Porthole

You make valid points.

So, I'm not going to try to appeal to a WDC audience. Part of the frustration of blogging has been the narrow interests of fellow bloggers. It's a revelation how small their comfort zones are and how unwilling many are to expand them. On the surface I have little in common with them. My saving grace is that I've had a lifetime of being the odd duck swimming among swans.

Fortunately for me, there is a large Eurasian population out there (not here) that has feet planted firmly in both East and West. This is obvious on Youtube. I'd make them my audience if I knew how. I'm not good at marketing.

As for hand-holding ... there are ways of saying the same thing in different ways or exlaining them. In the Thai BL "He's Coming to Me" one character has been out of circulation for 20 years (he's a ghost) and things like cell-phones and laptops, paying without cash, bing su (Korean shaved ice) have to be explained to him. I learned a lot about Thai culture!

Similarly the Taiwanese characters could explain many things to the 'visitors' Kago, Walker & Kwong (from Japan, Britain and Hong Kong). And why? Li&Chen are business women. As merchants, language and culture are merely obstacles to be dealt with. Chok-Poh, their younger brothers, are young and that means universal themes of growing up and taking risks.

The 'romance' aspect can be brought to the fore or fade to a side-story. The story will have to be written first though. No need to decide now. If it falls into shenmo-BL-detective-drama with a silkpunk overlay so be it (with a sprinkling of pirates... real or imagined... piracy was frequently a concern on trade routes).

What it won't focus on: the military or violence, be it Britain-rules-the-World (that racism you mention is for real... also classism and religious saints-versus-heathens) or Cowboys-versus-Indians. There's enough tension navigating change. I'm not going to tell a War story, a conquest, or typical teen emo-story about abusive family.

The applicable Chinese color for both change and stabilty is yellow. The story starts in winter (black) and moves into spring (blue-green). This will be expressed in many ways like clues in an Agatha Christie mystery.

I've written more earlier today and now need to flesh out my characters as once I know them I'll know what obstacles to place in their way. The silkpunk-steampunk will make the story seem other-wordly but the characters and situations must be concrete and real. Even if the Gods and Immortals intervene it's still about my main characters and how they navigate the world.