2 comments about Of Orphans and Warriors: Inventing Chinese-American Culture and Identity.

1. This is an intensely frustrating book. Despite the interesting subject matter and useful historical summaries, I found this book to be initially engaging but also massively under-theorised.

   The best segments of the book are Chun's analysis of the post WW-II period as a key time in the reformulation of Chinese American identity. However, her use of bland generalizations instead of demonstrated theoretical links mean that her analyses rarely proceed beyond the obvious.

   Chun's highly biographical approach is at its best when she deals with characters with long paper trails. Her analysis of literary figures is also informative.

   However, we are only given incidental examination of key issues such as gender, race, class-structure and religion. The social and cultural milieus in which key informants moved are given scant attention for a work of cultural analysis. In this regard, her discussion of the Sixties and Seventies (for example) read more like a summary rather than an investigation: Which specific elements of Black Panther philosophy (as opposed to a generalized 'stick it to the man' factor), if any, appealed to the Asian American architects of Yellow Power? Did the examples of feminist and womanist workers such as Germaine Greer and Angela Davis have any effect on young Chinese American women? How did the mechanics of desire(the fetishization of Asian women the feminization Asian men)factor into the Sexual Revolution? Unfortunately, Chun does not give us sufficient evidence to evaluate the claims she makes. By the same token, unfortunate errors of detail (such as the use of Lin Yutang's given name rather than his family name, on p. 51 and 53)also act to compromise Chun's authority. While her 'talk-story' style might be viewed as an attempt to challenge academic genres of writing, this work, at base, is an academic project(and not fiction) and therefore must be assessed as such.

   I am extremely sympathetic to the goals and aims of this book and applaud Chun's attempt to address some interesting questions but ultimately I found that this book fails to deliver much in the way of truly satisfying nuanced analysis (as opposed to the representation of experience).




2. Excellent book! As a second generation Asian American woman, I found this book to be revealing, eye-opening and inspiring.

No comments about Romance in Natural History - The Lives and Works of Amadeus Grabau and Mary Antin.

3 comments about Little Sister: Searching for the Shadow World of Chinese Women.

1. This novel is even more trite, than the authors boring monologues on mail order brides. Rather than familiarize the reader with the subject matter at hand, the author pumps her own ego repeatedly. What I did find amusing were the multiple references to the author's own homoerotic, incestuous, and pediphilific tendencies. In a word this novel blows. literally.



2. I've read stacks of books on China--both before, during, and after living there--and I will certainly add this one to my recommendation list. There are plenty of writers comfortable with giving pure "reportage" on a foreign country they have lived in, supposedly factual accounts of dramatic encounters or distanced anecdotes about the sights and sounds, but few willing to speak honestly about how they are personally affected by that place and the people they grow close to--or the complicated reasons that motivate them to go in the first place. Why travel to another country if you aren't willing to be changed by it or admit the concerns and questions you bring with you? Why read a memoir if you want just the facts or a large scale "objective" account and not something of the writer too? Read an encyclopedia or history book if that's what you're after, although these won't give you a sense of what it is for you as an individual to be in that place. Checkoway's beautiful account of her year in Hebei Province and the lives of the Chinese women who were brave enough to tell her their stories enriched my own understanding of the women in China who had befriended me, leaving me longing to return and at the same time profoundly aware of the way travelers are constantly compelled, each for their own reasons, to try to connect across cultures and political divisions. There is a haunting, respectful quality to Checkoway's prose. She admires these women for their courage, determination, and insights, and by the end of the book, I admire them--and Checkoway--too.



3. This tells you more about the author than it does about China; the writer claims to know Chinese but commits some obvious howlers ("horse-horse camel-camel" for "ma-ma hu-hu") that shows she speaks very little. Much better books about China include Kristoff & WuDunn's China Wakes, the Tysons' Chinese Awakenings: Life Stories from the Unofficial China, or Jan Wong's Red China Blues : My Long March from Mao to Now.

No comments about The Chinese Walking Stick: And Other Short Stories.

No comments about Chinese Portraits (Images Across the Ages).

5 comments about Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet: On a Slow Boat from Shanghai to Texas.

1. Savoured the book from start to finish. It took me 2 weeks to read the last 20 pages because I did not want it to end. I am looking forward to reading the next Gillian adventure.



2. I spent the academic year of 1999/2000 teaching English in Shenzhen. I spoke no Chinese, at the time, and had no formal teaching experience. So I could definitely relate to Gillian's frustrations, culture shock, and malentendus. It's 1991 and Gillian is a grad student in Galveston, TX. The semester is coming to a close and she spies an ad on the bulletin board for an ESL teacher aboard a ship sailing from Shanghai to Galveston. After a hard sell Gillian manages to land the job aboard the all male ship. The company flies her to Shanghai where she boards the ship. The reader witnesses her feelings about being the only woman on the ship; loneliness and some sexual harassment egged on by the only other American on board. She experiences a Sapphic awakening as she realizes in her state of isolation that she doesn't have any romantic feelings for her boyfriend. She manages to break through the cultural, gender, and language barriers to form some attachments to her students and especially Mr. Ding, the cook. The book is riddled with faux pas but the funniest part, I would say, is when she saves Mr. Ding by hurling the violent Panamanian vendor into the Canal.



3. Everyone loves an adventure (or at least reading of one) and most of us will never take a boat from China to America. Envious of this one, I curled up by my fireplace and read Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet with a taste for the fascinating journey of a Caucasian woman on a boat full of Asian men. I was not disappointed.
   
   The author sets sail on an ocean of cultural difference and wins over the hearts of the crew - a rough and salty bunch who sit spellbound by her in English class.
   
   Because of the obvious vast expanse of ocean to cross, you know that the author is going to have to face a few things she has probably never had to before, and deal with them. There is, after all, no escape on a small boat in the middle of the ocean.
   
   Kendall reveals the color of the crew over the course of the journey as if she were polishing up tarnished brass. It was great fun to read about the men as they blossom at the hand of their teacher...though the revelations were not one-sided.
   
   Not surprisingly, I felt the poignancy at the sight of land, which meant having to say goodbye.
   
   Kendall writes with an unpretentious clarity, humor and heart. I definitely recommend it.



4. Ji Lians book very good. Makes me laugh. Have to laugh and wake up husband to read good part. I like this book. I like especially page where I am mention. I am Li. I am beautiful asian/american. Not Chinese. I too, don't like chicken feet.



5. In Mr Ding's Chicken Feet, the author, Gillian Kendall, comes across at first as maybe a little naive and unwary. She is a risk-taker. Her apparent lack of serious doubt about the whole enterprise, her trust in her fellow human beings not to harm her and her faith that it would all work out made me a little nervous on her behalf. But she is vindicated by the experience and it is her empathy and geniality that are the keys to her success. Observing Kendall's openness to life and her willingness to reach out across cultures became one of the pleasures of reading the book. A cynical reader such as I am found it instructive to watch her interest in humanity unfold and be repaid.
   
   Her story really takes off once the ship leaves shore. Then it leaves behind any experience I and probably most readers have had. Shipboard life with a completely male crew who mostly speak very fractured English seems so weird and challenging that you half expect the book to be a story of failure -- perhaps noble failure but depressing nonetheless. So it's very satisfying that she actually makes a difference to the sailors' English and lives. She is inventive in her methods and determined to give her employers their money's worth and thereby wins the crew's respect and affection.
   
   Kendall can write -- just see her description of the terrible storm at sea. It had me rigid with tension. Shades of Conrad in Typhoon. She has a distinctive and likable tone of voice. The book tells an optimistic story in an unpretentious way and gives you faith in the power of empathic teachers (and English!).

No comments about Sugawara no Michizane and the Early Heian Court.

5 comments about Beyond the Narrow Gate: The Journey of Four Chinese Women from the Middle Kingdom to Middle America.

1. This is not a terrible book. But it's not a good one either--especially in a field that has so many extraordinarily well-written memoirs (like "Wild Swans").
   "Beyond the Narrow Gate"'s lack of originality and style are its biggest problems. The author is telling a story that has been told many times before. Although Chang's women immigrants are better-off financially than the immigrants most memoirs are about, that fact actually makes "Narrow Gate" LESS interesting, because the women's hardships are less stark, more psychological than physical, and thus extremely difficult for Change to adequately convey.
   Chang's writing style is unexceptional. Her words do not draw the reader in, and there is a lack of complementarity between the story Chang is trying to tell and the words she uses to tell it with. Her language could be much richer, her descriptions more textured (adjectival phrases are our friends!). Worse, this story, of which the personal impact for the author is constantly reiterated, is not told in an intimate manner or with any sense of humor whatsoever. The telling is extremely straightforward, with too few embellishments and too little intimacy, which is off-putting, to say the least.
   There are also some smaller, but similarly irritating problems. First, this book touts itself as a record of four Chinese women's journey to America. In fact, that story is recounted as a background for excessive odes to Chang's mother that are not related to the story. There are frequent and redundant discussions of Chang's mother's exuberance in life, complete with unnecessary anecdotes that are neither contributory nor all that interesting.
   Also, especially in the first half of the book, Chang goes into long tangents about poets, such as the rather obscure Wallace Stevens, or earlier American authors. She tries to weave their experiences into the story of the Chinese immigrants' experiences--to what end, I have no clue. The device merely irritated me.
   Chang jumps between spaces, time, and characters in a wholly disconcerting manner. It's never made clear why certain characters, like Suzanne and Delores, feature heavily in some chapters and not others, since the book is not written in a consistent chronology. Chang also throws in a lot about herself as she was doing the research for the book--half of one chapter is devoted to a visit to an old priest in New York, who doesn't even remember Chang's mother. For a book that's supposed to be about the elder Chang's immigration experience, there is an excess of anecdotes about the author's research-related experiences.
   Last, Chang's insistence on writing out the character's exact words, no matter how broken their English, is annoying. Most children of immigrants, while acknowledging that their parents' English is nonstandard, have grown up hearing that version of English and therefore it sounds natural to them, and not broken. Therefore, Chang could still be true to her subjects by recording their speech as standard English, because that's how their children actually understand them. The broken English is very hard to read and takes away from the seriousness both of Chang's subject and often of the conversations that are being recorded.
   Overall, like I said, this isn't a TERRIBLE book. If it dealt with a topic that had fewer volumes already written on it--say, for example, the Thai or Hmong immigrant experience--I would actually give this book another star. But the Chinese immigrant experience is one that has already been recorded in some of the best tomes of this century, and so I don't think readers should waste their time with as mediocre a book as "Beyond the Narrow Gate."



2. Ever since the Joy Luck Club came out, it seems like "Asian heritage" books have been everywhere. I can't get into many of them - not entirely sure why - but this book is one of the exceptions.

   This story rings very true for me. My mother went to the Taipei high school where the four main characters meet, and this is what first drew me to the book. It was like finding out about her life though I'd never been able to ask the right questions (a process described early in the narrative, too). And I can see parts of my growing up reflected in most of the second-generation characters.

   But I like this book mainly for its wisdom, for the perspective Chang has gained through the process of writing these stories and how she shares that with the reader. It reminds me about the freedom we have here, to define our dreams however we want and do all we can to pursue them. (We're not forced to study biochemistry just because we're good students, and our culture helps give us the courage to change careers if we're not satisfied.) It's also interesting to see how the parents' experiences affect their children's lives in this area. Wei goes to New York to be a dancer, and Peter tries to pursue public policy instead of medical school. There's a line about a father who was so American that he encouraged his child "to go to Oberlin instead of Harvard" - perfectly characterized, I thought.

   I thought this book was nicely written, other than the occasional awkward foreshadowing. The stories do jump around, but this is inevitable, and they are described clearly enough that they really aren't too hard to follow.

   This is a relatively quick read, and definitely worth it - it paints an accurate picture of both generations' lives in the U.S. and throws in a nice China/Taiwan history lesson as well. It's definitely among my favorite "Chinese" books now, along with Mona in the Promised Land (Gish Jen) and Legacies (Bette Bao Lord).




3. A daughter researches the life of her mother through the eyes of her mothers friends.



4. A fascinating story of 3 generations of Chinese/Taiwanese women. Chen beautifully paints a contrast between the older generation and her young self on a personal journey to discover her roots. What makes this book so wonderful is that Chen not only tells of the difficult journey from Taiwan to America but also the battle of thoughts and emotions that take place in their hearts.



5. Unfortunately this book was written very poorly. Author swings from one end to another trying to catch a big fish. However she is a good observer and takes you into the complicated relations of four women with their families. She described well each woman during different time periods of their life in China, Taiwan, and USA. Unfortunately, this book consists of many small stories of each of them. There is no main story. However I found it helpful as well.

No comments about Yo-Yo Ma (Asian-American Biographies).

No comments about Reginald Johnston Chinese Mandarin: Chinese Mandarin (Scot¬s Lives).