2 comments about Paper Shadows: A Memoir of a Past Lost and Found.

1. Now a respected professor and novelist in Canada, Wayson Choy was 57 years old in 1999 when he learned that he had been adopted. This memoir is a result of that discovery and, even though some family secrets do get discovered, by the end of this 342 page-book, he and the reader understand that much of his suppressed family history will never be completely uncovered.
   
   I did enjoy the story itself, however, which deals almost exclusively with his childhood years. Born in Vancouver in 1939, his memory of those early ears and his simple descriptions put me right into the young boy's mind.. He's the only child of hard-working Chinese immigrants in the land they refer to as Golden Mountain. Chinatown in those years was a world unto itself, and the young boy was loved and cherished by his parents as well as a large assortment of "uncles" whose own families were still back in China.
   
   Through his eyes we see the elaborate Chinese operas, which were transported to Canadian soil, and which his mother always enjoyed. We see his early encounters with English books and his strong will to learn to read. We see him go to a Canadian nursery school and learn about the Christian religion. We understand his Chinese roots and the many ghosts and spirits that are part of his Chinese culture. We meet his dog and have to laugh at the way this loving pet took over his life. Chinatown becomes real for the reader and so does the boy's obsession with cowboys and refusal to go to a traditional Chinese school. Most of the book was devoted to this very detailed portrait. Basically, this childhood was filled with love and little trauma.
   
   It was only in the last couple of chapters when we join him in his quest for his family secrets. This is written in the same simple style and delves deeper into the history of his family's experience in China as well as the new world. We'll never know most of the story. But we do get to share his growing-up years and learn about the forces that shaped his world.



2. In anticipation of the lunar new year, I picked up this book. The author had me under his spell by the second page. In his memoir of growing up in the 1940's, as the son of Chinese immigrants in Vancouver's Chinatown, the reader learns that Mr. Choy, while on a promotional book tour in 1995, received a call from a woman who says that she just saw his mother. But his Toisanese mother died nearly two decades earlier, he tells the mysterious caller. No, the caller replies, she means his `real mother.' And so the memoir and the mystery begin. In descriptive language that is hypnotic and nearly as haunting as a ghost filled home his family lived in, an extremely detailed portrait of his life as a young boy is drawn. In Part 1, his pre-school years are filled with family, Chinglish, mah-jong, lots of single "uncles" to take him for ice cream, nightly Chinese operas (his mother's version are a permanent barrier against pessimism), cowboy films, and his assertively willful tantrums. In Part 2, the author writes of his school years, English and Chinese lessons, stubbornness, truancy, confusion, helplessness, his pet dog, the humiliations his father endured at work, and the other concerns of children. In the last third of the book, Mr. Choy returns as an adult to the mystery of his and explores the hidden secrets of his family. Upon close reading, one learns about the stress of living as an Asian in North America during the War, a time when burials were only allowed in Asian-only cemeteries, when sick Asians were housed in the basement of the hospital, when Asians were offered payments to return to Asia if they promised never to return, and when men were not allowed to bring their families or wives over to the Gold Mountain from across the Pacific. On even closer reading, one can discern how different Chinese identities were crafted in North America by his grandfather, his parents, and finally himself in an in-between'ness third generation.

No comments about All Under Heaven: The Story of a Chinese Family in South Africa.

No comments about Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character (Chinese Edition).

No comments about FUSANG OR, THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA: By Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century.

No comments about Phoenix Harvest (My House Has Two Doors, Vol 2).

No comments about My House Has Two Doors.

3 comments about Empires Beyond the Great Wall: The Heritage of Genghis Khan.

1. Although this catalog does not all of the best pieces from the exhibit (most notably absent are the yurts and archery equipment), it does have a good selection of maps ans supporting text for the items that are included. Broken down by time period rather than by object (which for the Nomads of Eurasia and Son of Heaven catalogs proved to be a more useful format) it is nonetheless valuable for its coverage of pieces that have not shown up in any other museum exhibit.



2. Thank you for such a wonderfully insightful, beautiful book! It has enhanced my knowledge tremendously of the time period, and is a wonderful addition to my library. I found it to be intelligently written, engaging to the reader, written with a great deal of passion and knowledge. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a love of the arts. Hopefully, the show this was based on might tour again in the future as I would love the opportunity to view these extraordinary pieces described in the book first hand. Thank you again.



3. Opens up an array of artworks known to few in the West (or the East, for that matter), since North-Asian tribal cultures have long been rather stigmatized. Lovingly photographed, with quite breathtaking color reproduction. Informative text. A truly exciting introduction to the arts and archaeological finds of the Asian steppes and "frontier" areas.

3 comments about Empress of China, Wu Ze Tian: Written by Jiang Cheng an ; Illustrated by Xu De Yuan.

1. If you want to read an adult version of this book, please read I AM HEAVEN by Jinsie Chun, my mother.
   Victor Chun



2. A children's book in English (bilingual, actually) on a the only Chinese female emperor in history. This book definitely breaks stereotypes of passive Asian females. Great book for young students, especially with the lavish pictures. But I would also love to see an adult version of this book.



3. This delightful book on the only woman who served as empress in her own right in China (the later, famous Empress Dowager ruled behind her son and nephews, only) is well written and nicely illustrated. It is, however, a children's book, which I was not expecting when I ordered it. I would say that it would make a delightful gift for a young person, but it is light on information for any interested scholar.

No comments about Portraits Of Pride.

1 comments about To Be the Poet (The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization).

1. In this book, Maxine Hong Kingston proclaims to want to live the life of the poet. Working on her "longbook"--her thousand-plus page novel about Vietnam war veterans (her first novel since 1989's "Tripmaster Monkey")--has consumed so much of her life, creatively and otherwise, that she longs to live a poets life. The poets life, as she conceives it, is a life full of peace, surrounded by the most beautiful, beatific, awe-inspiring things. Instead of the arduousness of plots and stories, the brevity and aesthetic succinctness of poetry seems like a much more cozy alternative. Her enthusiasm for the poet's life is always near being tongue-in-cheek. A fellow poet reminds her that poets must revise, like novelists. Also, there's the sense that in arguing for poetry, she is arguing against it by claiming it to be like an aesthetic hit of crack--it's wonderful to experience in short and powerful bursts, then it goes away. So, perhaps, she ends up arguing for the novel ... it's hard to tell. Nevertheless, as she documents her poetry experiments, some nice lines and scenes emerge (particularly the last section of the book, "Spring Harvest," where she experiments with "four word poems"!). She also claims to close "To Be the Poet" with a poem (on Fa Mook Lan--another variation of the Fa Mu Lan myth, a la the "White Tigers" story in "The Woman Warrior") that will end her longbook. Kingston's poetry is hardly "strong" in the Harold Bloom sense but it is pleasant enough. But it leaves us longing even moreso for the "longbook."