Loveboat taipei characters
Loveboat, Taipei, Abigail Hing Wen (HarperTeen, January 2020) And since heritage programs to places like Israel and Greece are rites of passage for American teens of many ethnicities, Abigail Hing Wen has chosen a setting-and title-for her debut young adult novel, Loveboat, Taipei, that is likely to resonate beyond Asian-Americans. The subject of a recent documentary, it was perhaps inevitable that it would be mined for a novel.
#LOVEBOAT TAIPEI CHARACTERS TV#
It’s been a mainstay for teens with family ties to Taiwan, including restaurateur and TV personality, Eddie Huang. Started during martial law in the late 1960s to provide North American Chinese teens with a cultural experience back in the old country, the “love boat” program took on this nickname-a reference to an American TV sitcom of the 1970s and 80s-after it became known (perhaps among participants rather than their parents) more for debauchery than serious studies.
The program, funded by the Republic of China, has been dubbed the “love boat”, but has nothing to do with ships or the sea. When Abigail Hing Wen was a teenager, she spent a summer in Taiwan to get in touch with her Chinese roots.