugged at my heart so much when you talked about her, her dead ex-boyfriend and her unresolved feelings for all of that. I wanted to say to her, get away from this idiot that you're with now and go heal. Go get over that ex-boyfriend because he sounded wonderful. But then, you know, he died. So that's a very emotional part of the book for me.
Antonella Moretti 00:53:08 - 00:53:52 Yes, and I loved I love her very much. She's a character which has nothing in common with me because she's young, beautiful, elegant. And this is why, probably why I love her so much. She's a very sensitive woman. This is why in my second novel, which is only in Italian so far, I kept her in the story. introduce new characters, young people, but I still kept Emma in the book. And so in the second novel, we will see what happens next to her. Always something very emotional.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:53:52 - 00:53:58 Ah, okay. So are you going to translate the second novel into English and Chinese also?
Antonella Moretti 00:53:58 - 00:54:16 I have to see how to manage that because I need sell some book, either English or Chinese books, and with that I can think about the translation. I would really love to, but it's still— I don't know.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:54:16 - 00:54:40 Yeah, well, after I was posting on Instagram and Twitter about this, about Parsley and Coriander, people started to recommend the second one, and I'm like, I can't read Italian, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to wait. So yeah, so I hope that does happen eventually because I'd like to, I'd like to know what happens to her and read some more. So is the second book also based in Suzhou and in the Italian expat community there?
Antonella Moretti 00:54:40 - 00:54:41 Shanghai.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:54:41 - 00:54:51 It's in Shanghai. Oh man, I have to learn Italian in like a month so I can read this. What's the name of the second book?
Antonella Moretti 00:54:51 - 00:55:03 The name is only in Italian. I don't have an English Okay. L'Inquietud del Drago, which is something related to the dragon and this relentlessness of this dragon.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:55:03 - 00:55:03 Wow.
Antonella Moretti 00:55:03 - 00:55:18 Yes, because characters in the second novel, they are very relentless. Yes, this is the word. They are looking for something they cannot find, especially one of the characters.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:55:18 - 00:55:19 Yeah.
Antonella Moretti 00:55:20 - 00:55:25 Really trying hard to understand who he is. So this is why the title.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:55:25 - 00:55:29 Oh my gosh, that's something I think a lot of expats can identify with.
Antonella Moretti 00:55:30 - 00:55:30 Wow.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:55:31 - 00:55:31 Wow.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:55:31 - 00:55:36 Well, people in general too. I mean, are you going to write a 3rd book in the sequel?
Antonella Moretti 00:55:36 - 00:56:02 I really like to write the 3rd book. Yeah, I have a couple of ideas, but I don't know. At first, I need to understand for whom I want to write this book. I want to write another Italian book, so focus on the Italian market, which actually is not so satisfying as a market. In Italy, books don't sell that much.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:56:02 - 00:56:03 Mm-hmm.
Antonella Moretti 00:56:03 - 00:56:59 Or try to write a book in English, and so I can have a good editor and focus on the English market, but this is huge because of course not only English native speaker countries, the whole world can read English, and this will be just too much for me alone to do, especially for the promotion. So I would risk to be a drop in the ocean and nobody would notice the book. So in this case, I should find an agent or somebody who can help me. Or the third option could be write a book for the Chinese readers. Think about a story, a very correct story, without being too much sensitive, about the difference of culture. Maybe a funny story, a love story, something.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:56:59 - 00:57:00 Mm-hmm.
Antonella Moretti 00:57:00 - 00:57:09 And I could try to find a Chinese publisher. But these are very ambitious projects, so I'm still waiting a little bit.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:57:09 - 00:57:16 I get that. It's not just about the writing. There's that whole infrastructure of publishing, and, and is there a market for it?
Stephanie Fuccio 00:57:16 - 00:57:17 Are they going to buy it?
Stephanie Fuccio 00:57:17 - 00:57:19 Because it's your time that goes into it.
Antonella Moretti 00:57:19 - 00:57:34 Now I'm writing a lot of articles about Italian culture, and it's very enjoyable because I can see my own culture From the outside, and I'm having a lot of fun writing these articles.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:57:34 - 00:57:37 Have you gotten much feedback from Italians on the book?
Antonella Moretti 00:57:37 - 00:57:48 Yes, yes, I had. I had many expats, but also many Italians who never went abroad. They were curious to know about this daily life in China.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:57:48 - 00:57:49 Very cool.
Antonella Moretti 00:57:49 - 00:58:04 I had, yes, a good success in Italy for the first book because Italians— there's a trend now. We have many websites about living abroad, and so it's always an interesting topic for them.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:58:04 - 00:58:24 Well, okay, let's talk about Suzhou. So you wrote the book, and the characters in the book aren't necessarily the people in Suzhou, but they might be little bits of them. Did the people you know in Suzhou react in any way, like, because they might have thought they were a character in the book?
Antonella Moretti 00:58:24 - 00:58:26 I was very worried, you know.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:58:26 - 00:58:28 Understandably so.
Antonella Moretti 00:58:28 - 00:59:09 When I released the Italian version, I was very worried because I really tried to mix all the things very well. So no one of the characters is actually a real person, but in any— in each of the characters, there's something about real persons I met. a story or maybe an attitude, a special word they say. Yes, I tried to mix them very well. But anyway, I was worried because in the book there are also negative characters, and I thought, what if some of my friends would identify herself in these characters?
Stephanie Fuccio 00:59:09 - 00:59:10 Mm-hmm.
Antonella Moretti 00:59:10 - 00:59:33 Maybe never speak to me again. So first I asked a small group of friends to read the book before and be honest with me. And they said, no, no, it's okay, go on, go ahead. And I went, and okay, now I can tell you I still have all my— all of my friends.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:59:33 - 00:59:33 Yay!
Antonella Moretti 00:59:33 - 00:59:45 Nobody tried to kill me or hate me. So yes. I was, I felt relieved.
Stephanie Fuccio 00:59:45 - 00:59:53 Yeah, it is a concern because people do read it and they might make assumptions. So I'm glad they knew it was fiction.
Antonella Moretti 00:59:53 - 01:00:32 And also now I realize that people will see in the book what they want to see. Maybe that person is negative, but she doesn't realize, she thinks she's optimistic. open-minded and everything, so she will appreciate open-minded characters. Or maybe another one is racist and will see only the bad things about China. I realized that every person saw in the book what they wanted to see. I think all do this when we read books.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:00:32 - 01:00:56 And I think that That's the sign of a good book, is when people can do that. Also when they have— especially when you're talking about culture and culture shock and those kinds of things, when you have so many characters that people can identify with one of them and think, that's me, that's my reaction, that's my story. It's like a stamp of this is, this is a good book. It touches so many people.
Antonella Moretti 01:00:56 - 01:01:18 I was very happy because I had many feedbacks from readers, and they told me, so I identified with the stories, I thought I'm not alone with them, and this was the best thing for me, the best success for me, because I thought, okay, yes, I'm very happy I could write for everybody, not only for me.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:01:18 - 01:01:49 Tatjana is a German woman that lives in India, and she's going to be my new co-host on Bookish Expat starting in July, and she helped me think of some of the questions we're asking today. And one specifically is her and I— I'm living in Shanghai, China, she's living in Goa, India— and we both talked about our experiences it being a little difficult to make local friends. Expat friends are easy to make, but making local friends is a step harder. Do you find that true for you in Suzhou?
Antonella Moretti 01:01:49 - 01:03:39 Yes, I find the same. Also in the book, okay, the book, as I told you, I wrote it in The first years, that was even more difficult for me to find local friends. I think the first step is connecting with your same country people, and after you feel more open and you have international friends because you share the same kind of life, being the different one in another country. So you have a lot of things in common. But with locals, especially when the culture is so different, you might not have so many things in common. So like for me, my children, they go to a school where there are many also Chinese students, but I never fit with the Chinese parents. I'm not a part of their group. Maybe because they are afraid they won't speak English well, or maybe because of What can I tell her? You think, if I do this or if I do that, maybe she would be offended. And this is the same for me, for them. So I never a part of the parents group. And now I've come to terms with that. Okay, I won't try to fit in anymore. Okay, I get it. And maybe it's easier for me to connect with Japanese parents or Korean parents because they are also foreign ones. The only thing that helped me to find real Chinese friends is because of the book. Because when I did the book talks, also many Chinese came to hear, and I had the chance to find like-minded people.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:03:39 - 01:03:39 Yeah.
Antonella Moretti 01:03:40 - 01:04:03 Because to be a friend, you need to have the same values, the same thinking, you need to have something in common. Otherwise, you won't be able to speak about things. So this is how I found some of my Chinese friends. Not so many, but at least finally I have some good friends.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:04:03 - 01:04:32 Yeah, it's funny you say that because me too, it was through like some book clubs and through the podcasting groups, not just making podcasts, but also groups talking about podcasts. In those 2 worlds is where I've made a few local friends that I really feel like we connect with each other, not just that they can show me some parts of China and I can teach them about American culture, but that we actually connect in a way that we can talk no matter where we live, like that kind of connection.
Antonella Moretti 01:04:32 - 01:04:33 It's about personal life.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:04:34 - 01:04:34 Yeah.
Antonella Moretti 01:04:34 - 01:04:45 Friends do. And if your values and what you think about family is too much different, you don't have anything in common, so it's very difficult to be friends.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:04:45 - 01:05:01 Yeah. Another thing that Tatiana and I talked about was the food. Okay, the title of the book is food-oriented, and there's a little bit of food in the book, but we were hungry for more. Why wasn't there more food in there?
Antonella Moretti 01:05:03 - 01:05:55 I thought there was enough. She's always hungry in the book. Yeah, food. Maybe because, okay, Italian food, there's nothing inside, but there's a scene when the ladies go to a typical market. They have to eat in a small restaurant on the street. But actually the food is very, very good, it's delicious there. So they think, okay, I was so afraid to sit on these chairs, a little bit dirty chairs, now I think I won't die because I ate here. Maybe I was more interested in other things, so I didn't write about Food. That is strange for an Italian, but okay. No, no, no, no.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:05:56 - 01:06:08 And I think on some level, Tatiana, I might have been a little stereotypical. We're like, we love Italian food, she's Italian, where is more food? We want more food. I think your focus in the book was brilliant. I'm not critiquing that.
Antonella Moretti 01:06:08 - 01:06:10 I was just like, I want more food.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:06:12 - 01:06:44 So, okay, what the book does really well is portray how it really is up to the person to experience life abroad. There are a lot of choices that expats need to make about their viewpoint. And Tatjana noticed in the June chapter, for the month of June, the character Astrid in that chapter says, quote, aware that everyone has the life they choose, unquote. Do you think that most expats understand that how they react to their host country is their choice?
Antonella Moretti 01:06:44 - 01:06:45 No.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:06:45 - 01:06:49 That was a quick answer.
Antonella Moretti 01:06:49 - 01:08:59 No, because I think some of them accuse the country to be the one who makes them feel bad. I feel bad because here I cannot do this, I cannot do that. But I'm sure those people would feel the same everywhere in the world because it started from you. Of course, there are more difficult countries, easier countries, and also your personal experience can be different. I might be happy in Suzhou, but maybe if I move to Shanghai, I won't be so happy anymore because maybe I cannot find the same friends. So it's very personal. But the key is to find the positive things inside yourself and focus on them. I also had a moment of crisis a couple of years ago, especially in winter when here in China everything is gray. And for 1, 2, 3 weeks you wake up and you open the window and everything is gray and foggy and you think, what am I doing here? Why? Why did I choose to live here? And you might feel hopeless. Yeah. Because for many women, they had to come here because the work, the job of their husband was here. Maybe they didn't choose this place and they have no choice, they just need to stay. But if you are able to focus on the positive things, you will do something, you will make the most of this. This was the— I was trying to give this message with the book. So it's really something that starts from you. Find— like for me, if I wouldn't like to go back to Italy now, if I would have to go back, I would be very sad. But at the same time, I should find something there specific of the country, of the lifestyle, that can make me happy. Maybe something completely different from what makes me happy in China. But yes, depends on you, only on you.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:08:59 - 01:09:49 A really good point, because when I first moved abroad, the first time I lived, lived in a place, not just traveled there, was in Taiwan. And I kept trying to do the things I like to do in California in Taiwan. I wanted to go hiking during the day. You have to travel far outside the city to go hiking in Taiwan. I wanted to eat salads. Salads weren't really popular then at the time. I wanted You know, certain kind of— oh gosh, this ridiculous sugary latte thing, and they didn't have that then. Like, I kept trying to do the same things in a different place, and I kept hitting this wall of misery. And I finally had to just stop and go, okay, what's here? What do I like that's here? And that's a really good thing to say to newer expats is forget what you normally like, look in front of you, look at what's there. And find something you like there.
Antonella Moretti 01:09:49 - 01:09:58 Yes, and don't try to, like you say, to move your life in your country in the new country because you will get frustrated for sure.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:09:58 - 01:09:59 Very, yeah.
Antonella Moretti 01:09:59 - 01:10:13 In China, I have my Chinese life. When I go back to Italy, I don't eat Chinese anymore, I don't drink hot water anymore, I don't drink mint tea anymore, and I drink a lot of coffee. It's different. Yes, it's just a difference.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:10:15 - 01:10:30 And I think after the first country where you're able to do that, I think first for serial expats like my addiction of moving countries, I think it gets easier with the second country and stuff because you know, okay, I have to leave these things behind. They might not be here.
Antonella Moretti 01:10:30 - 01:10:31 Yes.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:10:31 - 01:10:44 So Antonella, your book is wonderful and I thank you so much for putting it into and soon 3 different languages. So people can access it. If people read your book and they want to contact you, how can they do that?
Antonella Moretti 01:10:44 - 01:11:19 Okay, I have an email on the book as well, it's cucinanto@gmail.com, and I have— of course they can connect with me through my Facebook profile or my Facebook page. I have a Facebook page about the book where I put some pictures of the book talks and some promotion, which is Parsley and Coriander on Facebook. And I also have an Italian page, which is Blog Cucinanto. A little difficult.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:11:19 - 01:11:21 Are you still blogging now?
Antonella Moretti 01:11:21 - 01:11:40 My poor blog is abandoned for a long time. I don't have the sparkle anymore. I think I should find a new path for the blog because now after 7 years I don't have the freshness to write about daily life anymore.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:11:40 - 01:11:44 That makes sense. I mean, it gets repetitive after you're doing the same thing.
Antonella Moretti 01:11:44 - 01:11:54 Yeah, it's a struggle for me to see China with the eyes of a person who doesn't know anything about it because now for me everything is normal.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:11:54 - 01:12:04 Yeah, and I think it It would be interesting because you've gotten so much further down into the culture, it'd be interesting to write about what you do know and what you do think about.
Antonella Moretti 01:12:04 - 01:12:24 Yes, probably I will change, not the blog, I will keep the blog, but I will change direction of, say, yes, the articles, and I will write more about the culture. I have to think about this summer. I will take my time to think about what I want to do with the blog. Because it's a pity to leave it abandoned.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:12:24 - 01:12:25 Right.
Antonella Moretti 01:12:25 - 01:12:52 Because I made— I worked on it for many years. And it's still— I would like to make China be more accessible for Italians. Because they still don't know a lot of things. So I might think about that. Like I will do for the Chinese, write about Italy and do the same mirror for Italians about China. So probably this is what I—
Stephanie Fuccio 01:12:52 - 01:13:15 Oh, oh, okay. I get ideas, Antonella, and sometimes they're crazy, but let me just say this. So you were talking about maybe doing a book for the Chinese market. What if you did the reverse expat experience, got like a Chinese co-writer— is that what they're called? Like a person to write it with you— and do like a Chinese person that moved to Italy and their expat experience.
Antonella Moretti 01:13:15 - 01:13:28 Ah, yes, this is something I also thought about, but it's a little bit difficult because in Italy Chinese are— there are not so many Chinese expats, but there are migrants.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:13:28 - 01:13:29 Right.
Antonella Moretti 01:13:29 - 01:13:32 So the experience is very different.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:13:32 - 01:13:32 Right.
Antonella Moretti 01:13:32 - 01:13:57 And I don't know, actually in the second novel one of the characters, this boy, is Italian, but he's Chinese, his family is Chinese. So I've already touched this topic of being Chinese, from Chinese origins, but feeling Italian. Yes, so this would be— but maybe I'm thinking about— Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:13:57 - 01:13:58 No, just—
Antonella Moretti 01:13:58 - 01:14:16 Yes, this was actually thought, it would be nice to create a Chinese character that travel, so go to Italy for any reason. It might be love, and that would be nice. And so face with the Italian family and Italian—
Stephanie Fuccio 01:14:16 - 01:14:26 Yeah, maybe an international student, because I imagine there are probably Chinese international students in Italy. Yeah, I just have ideas.
Antonella Moretti 01:14:27 - 01:14:32 So anyway, the main idea I had was Fantastic.
Stephanie Fuccio 01:14:32 - 01:14:46 Well, whatever you do in the future, I look forward to reading it or reading summaries about it if it's in a language I can't read. So thank you so much for taking the time to come on Bookish Expats today. I really, really, really enjoyed our chat. Thank you.
Antonella Moretti 01:14:46 - 01:14:48 And thank you for having me.
Stephanie Fuccio (voiceover) 01:14:48 - 01:17:49 Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bookish Expats Podcast. Word of mouth is the best way to spread the word about this project, so please do help us by doing just that. On or offline, just tell one or two folks, hey, you should listen to the Bookish Expats Podcast. Thank you for that. This was meant to be the final episode of season 3, season 4 starting in July 2019. However, we accidentally recorded a special bonus episode for you, and we'll be playing that on Friday, July 5th, and that will be our season finale. Summer, my co-host on the Creatively Complicated podcast, and I sat down and had a long chat about the geopat-inspiring book Global Soul by Pico Iyer for that episode. A special thanks is in order for the voices you heard in this episode. First and foremost, Damon Castillo for the background music we use in this podcast. The song we use is the I Will Remain song from his Mess of Me album. Album. You can hear the entire song here as soon as I'm done talking. All of his music, concert information, and all that kind of good stuff, including merch, can be found at damoncastillo.com. If you are a lucky duck and live on the Central Coast of California or have easy access to get there, you can actually catch him and his band live this summer. I just checked the schedule and they have concerts planned in San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, and Nipomo. Also, I'd like to thank our guest promo folks for this guy for giving us a break and giving us more information on other projects we should check out. That includes Katie and Tiffany from the Bittersweet Life podcast, also Heather from the Sunshine and Power Cuts podcast. Fun note, Heather is also having her twice-a-year Sunshine Summit in August 2019. You can find out more about that wonderful project where she sits down and talks to content creators about their connections, and that is at sunshinesummit.live. For more Bookish Expats podcast episodes, you can go to bookishexpats.podbean.com, or you can honestly just search for Bookish Expats— don't forget the S— in your podcast app. Feel free to connect with me one-on-one with any questions, comments, or to volunteer to be a guest on the podcast. My handle is Steph Fuccio. It's S-T-E-P-H F-U-C-C-I-O, literally everywhere online. It is also my Gmail address. Starting in July, we will be using the official Bookish Expats Gmail account, but feel free to email, email us there beforehand. It's bookishexpats@gmail.com. Pretty straightforward, right? All right, so So one more episode, and then in late July, Tatiana will be joining us for our official new season 4. I really look forward to all of the changes that are happening, and I look forward to hearing from you about what you think about all of this bookish madness. Thank you so much, and, uh, you know, more soon.