By Andrew Hamlin
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
The two creative forces behind the new band, Good Luck Rabbits, each traveled the world—including time spent in China—before eventually finding one another in Seattle. One plays music professionally, one doesn’t, and they finally met over advocating for massage workers, before releasing their new three-song EP, available on Bandcamp.
Good Luck Rabbits, Josh Hou and Shuxuan Zhou (Credit: Rosanna Sze)
Josh Hou, who sings, plays accordion, and writes the music, grew up between the American East Coast, Beijing, and Kuala Lumpur; he moved here in 2006. Lyricist Shuxuan Zhou (who uses she/they pronouns) hails from Fujian, China. After college in Beijing, she arrived here in 2010 to start work on her Ph.D.
The Massage Parlor Organizing Project brought them together, advocating for migrant Asian massage parlor workers, sex workers, and care workers.
“We were fellow organizers first and then became friends,” Zhou said. “Josh first had this idea of writing pop songs with Chinese lyrics, and invited me to join the project. He probably mentioned it a few times, and I was a little reluctant because I had never written lyrics before. Then he sent me a demo. For me, it’s a friend’s request, for which I should at least try. That’s how Good Luck Rabbits started.”
In Josh Hou’s words, “I’ve historically worked mostly in jazz and jazz-adjacent genres, for which there aren’t too many Chinese Americans in Seattle. I have, however, really enjoyed seeing Chinese and Chinese American art communities flourish in other media: performing arts groups like Yun Theatre and SeaUni from which we drew inspiration for some of our songs, visual artists like Monyee Chau, and writers like Diana Xin and Shuxuan herself.”
“I actually write all sorts of things,” Zhou said. “I published a lot of academic articles, an academic book, creative writings such as short stories, essays, poems, in both Chinese and English. And I work as a senior policy analyst at Seattle Office of Labor Standards, so I write policy papers and legal regulations for work.”
Good Luck Rabbits at the Royal Room. From left to right: Josh Hou, Lilian Liang, Marina Christopher, Alex Chuang, Chris Icasiano, Kat Bula (Credit: Rosanna Sze)
She didn’t have much experience writing lyrics before, but as Hou elaborated, “I’ve always enjoyed their writing, and been so impressed by their ability to write such beautiful work in both Chinese and English. We’d been friends for awhile, and from organizing together, I knew that we worked together well and asked them to try writing just one song with me. It was so fun that we both wanted to write more.
“Two years ago, my wife Rosanna and I visited Hong Kong and Malaysia, our respective home countries, after being away for a very long time. Much of the trip was us reconnecting to a homeland that we’d been away from for a long time and we’d spoken to Shuxuan about it a lot. When Shuxuan and I sat down to write together, they asked for images and scenes, so we flipped through photos from our trip, and looked for things that stood out to us. They really captured the feeling of being away from homeland so beautifully, in a way that only someone else that is part of diaspora can understand.”
They ended up with three songs, all in Chinese: “Hot Day,” “Chinese Ghost Story,” and “Bilingual Baby.” Zhou said, “Ancient Chinese poems are often full of images and objects, which signify the poet’s feelings, so that’s why I asked about images and objects. There were quite a few tropical items in Josh’s response (such as cooling powder, durian), and some images of separation (such as graveyard, ferry dock) in Rosanna’s answer.
“So that’s where the song started from: A hot day and also feelings of joy of having good food, grief of reuniting with a city and people that have changed a lot. Then, while writing these images and feelings into the lyrics, I started developing this desire and hope for all diasporic community, including Josh, Rosanna, and myself: ‘Those who take root elsewhere are still loved/Leaves returning to their roots still have a home,’ which is the chorus of the song.”
The two wrote a total of 10 Good Luck Rabbits songs, and Hou’s already planning to record and release more of them.
“This next year will involve a lot of arranging and recording, but we’ll be performing, too! We’ll be playing an acoustic set in a smaller configuration early in the year (watch for details on my mailing list and social media), and hopefully other dates as well.”