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Meet Meilin Moy: An Interview with a character in “The China Connection,” a novel by Timothy Trainer

Interviewer: Ms. Moy, are you comfortable conducting this interview in English?

Ms. Moy: Very comfortable. My English is limited only in the book. The author has given me permission to be fluent in English for this interview. 

Interviewer: Knowing that The China Connection will receive an award in MWSA’s 2024 award season, it’s a pleasure to interview a character from an award-winning novel. As a character from the novel, how does it feel?

Ms. Moy: Well, it doesn’t mean much to me because I don’t really exist except on paper or on an ebook screen.

Interviewer: The author must’ve done a good job to receive any award, right?

Ms. Moy shrugging: I think he’s got lots of room for improvement but that’s just my opinion. He could’ve given my more lines, more scenes. You’d have to ask him what he thinks of the result.

Interviewer sensing a distant interviewee: What do you think about how you came across in The China Connection?

Ms. Moy takes a deep breath before responding: I wasn’t impressed by the way I first appeared in the book. I thought he could’ve done better. It worked out well in the end.

Interviewer: But aren’t you happy about having such a vital role in the overall story?

Ms. Moy listening to the question and answering without expression: Did you notice that I didn’t appear in the book until Chapter 4? When I finally appear in Chapter 4, I have no name. I felt like I wasn’t even as much as an afterthought. And look at me! I’m a figureless woman and he, the guy who created me, describes me as looking both boyish and bookish. How am I supposed to feel about that? It isn’t a very complimentary way of introducing me to the readers.

Interviewer taps his fingers on the arm of his chair thinking about his next question.  Eventually, you had a key role in the book. Wouldn’t you say that it was equal to being the main character in the book?

Ms. Moy scoffs before answering: You don’t realize how many conversations I had with the author to get him to understand the importance of my role. I give him a little credit for listening to my complaints.

Interviewer, leans forward in his chair: I don’t understand that. Can you provide examples.

Ms. Moy: How many would you like? There was that scene where he finally allowed me to show my martial arts skills. I had the author rewrite that scene several times before I told him he finally got that right.

Pausing, Ms. Moy shakes her head then continues. Then there’s a scene where I was supposed to meet with my father, Roger, and Aaron in the hotel lobby. Well, I decided that the story would be better served if I just took off and didn’t show up. Sure enough, after I forced the author to think about why I didn’t appear at the meeting, he chased me down and got things going again. I got the story back on track.

Interviewer chuckles. How often do you talk to the author?

Ms. Moy: I had to take him aside and talk to him often. Sometimes, he’d be listening to music, and I’d interrupt him or keep him up at night and wouldn’t let him go to sleep until he got my message.

Interviewer: Really? You’re the character, he’s the author. I can’t believe that you can just interrupt him anytime you want. Aren’t you starting to overstate your importance?

Ms. Moy: Oh please. Do you really think we let these writers have that much control over us? Me, Kaili, Roger, and other characters are competing for page space. We’re in his head about something all the time. We make sure he’s hearing voices. He’s like other authors. He gets stuck and needs a shove in the right direction with me or any of the other characters. Once he’s got me going in a particular direction, he can’t slam on the brakes and have me do something inconsistent or too far out of character. I have to keep him on the right path and do right by me. You should interview a couple of the other characters. They’ll confirm what I’m saying.

Interviewer: Uh-huh. Do you have any favorite and least favorite scenes from the novel?

Ms. Moy: Absolutely. Without giving things away, my least favorite is that scene where the balaclava was put over my head. It smelled like it had been in a dirty clothes bin for days or weeks. That was awful and I had to keep it on for several pages. Yuck. My two favorite scenes were at very different points in the story. Like I said, the scene where I had to have the author rewrite the scene where I show off my martial arts skill and then toward the end of the book on that jet foil with Liwei. The jet foil scene would be great for a movie because I’d be able to do what I did over and over in different takes. Unfortunately, in the book it was a one-time shot. I really enjoyed doing what the author had me do in that scene, but I can’t go into it any deeper or I’ll spoil it for those who haven’t read it.

Interviewer: Any future appearances in a novel?

Ms. Moy: Rumor has it that I’ll be in the next one.

Interviewer: Is it a reliable rumor?

Ms. Moy smiling: It’s more than a rumor. I’ve spent a lot of time in his head. He assures me that I get my page space.

Interviewer: Thank you and enjoy your future page appearances.      

The China Connection published in January 2023 (Bronze Award from the Military Writers Society of America)

The China Factor published December 2024 (Bronze Award from the Military Writers Society of America)

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About the Timothy Trainer: Writing books is a passion for attorney Timothy Trainer, who for more than three decades focused on intellectual property issues in his day job. He has worked in government agencies and in the private sector, and his assignments have taken him to 60 countries around the world.

Tim found time to pen a few non-fiction tomes, including his first book, Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights; the 15th edition was published in 2022. Thomson Reuters’ Aspatore Books published Tim’s next title in 2015, Potato Chips to Computer Chips: The War on Fake Stuff. 

Fiction was a genre he always wanted to try. In 2019, Pendulum Over the Pacific, was released by Joshua Tree Publishing. “This political intrigue story is set in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., and centers on trade tensions between the U.S. and Japan in the late 1980s,” Tim explains.

In 2023, his first series hit bookstores: The China Connection.

In 2025, he published the sequel, The China Factor, which ranked #63 on the Amazon Asian Literature list in May.

Click here to learn about all of Tim’s books.