RELATED: 'Boxers & Saints' named National Book Award finalist I also think it embodies a conflict that Asian Americans, especially Asian American Christians, sometimes struggle with, a conflict between Eastern and Western culture. There are a lot of parallels between it and the modern world, especially what's happening in the Middle East.

I find the Boxer Rebellion fascinating on so many levels. The teenagers became known as the Boxers because their martial arts reminded the Europeans of European boxing. Then, armed with superpowers, the teenagers ran through the countryside fighting of foreign soldiers and Chinese Christians. A group of poor, starving teenagers felt deeply embarrassed by this foreign incursion, so they came up with a ritual that would call the Chinese gods down from the heavens. It was the very end of China's 'century of humiliation.' The Europeans and the Japanese had established what were called concessions, areas in every major Chinese city that basically functioned as colonies. Yang: The Boxer Rebellion was fought on Chinese soil in the year 1900. What was The Boxer Rebellion, and what about it inspired you to tell these stories? And plus, many of my closest friends came out of that group. I learned so much by hanging out with those guys, by seeing how they worked, by getting their feedback. I never went to art school, so Art Night was like my art school. Art Night was enormously important to me.

Saints gene luen yang