For Mei Xiang, the protagonist of Bay Area author and journalist Vanessa Hua's second novel, "Forbidden City," a waitressing job in San Francisco's Chinatown provides her the physical and ...

Vanessa Hua and her hair stylist face some decisions rooted in Lunar New Year tradition. The other day, the hair stylist urged me to cut off four or five inches, but I refused. “Just a trim!” I ...

But when you turn a multiple of 12 — 24, 36, 48, 60 and so on — the ritual gets prolonged: Red underwear every day of that lunar calendar year. When I first heard about the practice a few ...

Vanessa Hua is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of the novel “A River of Stars” and a story collection, “Deceit and Other Possibilities.” In her new novel ...

Hua’s provocative latest (after A River of Stars) follows a bold and shrewd woman as she navigates China’s political scene amid the Cultural Revolution. Mei Xiang is almost 16 when she trades ...