On Saturday, Oct. 12, the cast and creator of Interior Chinatown experienced something few visitors to Hawaii get to do: Learn to make lei from Cindy.
HONOLULU (KHON2) — On Saturday, Oct. 12, the cast and creator of Interior Chinatown experienced something few visitors to Hawaiʻi get to do: Learn to make a lei from Cindy.
Interior Chinatown is a new series coming to Hulu that explores the lives of people living in Chinatown in Los Angeles.
Inspired by Charles Yu’s acclaimed novel of the same name, the series centers on Willis Wu, a background character actor stuck in a police procedural titled Black & White. Consigned to the sidelines, Willis performs his monotonous real-life job of waiting tables while dreaming of a life beyond Chinatown.
The plot twist to his mundane life comes when he accidentally becomes a witness to a crime; he starts to untangle a criminal network in Chinatown, uncovering his family’s hidden past and experiencing what it’s like to be in the spotlight.
So, as the show begins to get on its feet, Charles Yu; Jimmy O. Yang, who plays Willis Wu; and Chloe Bennet, who plays Detective Lana Lee, came to Honolulu’s Chinatown to learn about some of the things that makes the 808 Chinatown so special.
The series was inspired by Yu’s novel which has garnered a great deal of attention due to its focus on the lives of folks we don’t normally think about, background actors.
“The story follows Willis Wu, who in the in the first episode, is sort of not doing great. He’s working, living his life,” explained Yu. “And then he meets this detective who introduces him to kind of a new way to investigate his missing brother. So, the course of the season is the sort of unraveling of that mystery.”
For Yang, this was an incredible opportunity to showcase his talent while giving segments of our population a voice.
“I related to it so much; it was part of my life as an Asian American actor trying to make it in the industry.,” explained Yang. “A lot of times you just feel like you’re in the background. There’s always these invisible ceilings. At the same time, it was so entertaining, and there’s always a mystery there.”
The trio had the opportunity to learn to make lei from Cindy who owns Cindy’s Lei and Flower Shoppe in Honolulu’s historic Chinatown.
Cindy and her cadre of ʻohana and hānai employees still make their lei by hand, all of them; and Yu, Yang and Bennet got to dig in and make their own lei which Yu and Yang wore for the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival’s Red Carpet event that evening.
“Cindy has always been in the forefront of this business,” explained Karen, Cindy’s daughter who helps manage the business. “She is 92; and she still works seven days a week.”
Yu, Yang and Bennet made plumeria lei; and Yang was surprised by how much Chinese residents of Hawaiʻi work to preserve Native Hawaiian traditions.
Surrounded by photos of Cindy’s decades of business, family and community, Yang stated that “coming into Cindy’s is like an experience where you come in here and you get to be a part of this history, you get to come into it.”
Karen explained that she and her son, Alex, are intent on “continuing Cindy’s legacy… it’s not easy for generations of families to keep these traditions alive, but we are going to do it.”
For Yang, he had a bit of time to bond with Cindy as they conversed in Cantonese. He explained that he and his family converse via text in both English and Cantonese and said, “that’s how we have kept in touch and have kept the language alive.”
For Yang, learning to make lei was another adventure he gets to have with his character Willis.
Interior Chinatown premiers on Hulu on Nov. 19. You can click here to learn more.
“Playing Willis has been a lot of fun,” added Yang. “It’s been a huge evolution for me as an actor as I get to revisit roles that I’ve played before and embody them in Willis’s experiences.”