Saying Goodbye to Yang

“It’s the first time I’ve actually embraced Yang, and the coldness of his skin surprises me. While he has lived with us almost as long as Mika, I don’t think anyone besides her has ever hugged or kissed him.”

Jim embraces Yang for the first time after the robot malfunctions and he crudely rips the panel out of his back to power him down. “Embrace” connotes affection, which Jim finds it hard to admit in the beginning of the story. Yet, his surprise at the coldness of Yang’s skin reminds Jim that their family member is not human. Jim both considers Yang a son and keeps him at a distance in their household, and the fact that he hasn’t hugged Yang before is the first indication of this distance and Jim’s contradictory feelings.

“My legs feel wobbly and the sky above us seems thinner, as though there’s less air. Still, I’m glad I answered as I did. A man who paints his face for Super Bowl games isn’t the type of guy to open your heart to.”

As Jim comes to terms with Yang’s death and his inability to provide financial or technical assistance to revive him, his narration becomes lyrical. References to nature help him describe how he is feeling, using a physical description to pinpoint his emotions. However, Jim chooses not to share this with George, whom he assumes would not be receptive to his grief over a robot because he’s different than him—an avid sports fan with cloned twins. George’s perceived masculinity and the class differences between the two characters cause a rift that Jim doesn’t emotionally engage with beyond forced interactions.

“‘You brought a Korean.’ He says this as a statement of fact. Russ is the type of person I’ve made a point to avoid in my life: a guy that probably has a WE CLONE OUR OWN sticker on the back of his truck. ’He’s Chinese,’ I say. ‘Same thing,’ Russ says.”

Jim mentions anti-Asian hate and xenophobia is on the rise since the US invaded North Korea, and his encounter with Russ illustrates the casual racism Mika and Yang likely encounter. Unlike his children, Jim has been able to avoid people like Russ because he is white and middle-class, and he is uncomfortable having to rely on him to fix Yang. The bumper sticker Jim mentions here also exemplifies the story’s genre, speculative fiction set in the near future, a world in which technology is more advanced than present-day (i.e., clones) but with the same societal issues.

“I should have gone to Quick Fix. The young techies with their polished manners always make me feel more at ease.”

Jim’s distaste for Russ is founded in the repairman’s bigoted dismissal of Yang’s ethnic representation, but there is also a class distinction at play in this comment. Jim is comfortable with Quick Fix and the sheen of professionalism even though the technician he takes Yang to is a mere teenager who offers to give Jim Yang’s head. In the end, Jim ends up paying more for the same service that Russ was offering at Quick Fix because of his (understandable) discomfort.

“It was the first Christmas, as Kyra, Yang, Mika, and I were at the airport being individually searched, that I realized Chinese, Japanese, South Korean didn’t matter anymore; they’d all become threats in the eyes of Americans.”

Weinstein uses current events to project a future dystopia that resembles our world in order to critique it. Here, he references a rise of xenophobia in the wake of tensions with North Korea, despite the fact that Yang is Chinese. Anti-Asian bias in the United States often manifests in a disregard of Asian identity and heritage and a disinterest in differentiating East Asian countries and cultures. The problems his family run into at the airport is a reference to post-9/11 anti-Muslim bigotry and violence that bled into everyday public life. Also, Jim’s whiteness allowed him to stay oblivious to racism until he witnessed it affecting his family directly.

“‘This is what men do for the family,’ I said, gesturing with my beer to the leafless yard. Without realizing it, I had slipped into thinking of Yang as my son, imagining that one day he’d be raking leaves for his own wife and children.”

Jim sharing a beer with Yang after yardwork is a tableau of Americana masculinity, one that Jim remarks on. The rite of passage and tender moment is clouded by the reality of the situation—that the beer is going into a stomach canister to be discarded later, and that Yang will never become an adult. Jim is trying to teach Yang how to be what he thinks of as a man even though Yang is not even human, which belies Jim’s emotions toward his “son.”

“‘Yeah,’ I say looking at the bushes. I can feel the tears starting again. ‘Anyhow, it’s no big deal. Don’t let me keep you from your game. We’ll figure it out.’ Which is a complete lie. I have no clue how we’re going to figure anything out. We needed Yang, and there’s no way we can afford another model.”

Jim minimizes his feelings when speaking to others, and also hides his grief behind the logistical and financial burdens Yang’s death engenders. He lies to his neighbor because he does not think a man like George would understand or take a robot’s malfunction as seriously as it has affected Jim. However, Yang’s role is indeed practical as well as emotional, and his loss sets the overworked Jim and Kyra’s struggles in sharp relief.

“That night, I lie with Mika in bed and read her Goodnight Moon. It’s the first time I’ve read to her in months.”

A major theme in “Saying Goodbye to Yang” is humanity’s relationship with technology. In the near-future setting of the story, working parents Jim and Kyra initially bought Yang to pitch in on childcare and to teach Mika about her Chinese heritage. However, as Jim realizes in Yang’s absence, he relied on the robot to fulfill more intimate roles with his daughter, technology becoming a replacement for human connection.

“Ever since I was handed Yang’s voice box, time has slowed down. The light of the setting sun had stretched across the wood floors of our home for what seemed an eternity. Sounds have become crisper as well, as though, until now, I’d been living with earplugs.”

Throughout the story, Jim speaks in metaphor, using nature imagery, to describe or obfuscate his feelings of grief. Time seems to slow down for Jim when he holds the physical proof of Yang’s death, making it real for him, and comparing his disorientation to the sun’s movement across the floor in his home is how he contextualizes and processes his emotion. The metaphor of earplugs here signals Jim’s inability to hide from feelings he is uncomfortable with, and the world feels sharper and more real, now that he has confronted his grief.

“Kyra once asked him about his insects. Yang’s face illuminated momentarily, the lights beneath his cheeks burning extra brightly, and he’d said, ‘They’re very beautiful, don’t you think?’ Then, as though suddenly embarrassed, he segued into a Fun Fact regarding the brush-footed butterfly of China.”

Yang’s interest in insects seems to be unique to him and not part of his innate programming. While the blush of his cheeks stems from lights under synthetic skin rather than flesh and blood, Yang is expressing something he believes in his core, which perhaps points to consciousness. Like Jim, Yang uses an expected response—here, a Fun Fact—to deflect from an emotional moment; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“Maybe this was Yang’s attempt at art—one that, unlike the calligraphy he was programmed to know, was entirely his own. Tomorrow, I’ll bag his suits, donate them to Goodwill, and throw out the Brothers & Sisters poster, but these matchboxes, the butterflies, and the baseball glove, I’ll save. They’re the only traces of the boy Yang might have been.”

While Jim is constantly aware that Yang’s knowledge and actions are part of his programming, he nevertheless viewed him as a sort of son. He tried to impart his passions to Yang and seeks to hold on to that bond via having a baseball glove, a purchase that indicates Yang perhaps found meaning in his game with Jim after all. The butterflies and matchboxes show a different side of Yang, interests beyond his programming, that Jim wants to hold on to, a Yang’s humanity validate his own feelings toward his “son.”

“It’s a beautiful October day, the sky thin and blue, and the sun lights up the trees, bringing out the ochre and amber of the season. I imagine what the three of us must look like to the neighbors. A bunch of kooks burying their electronic equipment like pagans. I don’t care.”

When Jim meditates on nature, he is usually coming to grips with his emotions— grief, love, awe—and Yang’s funeral is no exception. The wonder Jim illustrates for nature here mimics his emotional growth, as he also notes that he doesn’t care what the neighbors think about burying Yang. Beforehand, Jim was concerned about others’ perceptions of him, and vice versa, but in the end, he embraces a demonstration of loss for a family member.

“Mika smiles at the sound of her Big Brother’s voice, and looks up at me for instruction. It’s an awkward moment. I’m not about to tell Yang that the rest of him is buried in the backyard. ‘Nowhere,’ I answer. ‘We’re all here together.’”

Jim contemplates fatherhood throughout the story, both in his feelings toward Yang and in his foibles with Mika. Because the true nature of Yang’s consciousness, and whether or not he understands death, is such a question mark, this moment is awkward; death is an uncomfortable topic for parents in any situation. Yet Jim offers succor to Yang in telling him that the family is together, which is true.