Review by Ian Keogh
Parachute Kids is a warm-hearted look at a phenomenon most people outside the Asian-American community will know nothing about. It’s astonishing to learn from Betty C. Tang’s afterword that many Asian parents feel there’s a better life for their children in the USA, and so leave them with relatives or friends while they themselves continue to live in their homeland and send money. In Tang’s case it occurred in the early 1980s just after the USA recognised the legitimacy of the Chinese state, leading to fears of her homeland Taiwan being invaded.
She includes her own memories of the time alongside the experiences of others, and the wealth of stories provides a rich, anecdotal graphic novel featuring three children attempting to acclimatise and cope while their parents are half a world away. Most events are seen through the eyes of the youngest, Feng-Li, who chooses to be known as Ann. Her older brother Lin Ke-Gȃng is a young teenager who was involved in an incident back home before leaving, and is keenest to retain his own name, while at sixteen Jia-Xii becomes Jessie, which sounds much the same, and has the responsibility of looking after her siblings.
By focussing on Ann, Tang is able to relate incidents that adults and older children will fully understand, but which Ann can’t. The cruelty of children is featured, as are many problems, none of which can be addressed by conventional means by youngsters knowing they need to keep to themselves. What might be a distressing experience, though, also features many funny moments, and a realistic portrayal of a loving family who can nonetheless become frustrated with each other. There are also moments of warmth and understanding from outside, an early example being an immigration official dressing down a junior member of staff who intends to deny the family entry to the USA due to a missing hypen in their visas.
The writing is excellent, well paced in working towards a succession of incidents, and Parachute Kids is really beautifully drawn. Tang’s confident cartooning brings the characters to life in showing what they feel at any given point, and it’s apparent how much thought has been applied, from the moments of emphasis to the way the family interacts. They speak what’s presumably Mandarin at home, and this is defined by yellow word balloons with red text, switching to black for the occasional word in English.
Parachute Kids straddles the all-ages and young adult classifications, with some ideas perhaps a little too complex for the very young. Feng-Li/Ann, though, is a greatly sympathetic lead character, easily understood, industrious and well-meaning. This reads well alone, but Outsider Kids provides a sequel.
