Wiz Wharton: “I'm more than the sum of my ethnicity – I’m a life lived”
The author on the importance of ‘both,’ telling stories from the margins and conversations behind closed doors
Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week I’m speaking to author Wiz Wharton, who is of Chinese and white European heritage. Wiz’s debut, Ghost Girl, Banana, is out on Thursday and follows Sook-Yin in 1960s England, exiled from Kowloon, and her daughter Lily in 1990s, embarking on a secret pilgrimage to Hong Kong to discover the lost side of her identity. This novel is one of my favourite books of the year so far, and it’s no surprise that this sweeping story is being adapted for TV. I couldn’t wait to find out how much of Wiz’s own history informed Ghost Girl, Banana – read her story below.
What’s your family background, and how do you define your identity?
I grew up in the mid-’70s when it was common to refer to yourself, or be referred to as, half-caste. Biracial has become a very accepted shorthand for people to describe me to others, or ‘she’s half-this and half-that.’ I've never liked that definition. I’ve always said ‘I’m both.’ I literally have a t-shirt that says ‘Both Not half’ [editor’s note: read our interview with Both Not Half founder Jassa Ahluwalia here!] on it. It's important that I’m seen as both because I feel both those cultures within me and that’s been my experience growing up.
Now I’d describe myself as Chinese European. I’ve always viewed myself as European, and that’s a political decision – Scotland is my home. So I suppose ethnically [I’m] Chinese-British, but emotionally [I’m] definitely Chinese-European.
In the same way that pronouns have become very important, the way that people would like to be described is very important as well. I think it's so respectful that your first question is ‘how do you describe yourself’ because there are lots of loaded words. When we were growing up, half-caste always had that slightly disapproving feeling to it. It was ‘oh you’re not British, you’re not white.’ Whenever I went to Hong Kong, it was ‘well, you’re not Chinese.’ You’re always occupying that liminal space.
When you’re trying to discover and decide who you are, that can be incredibly traumatic and does have a legacy on you. Sometimes you go to either extreme to try and belong and you're never quite good enough.
You spoke about being in different places – I’m always interested in how time and space can impact someone’s sense of self. Has your sense of self shifted?
I've become much more comfortable with myself and empowered in my ethnicity. In the ‘70s, interracial marriages were very taboo. My parents’ shop was firebombed by the National Front. My dad was taunted with ‘yellow fever.’ Growing up and feeling very threatened in that environment, it became imperative to protect yourself by not talking about where you came from. If dad picked you up from school, that was ok because he was white. If my mum got off work early and picked up, the kids would stare and call her ‘c***ky.’ You’d hear that and think it must be a bad thing. I grew up quite frightened of what it would mean to me.
As I've gotten older, I've become much more bullish about being proud of who I am. Going back to London after the pandemic and being abused on a bus, told to take my virus with me, I found my voice. It was a major shift to stop hiding after all those years and stand up for myself.
I’d love to talk about Ghost Girl, Banana. There are parallels in the book from your own life, how much of the story is reminiscent of your own? And why did you choose to title the book with those two terms?
The book has always been called [Ghost Girl, Banana] since very, very early on. The central dilemma for both main characters is ‘how do I belong but also stay true to myself? How do I become empowered enough to stand up to people who don't accept me or who want to put labels on me?’ That tension carries them both through the novel.
For Lily, she’s called a gwei mui, a ghost girl, because she doesn't fit into the accepted form of being Chinese. Her mum is a banana as although she's ethnically Chinese, she's become westernised on the inside. It was about reclaiming those slurs for those two women. It became very, very important to me that they could turn [them] against the people that were saying them and say ‘I’m more than this, I’m a person in my own right. I'm more than the sum of my ethnicity, I’m a life lived.’ I think that was a really important learning curve for me growing up that I wanted to express in the book.
I've always been interested in telling untold stories about characters on the margins, whether that’s culturally or because of their age or mental health. I have bipolar and I’ve written a lot about that experience and what it did to my career – I started quite late in life. As a debut, I had to tell the story of Ghost Girl, Banana. I wrote it as a tribute to my mum who we lost very unexpectedly. It was only after she died that we discovered her diaries, and it was only through her diaries that I finally got to understand who she really was.
She kept her history very quiet, she’s very stoic about it, but also it was that fear of being targeted. She made herself small, emotionally and physically. She did so much for society but was reviled for not looking like everybody else.
What was your cultural upbringing like?
When I was talking earlier about living in this liminal space, I felt like my life was like [the cartoon] Mr Benn. He [puts on] this costume shop and ends up in this different world.
We got home from school and my mum would cook Chinese food. She’d put Chinese music on the cassette player, sing to us in Chinese, swear at us in Chinese… There’s a money ghost in Chinese culture, so every new year you spread coins at the front of your door. It encourages wealth into your house, so it’s bad luck to pick them up. But every time we stepped outside the door, we were Western. My dad wouldn’t want our mum teaching us Chinese or Cantonese. We were occupying two different spaces in our own bodies and heads. When friends came around, they couldn’t understand why we put money on the floor and my mum would say ‘leave it!’ Then there was this cycle of feeling embarrassed.
I was always so at home with my mum and I loved growing up with those customs and stories. It felt like a massive wrench whenever I had to shut that door and be a good white citizen. My mum was incredibly proud of her heritage. I loved hearing her speaking Chinese or Cantonese on the phone. I felt so proud.
Did you ever speak to your family about being mixed explicitly?
No, I never did. Only in the most pragmatic terms, like if I was being bullied. If I said kids were calling me ch**g ch**g, it would upset her. Her first instinct was ‘do you want me to go down and beat them?’ I said ‘don’t do that, it’ll make it worse.’ When we went to Hong Kong, my relatives were really sweet to us as children but you’d hear hurtful things behind closed doors, like ‘it’s not good, they don’t know who they are.’
I remember a really strange conversation with my mum much later in her life. Out of the blue, she said ‘do you blame me for making you mixed-race, for not having a Chinese dad? I said, ‘God, no, I'm just learning to love what I am.’ I wouldn’t have had the richness of the life that I’ve had if it hadn’t been for that. It must have been on her mind for a long time. She was engaged to a Chinese man, which she broke off for my dad. Terrible decision, by the way. I think that regret stayed with her and hearing her family’s criticisms and the way they cut her off made her think ‘not only have I ruined my life, I’ve ruined my children’s life.’
I’ve made sure that I speak to my own son to let him know what a privilege he has to have the influence of so many rich cultures, and not to be embarrassed or neglect them. It's so thrilling to see him so assured in himself. That's a massive gift to me as somebody who didn't have that growing up.
What’s the best thing about being mixed for you?
Having the best of two incredibly interesting and rich cultures, growing up bookended by both of those. Geographically, having the privilege of living in two different places at a young age. I think that's given me incredible skills of empathy and understanding what it is to not be accepted and what it would look like to be accepted, trying to extend that to others that I meet to make them feel how I wish my mum would have felt. That generosity, understanding and compassion is a massive legacy of growing up mixed-race.
Can you sum up your mixed identity in one word?
Privilege. I feel absolutely blessed. It's even more important to me because I didn't feel like that before. It feels like coming home to an identity. Thank God that I was able to feel that before it was too late.
Pre-order Ghost Girl, Banana now. Next week, I’ll be speaking to the director of British Future and author Sunder Katwala. Subscribe to get Mixed Messages in your inbox on Monday.
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Mixed Messages is a weekly exploration of the mixed-race experience, from me, Isabella Silvers. My mom is Punjabi (by way of East Africa) and my dad is white British, but finding my place between these two cultures hasn’t always been easy. That’s why I started Mixed Messages, where each week I’ll speak to a prominent mixed voice to delve into what it really feels like to be mixed.
I loved reading about Wiz Wharton’s experience and her book which I will definitely buy and read. Her words ‘ ‘I’m more than this, I’m a person in my own right. I'm more than the sum of my ethnicity, I’m a life lived.’ is so powerful and brilliantly said.