Angela Liu

from a Tokyo bar to a name-stealing frog-man

Every month in my newsletter (already three-months late…), I’d like to give a Behind-The-Scenes (inspirations, writing process and all) look at one of the stories or poems I’ve written. Last time I talked about “Imagine: Purple-Haired Girl Shooting Down The Moon,” my Nebula- and Ignyte-nominated novelette, published in Clarkesworld #201. This time I’d like to go into the backstory behind my very first published story, “Ppaka,” in The Dark #85.

More than a decade ago, I happened upon a small izakaya with a few friends in Shimbashi (a salaryman district in Tokyo). There, down some narrow stairs with almost no signs, in what looked like someone’s cramped studio apartment, was a middle-aged man in a frog costume ready to take our drink orders.

After getting seated, we were handed a crayon-scribbled list of countries and told by the frog-man that we could request “what country’s style” we wanted our drinks delivered. Our beer and soft drinks were brought out in mug cups that were fitted with mechanical bottoms that would vibrate randomly, making it near-impossible to drink (a friend eventually, thankfully, found the off switch). In the middle of our meal, frog-man introduced Frank, his frog puppet, who then started interrogating us about our romance lives. Frank had a penchant for cursing and dirty jokes, which frog-man would then profusely apologize for. Frank liked visiting foreign countries and French girls. Frank, once again, was a plush doll puppet. A friend, after getting drunk, asked if she could put on the frog costume, and our ribbiting host enthusiastically obliged.

This night remains one of my most vivid memories after moving to Japan and solidified my “wtf Japan” image (complimentary).

It’s also what inspired the first paragraph of “Ppaka.”

Prior to writing the story, I had read another short story in UK-based Neon Magazine, about a woman who undergoes a transformation as the people on the street glimpse into her apartment. This made me want to write a story about being watched. I’d never written horror before, but I loved the idea of using body horror as a springboard for exploring identity loss. For many who have slowly lost pieces of their culture either due to necessity or simply time, there’s a genuine, often visceral fear paired with the sadness. At the time, many female friends had recently gotten married, and there was a discussion about whether or not they wanted to change their last name and the implications for one’s career by doing so. Many worried that they would never feel like a proper “family” if they didn’t share a last name with their spouse (and children later on).

So this got me researching. In China, wives never take their spouse’s last names. The last name is considered one of the most vital connections to one’s past and familial lineage, so to abandon it was the equivalent of forgetting one’s core identity. For the wife in “Ppaka,” her husband’s obsession with getting her to change her name and “be a proper family” is what invites the monster that eats her identity.

And so “Ppaka,” the horror-tinged dark fantasy about a man who thinks he’s a [name-devouring] frog was born. Check out the story here.

For those interested in rejectomancy, “Ppaka” was accepted by the second place I sent it to (the first being Neon Magazine). Before writing “Ppaka,” I’d written “You Will Be You Again,” which remains, to this day, my story that has racked the most rejections. At the time, I was confident I’d never sell a single story, so I thought “what the hell, let me just write something really weird and fun.” Let it be known that the real joy of writing comes when you no longer care what anyone thinks. “Ppaka” remains one of the fastest short stories I ever wrote and may still be the one I enjoyed writing the most.

Thanks for reading!

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