Saying Goodbye to Yang

“Saying Goodbye to Yang” is a family drama set within the genre of speculative fiction. Its science-fiction and fantasy elements—cloning, Yang himself—heighten the world in which Jim and his family confront their loss. The genre is used as a lens for unpacking human behavior: the gamut of emotions Jim experiences after Yang’s malfunction encompass fears of mortality, cultural practices surrounding death, and our increasing dependence on devices.

“Saying Goodbye to Yang” shows a world that is recognizable yet still unlike our own. Yang, who may or may not have sentience, houses a computer program that is a store of cultural, familial, and societal knowledge in a humanoid body. Though we are not privy to a full description of Yang, we get clues that he resembles a Chinese teenage boy when Jim clocks his weight and contrasts his artificial skin with what Russ has in stock: “All of the skin tones are Caucasian” (9). As a “Big Brother” to Mika, Yang espouses facts about China, like a walking encyclopedia, and cares for her when Jim and Kyra are at work. They rely on a machine to do things humans would usually do, to a degree that surprises Jim; when tucking in Mika after Yang’s death, it’s the first time he’s “read to her in months” (17).