Golden Girl: Growing Up Teenage and Taiwanese in California, A Fictional Memoir of Kailin Gow

By Kailin Gow

Golden Girl is a fictional memoir that is heavily based, but loosely on USA Today bestselling author Kailin Gow, who is known as a digital book pioneer, an author success story on Amazon's homepage, and for her fictional and non-fiction books featuring a strong female main character.

Growing up in Southern California near Hollywood has its privileges and fun stories that are iconic to the area. Growing up as a teen with Taiwanese heritage is another thing.

If you like Fresh Off the Boat, Crazy Rich Asian, and other Asian-American lit that portrays Asians in America as somewhat crazy, you will enjoy this one...from a female point of view and from an author known for standing up to the norm. Be prepared for breaking of stereotypes, kung fu influences, references to Bruce Lee, and hilarious stories that are true, but was made fiction here to protect the guilty and embarrassed.

Golden Girl may be the one to shattered your not-so-concrete view of what being teenaged and Taiwanese means growing up in Southern California near Hollywood in the 1980s.

*** Golden Girl is TV-14 because Kailin's Teenage years were not so TV-MA rated as her imagination and grown up romance books. If you are looking for higher steam stuff, then look for her New Adult books. Otherwise, this is a book that her mom could read, but Mama Lucy loves her steamy ones too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sparklesoup.com
• Release date: Aug 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393117872

Kailin Gow

It's official! Read about Kailin and her books being adapted into films and tv series here: https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/kailin-gow-loving-summer/ FIND OUT MORE ABOUT KAILIN GOW AT: https://linktr.ee/KailinGow including how to get a free book from her! Kailin Gow is a million-selling international and USA Today Bestselling author of over 680 published books! She writes in many genres under her name and other pen names. She has been an invited speaker on Book Expo America, appeared on CBS News about writing books with social issues, and the Top 15 National radio regularly on women's issues, women in film and Hollywood, and leadership. She holds a Masters in Management from USC and degrees in Social Ecology, Criminology, and Filmmaking. She is an author influencer on Instagram, owns a podcast network with multiple channels, is a multi-award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, actress, and host. Her books have been made into games, animated short films, and series. Currently, a number of her book series have been optioned, are in development, or pre-production, including her YA Fantasy Sci Fi Thriller FADE (which has been optioned) and Red Genesis (also optioned) by Netflix producers. Kailin Gow is a regular guest in radio and television on women in Hollywood and filmmaking, naming the top Women Execs to Watch. She is a judge in film festivals, writing contests, and is also a voting member in the Academy Awards. AWARD-WINNING INTERNATIONAL MILLION-SELLING AUTHOR, PRODUCER, AND TV PERSONALITY Kailin Gow is an internationally-recognized multi-award-winning multi-genres USA bestselling Asian American author and woman director/filmmaker who has written and published over 400 books under Kailin Gow and her pen names. She is both traditionally-published as well as indie. Considered a digital publishing pioneer, her books have been downloaded over 10 Million times around the world. She is known as one of the most prolific authors internationally who not only writes novels but screenplays fast, but of world-class quality they win prestigious awards like the ALA YALSA Awards and Los Angeles Film Awards. Besides having gone to law school, she holds a Masters Degree in Communications Management from USC and Drama/Film and Social Ecology Degrees from UC Irvine. She has also been a longtime member of TED Talks. She is the first Asian American author to have sold over 1 million books and to be featured on Amazon.com's homepage as an indie Author Success Story. Her success as an Indie Author and advocate for Indie authors during the early Kindle days has inspired many to take a plunge to become authors. The first Asian American woman who is independently published to appear on Amazon's homepage as an Author Success Story, she also represented Amazon as an author spokesperson during Amazon's Kindle Family Launch press conference in Santa Monica and at Book Expo America where she was an invited speaker. A digital publishing pioneer, she was one of the first authors and publisher to publish digitally back in 2001. Prior to becoming a full-time author and filmmaker, she worked as an Exec in Legal and Production at Walt Disney Company, a writer/producer for Cable Television, an Exec at high tech start ups, and Exec at Fortune 100 Hotel and Travel Corporations where she has managed and trained hundreds of employees on world-class service and operations. She has also been a professional model, a tour director, journalist, re-organization consultant, a secret mystery shopper/consultant for top brands, and professional speaker who has been an invited speaker at Book Expo America, Girl Scouts, Asian America Heritage Week, and more! FUTURIST AND SOCIAL INFLUENCER A social influencer, she has over millions of views on her YouTube channel and her Vimeo channel with over 1.5 million views on her Bitter Frost trailer and award-winning animated short film alone. She is a judge on writing contests for writing incubator social sites, has been a member of TED Talks, and is one of the most quoted modern living authors today. She has also been regularly published as a contributor on Fast Company magazine on articles about publishing, leadership, business, and social issues. https://www.fastcompany.com/1800256/social-media-and-future-publishing-industry

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Note

Although Golden Girl is a fictitious memoir based on author Kailin Gow‘s life as a teen growing up in the golden state of California during the 1980s, Golden Girl is largely based on the true life events that helped shape and inspire some of Kailin’s bestselling books. Kailin Gow is an international bestselling author of hundreds of books and has been featured as an Amazon Author Success Story in Amazon’s early publishing days and has been featured on CBS television as well as many top radio shows as a bestselling author and authority on books, film history, lifestyle and more.  Golden Girl is an ode to the pop culture of the ‘80s, the influences of strong women in history, the diversity of California and America, and the struggle for some groups to be heard.

Dedication

Golden Girl is dedicated to my grandparents Grandpa Wu and Grandma Wu, who are in heaven watching over me, cheering me on, and continuing to provide me with pearls of wisdom. On your deathbed, I promised that I would tell your story, and this is just the beginning.

Prologue

A Look Back to Where It Began

Kailin Gow – Adult

August 10, 2020

One always wonders at what point in one’s life did someone or something make a life-changing impact not only on your own life, but on that of another.

Today, I am celebrating my birthday and looking back on the moments and points in my life that may have seemed ordinary at the time, but turned out to be pivotal in helping me form my identity and viewpoint as an adult.

With millions of downloads and a multitude of bestselling books, I am often asked two questions: 

(1)  When did I decide to become a novelist?

(2)  What were my inspirations?

The answers to these questions are simple, yet complex. It started before high school, but there wasn’t just one point in time when everything shifted.  It involved many important events, and a great many people who influenced my journey toward becoming a successful author and the person who I am now.

Through ups and downs, especially when facing the world we live in currently – that of the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic – I find it interesting and comforting to reminisce the days when things were a lot simpler, safer, and certain.

A slice in time, a moment in a coming of age story, that’s what this memoir is all about.

And so it begins back at the end of the school year in 1984...

Chapter 1

Kung Fu and Arcadia

8th Grade

Kailin – Age 14

1984

When you have spent most of your life growing up in the San Gabriel Valley area of Southern California, taking Chinese language classes on Saturdays wasn’t the only way to become fluent in Chinese.  You supplemented the learning experience by going out to see Chinese films in tiny, run down theaters from Hollywood’s glorious past.  At least that’s what my mother thought.  Fortunately for my brother Peter and I, the only foreign films in Chinese that played near us were vintage 1970s kung fu films from Hong Kong. 

Unfortunately, most of them were not in Chinese, but dubbed badly by non-actors whose native language was not English.  Often, both male and female characters were dubbed by the same male actor, with females dubbed in a ridiculously high pitched voices that made you cringe from sheer embarassment. And there were no particular ratings for these films.  So if there was gore and violence, kids would see it in all of its bloody glory.  Even nudity wasn’t off limits, so my brother got a kick out of the occasional gratuitous flash of skin. He’d just pretend to play it cool. So even if you were under 10, they’d still let you into the theater so long as you paid for a ticket.  Theater owners didn’t even care how many people fit into a showing.  If the film was popular, they’d let you pile in with standing room only.  I remember being annoyed by people standing in the aisles and blocking my view, since I could barely see over the seats.  Stadium seating would not exist for at least another 15 years.

Being 14 years old, I had been watching kung fu films since they were first playing in theaters.