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Book Review: She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
Summary:
In China in 1345, a little peasant girl barely surviving a famine hears her brother will have a great fate but she is fated to nothingness. When their father dies and her brother chooses to die with him, she lays claim to his fate, going to a monastery and pretending to be a boy for survival. When she grows up, she finds herself pursuing her brother’s great fate and clashing repeatedly with Ouyang – a man who survived an order to kill his entire male line by being forcibly turned into a eunuch. As the Mongols and the Nanren clash for dominance in China, Ouyang and the person known as Zhu Chongba find their fates clashing.
Review:
This is being marketed as the queer Mulan, and I just have to say that Mulan was already queer. Li Shang Mulan regardless of what gender she is presenting as. But there’s plenty of room for more than one queer ancient China war drama. 🙂
I loved the beginning of this book. The famine and Zhu’s entire time in the monastery just spoke to me. I was engrossed. But then when Zhu leaves the monastery the tone and setting of the book changed, and it worked less for me. To me the beginning of the book is about choosing your own destiny, and the clash of desire and faith. The end of the book is about being the best warlord with your brains instead of brawn, which just was less compelling to me personally. Actually, I think this quote from the book sums up how Zhu is at the end of the book, even though this is actually Zhu describing someone else:
[T]he ferocious, irreligious joy of a man who has willingly cast aside any chance of nirvana for the sake of his attachment to life.
(location 843)
The fantasy elements of this book include that Zhu and some others can see ghosts – hungry ghosts specifically, which is a Buddhist concept. Leaders also have a mandate from heaven, which presents itself as a visible fire they can summon into their hands. Different leaders have fire of different colors. It’s interesting to note that many sides seem to have a real mandate of heaven. Why is an interesting question that I hope the sequel will explore.
The queer elements in the book include both gender and sexuality. Zhu seems to experience some gender dysphoria – this is not presented simply as a cis woman passing as a man. It’s more complex than that. However, I do wish this was explored more deeply. For example, the omniscient narrator refers to Zhu as “she” regardless of how Zhu seems to feel about their gender at any point. Ouyang is a eunuch, and eunuchs fall under the queer umbrella. Ouyang has romantic feelings for another man. It was unclear to me if these feelings were ever consummated. Zhu falls for a woman, and they have sexual relations onscreen. For me, Ouyang’s relationship was a classic queer tragedy. Zhu’s is more complex, and I’m interested to see where it goes in the sequel.
There is a character who loses a limb in this book. The moment of the limb loss is presented as a turning point for this character. It lets them become who they need to be. I felt negatively about this. It read to me as a bit like disability inspiration p*rn. I understand that, for this character, their relationship with their body is complex. But I wish another way had been found to help the character come into their own rather than this.
Overall, I really enjoyed that this fantasy was set in a culture steeped in Buddhism as a nice change of pace for fantasy. Queer characters are central, rather than as tragic sidekicks. The qualms I had did not keep me from enjoying the book as a whole, and I am interested in its sequel. Recommended to fantasy lovers looking for a change or to those who don’t usually read fantasy but might enjoy it for the representation.
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 416 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
Buy It (Amazon or Bookshop.org)
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Book Review: The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story by Hyeonseo Lee
Summary:
An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.
As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal totalitarian regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realize that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?
Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family.
She could not return, since rumors of her escape were spreading, and she and her family could incur the punishments of the government authorities – involving imprisonment, torture, and possible public execution. Hyeonseo instead remained in China and rapidly learned Chinese in an effort to adapt and survive. Twelve years and two lifetimes later, she would return to the North Korean border in a daring mission to spirit her mother and brother to South Korea, on one of the most arduous, costly and dangerous journeys imaginable.
Review:
I’ll never forget the first time I learned about North Korea’s terrifying dictatorship. I was discussing the horror of the concentration camps with someone as a young teen, and a person nearby said, “You know those still exist. North Korea calls them gulags.” I looked it up, and one of the first things I found was a child’s drawings of life inside. I later found out that we only have stories from the least bad of the gulags. The worst tier no one has escaped from to tell us what happens inside them. It’s really horrifying. Last fall, I decided it was time I learned more about North Korea, so I went looking and this book spoke to me as a place to start. I like first-hand accounts, it’s from the perspective of an ordinary citizen, and I liked the title. I got more than I had bargained for. While this memoir would be good regardless of the writing style because Hyeonseo’s life is just that interesting, her writing is articulate and insightful.
Hyeonseo does a wonderful job writing realistically and yet with empathy about herself as a child who had been fully fooled by the North Korean government. It can sometimes be difficult to understand how people can believe x, y, z but this book makes it easy to understand how it can happen and amazing that anyone manages to start doubting such an all-encompassing worldview.
One of the more surprising parts of the book to me was that at first Hyeonseo just wanted to see China. She had no intention of leaving North Korea forever. It’s just once she got out and visiting relatives in China she dragged her feet about going back until it was too dangerous for her to go back. (She would have been captured upon return and put in a prison camp for daring to leave at all). She now was in China with a totally different life path than she’d initially imagined. What was originally a vacation was now most likely a lifetime of being a fugitive. I think this part of the book is where Hyeonseo’s practicality and iron will first shine through:
Now that I was to stay indefinitely in China, I had to learn Mandarin. And I had the best teacher – necessity. You can study a language for years at school, but nothing helps you succeed like need, and mine was clear, and urgent. (location 1781)
I learned so much in this book beyond the horrors of what happens in North Korea. Like that China has an extradition agreement with North Korea which means that if any refugees are caught in China they are brought back to North Korea to face certain imprisonment and possibly death. I can’t imagine what it would be like to escape a dictatorship into the neighboring country and know at any moment you could be seized and sent back.
I also learned that South Korea has declared any North Koreans who make it to their land to be South Koreans and actually provide a lot of repatriation assistance but that the divide is growing between North and South Korean cultures the longer the divide is up, and some are concerned about how the two can ever be reunified once the North Koreans are freed from the dictatorship.
Hyeonseo provides a lot of insightful commentary about living under a dictatorship, human nature, brainwashing, and more. My favorite though was this:
There is no dividing line between cruel leaders and oppressed citizens. The Kims rule by making everyone complicit in a brutal system, implicating all, from the highest to the lowest, blurring morals so that no one is blameless. (location 2368)
The only other thing I wish to say is that everyone should read this book.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 304 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
Book Review: A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts by Ying Chang Compestine (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
According to Chinese tradition, those who die hungry or wrongfully come back to haunt the living. Compestine presents here eight different ghost stories, each correlated along with a course in a banquet and richly steeped in Chinese culture and history.
Review:
I picked this up because I had previously read Compestine’s book Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party
The eight short stories are organized into appetizers, main courses, and desserts. The titles are for the food being served that course, such as “Tea Eggs” or “Long-life Noodles.” The food mentioned in the title also appears somewhere in the story as a key part of the plot. It’s a gorgeous way to organize the short stories and makes them also feel like diverse parts of a whole.
The short stories are mostly set in 20th century China, but a couple feature 20th century characters investigating something from the more distant past or being haunted by more ancient ghosts. One story is set in New York City and features a Chinese-American family.
The stories, universally, quickly establish the setting and characters. They all subtly teach some aspect of Chinese culture or history. For instance, one story looks at medicine under Communism in China, while another features preying mantis fights. At the end of each story, a brief blurb gives further details about two to three aspects of Chinese culture or history featured in the story. Most surprising, and incredibly welcome, at the end of each short story, Compestine gives a recipe for the featured food! It reminded me of how cozy mysteries often feature patterns or recipes at the end of the book, only this time the recipes are found in a shorty story horror collection. Brilliant!
What about the horror aspect of the short stories? I found them simultaneously plausible and sufficiently scary. I was a bit on the edge of my seat without being scared out of my wits, which is exactly what I was looking for.
Overall, I immensely enjoyed each of these short stories, from the touch of horror to the settings to the amount I learned about Chinese culture and history to the wonderful recipes. Highly recommended to anyone with even a moderate interest in China, Chinese culture, or Chinese food. Even if horror isn’t usually your genre, give these ghosts a chance. You’ll be glad you did.
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5 out of 5 stars
Length: 192 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Better World Books
Counts For:
Book Review: Nexus by Ramez Naam (Series, #1)
Summary:
Science is moving forward to and through transhumanism to posthumanism, and no society seems to quite know how to handle it. China is using the tech in their armies, Thailand is interested in its use to enhance meditation and zen, and the US government banned many of the different treatments and drugs after they were used by cults to make cloned children into killing machines. Kaden Lane knows about the potential dangers, but he and his lab partners are still invested in making their brain nanotechnology drug, Nexus, work. It makes minds meld together, able to feel others’ suffering, and they think it will lead to world peace. Samantha Cataranes was a victim of a transhumanist mind control cult as a child, now she fights on the side of the FBI putting a stop to any science deemed too dangerous. When Samantha and Kaden meet, their worlds and worldviews start colliding.
Review:
I had honestly kind of forgotten what this book was about, beyond it being scifi, by the time I picked it up to read it. I thus was able to experience most of it as a surprise. It’s a book that’s a modern twist on cyberpunk with plenty of action to boot.
Jumping far enough ahead that some transhumanist elements already exist is a smart move. It lets the book think forward further than the initial transhumanist elements that it’s generally easy to see the advantages of, like fully functional robotic hands, into the grayer areas with things like cloning and mind control and making soldiers who are super-soldiers. This is a more interesting ethical dilemma, and the book doesn’t take very long to set up the world and get into it.
Nexus itself is a fascinating drug that combines nanotech and drugs. It’s easy to see that the author knows his science and has extrapolated into a possible future with a lot of logic based on current science. That’s part of what makes reading the book so fascinating and slightly frightening. It feels like an actual possibility.
The world building is done smoothly, incorporating both in-plot mentions and newspaper clippings and internal briefings to establish what is going on in the greater world around Kaden and Samantha.
The characterizations are fairly strong. Even if some of the secondary characters can seem two-dimensional, the primary characters definitely are not. Seeing a woman as the world-wise, transhuman strong fighter, and the man as the physically weaker brains was a nice change of pace. Additionally, the book embraces the existence of gray areas. “Bad guy” characters aren’t necessarily bad, and “good guys” aren’t necessarily good. This characterization helps tell the nuanced gray area story of the overarching plot.
The beginning of the book was weaker than the middle and the end. The first chapter that has a character testing out Nexus by using it to land sex with a hot woman almost made me stop reading the book entirely. It felt like some pick-up artist douchebro was imagining a future where tech would make him irresistible to women. Frankly, that whole first chapter still feels extremely out of place to me now. It doesn’t fit into the rest of the presentation of the character throughout the book. It feels like an entirely separate story altogether. I would encourage potential readers to skim it, since it barely belongs, then get to the rest of the book.
After the first chapter, the next few chapters feel a bit overly rose-colored lenses at first. Almost as if the author sees no gray areas and only the potential good in humans. Thankfully, this is mostly the rose-colored lenses of a main character that quickly fall away for the more nuanced storytelling of the rest of the book. But it did induce a few eye-rolls before I got further along.
The middle and end of the book look at human potential for both good and evil within the context of both science and Buddhism. It’s fascinating stuff, and makes a lot of sense since quite a bit of modern psychiatry is working hand-in-hand with ideas from Buddhism, particularly about meditation. This is where the more interesting insights occurred, and also where I felt I could embrace the book a bit more.
Each of us must walk our own ethical path. And together, men and women of ethics can curb the damage of those without. But for you…if you keep vital knowledge from others, then you are robbing them of their freedom, of their potential. If you keep knowledge to yourself, then the fault is not theirs, but yours. (loc 5597)
Overall, this cyberpunk scifi that mixes transhumanism and posthumanism with nanotechnology, fighting big governments, and Buddhism tells a fascinating tale full of gray areas that will appeal to scifi fans. Some may be turned off by the first few chapters that lack the nuance and likeable and strong characterization of the rest of the book, but it’s worth it to skim through the first few chapters to get to the juicier middle and end.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 460 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Netgalley
Book Review: Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China by Paul French
Summary:
In 1937 the entire world is on the brink of war. In Peking, China, the Japanese invaders are encroaching. In the midst of this chaos the adopted daughter of British consulman is brutally murdered, her body found in the shadow of the Fox Tower, universally viewed with suspicion by the Pekingers as haunted by spirits. Due to the special circumstances, the murder investigation requires the presence of both a Chinese and a British investigator. They must race to find Pamela’s murderer before the Japanese engulf the city.
Review:
This true crime novel takes a bit to get things set up, but once they are, oh my how it sucks you in.
My fellow librarians will appreciate the backstory of how this true tale was discovered by French. In the Afterword he states that he was digging around in some archives and stumbled upon a box of evidence that Pamela’s father sent off to the government, which was never really looked at and just put away in storage and then into archives. It was through libraries that he even discovered this fascinating, intersectional true crime. I think that’s encouraging to any librarian who has ever spent hours making a finding aid for archives.
So just what makes this true crime more fascinating than others? Pamela was the adopted daughter of Werner, and her adoptive mother died at a young age. She had been away at boarding school in Tientsin and was home for the holidays. Because she was born in China but was also adopted by British consulman, there is an interesting assimilation into Chinese culture going on in her life that we don’t often see in Western novels. Peking itself featured the legations and white districts for multiple different white Western countries. This means that because Pamela was technically a British citizen murdered on Chinese ground both the Chinese and the British police force had to be involved and work together in the investigation. Officer Han and DCI Dennis certainly make for a unique investigation team. In addition, Pamela’s body was discovered in the shadow of the Fox Tower, and this led to speculation about fox spirits, which in Chinese tradition show up as wily women. Of course quickly the seedy underbelly of Peking is implicated, featuring a multicultural bunch of addicts, dope dealers, brothels, and more, and naturally some of the classy elite start to be implicated into that underworld as well. Add in the fact that the Japanese invasion was encroaching and toss in the first rumblings of Communism, and it makes for a story that is impossible to not find fascinating.
French unfurls the story well. He quotes only when it is fairly certain what was said, but summarizes scenes well. A clear picture of both Pamela and Peking are rendered fairly early in the novel. I also appreciate that he spent time at the end talking about what happened to all of the key players and discussing how all-encompassing the Japanese invasion were. I think what he handled best though was presenting people as individuals and not representative of their race or nation or even class. In a true crime as multicultural as this one, that is important. It’s also nice that in a story that could have easily turned into victim blaming, which happens so often when the victim is a young woman, he eloquently avoids any hint of that:
Pamela wasn’t perfect; she was making the same mistakes many girls do when experimenting with their independence, their newfound power on men. Her tragedy was to encounter the wrong men, at just the wrong moment. (location 2834)
I did, however, feel that the beginning was a bit lacking. It took a bit to truly get into the story. A faster pace or a more clear this is where we are going set-up would have been nice. At first it felt like the rather dull story of some poor little imperialist rich girl. But that’s not the story at all. The story is that of an adopted girl in a country where she just so happens to be the color of worldwide colonizers, but it is instead the story of a diverse group of people horrified by the brutal murder of a young woman by a diverse group of sick, twisted people. It would be nice if that was more clear from the beginning.
Overall, this is a well-told, historic true crime novel that manages to avoid victim blaming and also embrace multiculturalism. It will be of particular interest to anyone with a fascination for Chinese or WWII history.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netgalley
Book Review: The Far Side of the Sky by Daniel Kalla
Summary:
After Kristallnacht, Franz Adler, a secular Austrian Jew, is desperate to save the remaining members of his family–his daughter Hannah and sister-in-law Esther. The only place they’re able to find letting in refugees is the relatively border-lax Shanghai.
Meanwhile, Mah Soon Yi, aka Sunny, the daughter of a Chinese doctor and American missionary, is trying to deal with the partial Japanese occupation of her home city of Shanghai while working as a nurse in one of the large hospitals and volunteering in the Jewish Refugee Hospital.
Review:
It’s difficult to review a book that the author obviously put a lot of research effort into, as well as passion for social justice, but that I just personally didn’t end up liking. The story itself isn’t bad, if a bit far-fetched. Clearly based in fact and solid research. I believe the problem lies a bit in the writing.
When I read historic fiction, I like seeing history through the eyes of one person (possibly two). It brings the huge picture you get otherwise down to a personable level. The problem with this book is that it kind of fails to keep things at that personal level. There’s far too much contact with actual big movers and shakers from the historic events. How the heck is this Dr. Adler in so much contact with the Japanese and Nazi elite? One scene like that can be quite powerful in a book, but not multiple ones. It takes it from the realm of historic fiction to that of fantasy.
Additionally, I feel that a bit too often Kalla tells instead of shows. Two characters will be talking about something the reader doesn’t yet know about, such as how the city of Shanghai is set up politically, and instead of putting it into the dialogue, the book just says “And then he told him about thus and such.” That makes for dull reading.
So, really, to me, the plot itself is unique in choosing a population and area of WWII that is not written about that much. The author clearly did his research and has a passion for the time period and issues faced by the people, but the story would be better served if it was made more about the everyman and dialogue and action were used more effectively.
Overall, this is a unique piece of historic fiction that will mainly appeal to fans of the genre looking for a new area of WWII to read about.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Netgalley
Book Review: The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted And the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, And Long-term Health by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II
Summary:
Dr. Campbell spent the early part of his scientific career researching diseases of affluence such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. When a study in rat livers demonstrated that a greater percentage of protein in the diet led to greater disease, Campbell became intrigued. He designed the China Study to compare Chinese citizens with American citizens, since the Chinese have low rates of these diseases until they immigrate to the United States. Through this and other studies, he believes he has the proof that most diseases of affluence are caused by the Standard American Diet. In his book he presents these findings, as well as an insider’s look at the scientific, health, and government trifecta that vastly affects what Americans learn about health.
Review:
Clearly the most valuable part of this book is the chapter that explains Campbell’s China Study. Since it’s generally not considered ethical to study humans and disease by injecting them with various substances, one of the better methods available is population studies. You compare and contrast over a long period of time the differences between different populations and attempt to determine what aspects may cause bad health. It is undeniable that the traditional Chinese rural population compared to Americans eat less animal products and move more. Additionally they have less disease, particularly cancers, heart disease, and diabetes. Campbell’s study establishes this easily observed fact into something that has been scientifically proven. It is also interesting to note that those who emigrate to the US and adopt the Standard American Diet (SAD) change to the American rate of these diseases. This is ground-breaking information, of course, but it is easy to gather this all from one chapter. Campbell finds it necessary, for some reason, to devote a chapter to each illness, which frankly gets repetitive and tedious to read.
Beyond the study itself, which is interesting and good for people who aren’t already convinced of the health problems caused by animal products, I felt the rest of the presentation of these facts to be dull in comparison to Diet for a New America
He also eloquently shows why we have constantly conflicting news stories on health. Everyone knows the joke about how eggs were bad for you then good for you then bad for you (but only the yolks) all over again. Campbell shows how this is the direct result of the conflict within the science and health industry.
I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to health, government is not for the people; it is for the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of the people. It is a systemic problem where industry, academia and government combine to determine the health of this country. (page 318)
I have worked in the health field myself for years now, and I can tell you, the vast majority of the people who do genuinely care about you and your health. But traditions are hard to break and even those within the system don’t know everything that goes on among the lobbyists and the top echelons. I mean, they are still teaching medical students to utilize BMI to determine health in their patients, when multiple studies have shown it is not a reliable tool. Why is this? People want to believe what they’ve first learned, and especially in medicine, if a new idea comes along many many many studies must be done and obstinate people push for it before the method utilized will be changed. This is meant to protect you from quacks, but unfortunately it can lead to the burying of ground-breaking information.
Plus, how would Americans react if tomorrow Mrs. Obama and her obesity prevention program came out and said everyone needs to go vegetarian or vegan? Hell, the woman is taking flak for daring to suggest children play outside. I think you can see my point.
Overall, this book definitely could have been shorter. I believe it would have worked better if Campbell had presented his study and his insider’s knowledge as to why the health care and science industries seem so confused and conflicting half the time. I hope this knowledge will convince more Americans to take direct control of their own health and conduct their own research to come to their own conclusions. It’s worth a read for this knowledge, but if you are not interested in the politics of science and health and simply want the information, then I suggest you go with the more reader-friendly Diet for a New America
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Public Library
Friday Fun! (Wild Swans at the ART)
Hello my lovely readers!
So, you may recall that one of my 5 star reads of 2011 was Wild Swans
The show was last night, and I was skeptical. How could a 90 minute play possibly encompass such a large book? We’re talking the lives of three women and covering decades of China’s history! But I was encouraged by the involvement of Jung Chang herself so went in with positive thoughts.
You guys. I was blown away.
We entered the theater to see a Chinese market scene, complete with the actors talking in Mandarin (I think) while we were finding our places and waiting for the show to actually start.
Shortly the show started with De-hong (Chang’s mother) talking with her mother about her engagement to a Nationalist. I was surprised that they were starting with De-hong. What about grandma? Clearly, I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to play adaptations, because how they told grandma’s story wound up being my favorite scene in the play. De-hong’s refusal to marry the Nationalist quickly won the audience over, most of whom had not read the book. It quickly established De-hong’s strong personality.
The next scene featured De-hong in full communist party uniform coming to a field of workers to explain communism. In order to win the workers over to the cause, they explained their own family history of suffering at the hands of the elite. It is here we got grandma’s story. One of the comrades pulled out a traditional Chinese stringed instrument and a gong. The others pulled out these GORGEOUS puppets! I mean their faces were beautifully painted and so expressive. The evil elites’ faces were grotesquely disproportionate and painted, whereas De-hong’s mother was simple and beautiful. In a few short minutes, using the puppets to demonstrate, De-hong told the workers the story of her mother’s life suffering as a concubine and how she stole her away from the house. I was shocked at how perfectly it worked and completely loved how smoothly it fit into the play.
The show then progressed to De-hong and Shou-yu’s courtship while working as comrades in the fields. So far everything had pretty much taken place against the same scenery. I was wondering how they were going to transition what I knew was coming–hospitals, apartments, schools, etc… I was impressed when they rolled back the matting on the back wall while the action was happening. Gradually transitioning from field to hospital. This background scenery of people was used for most of the rest of the play with set pieces being moved around in front of it to depict the main settings of apartments, classrooms, hospitals, and meeting rooms.
The other thing that really impressed me in the play was how they managed to show the problems Comrade Ting caused without totally demonizing her. They made it clear that Comrade Ting used to be with Shou-yu, and Shou-yu kind of rubbed his courtship of De-hong in her face. Not that this excused Comrade Ting for going after De-hong, but it prevented her character from being too easily demonized by the audience.
I was also impressed with how, although the play makes it clear that Shou-yu’s commitment to Communism above all else hurt his family badly, it is also evident that his family still loved him and he them. Another powerful scene depicts the young reds coming after Shou-yu and forcing Er-hong (Jung Chang) to choose whether to “draw a line” between herself and him or not. Drawing a line is essentially disowning a family member. Er-hong tearfully refuses and chooses to stand beside her father. It was a great scene that eloquently depicted so much of the feeling of the book.
The play then subtly shows the passage of time to more modern ones by using a video of people working in a rice field as the backdrop for a scene where Shou-yu is working in a prison camp and Er-hong visits him. This is when we start truly seeing Er-hong’s story.
The final couple of scenes were set against a background of cubes with more video on them. This showed both the crowded hustle and bustle of the city and also the relative modernity of Er-hong’s young adulthood. In just a few short scenes, the play managed to demonstrate the family being reunited, as well as Shou-yu’s persistent refusal, in spite of everything, to help his daughter by pulling strings. He to the very end was committed to pure equality, even though Er-hong points out to him that nothing they do will change the system. The father and daughter’s very different opinions are eloquently presented in a few short lines. Er-hong then leaves her father and steps to the very front of the stage on a mat to demonstrate her eventual emigration from China.
Overall, the play ultimately focuses in on De-hong’s life, but it works. We see how her viewpoint of her mother’s life influenced her choice to back up Communism. We then also see how De-hong’s choices influenced Er-hong to ultimately leave China. It’s an eloquent play that really does the book justice. I encourage any of my local readers to go see it, as it is still playing.
Happy weekends!
PS I had pictures, but the production scolded me so I had to take them down. Alas!
Book Review: The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China by Henry Pu Yi, translated by Paul Kramer
Summary:
Henry Pu Yi became the last emperor of China when he was almost three years old. During the chaos of a post-WWI China fighting between republics and war lords, he would periodically rule, be a figurehead, or be in hiding on foreign-held embassy land. Working with the Japanese in WWII he sought to refind his throne by ruling as the figure-head of the Japanese-held Manchuria region. He then was held prisoner by the Soviets for five years before being turned over to the communist Chinese for thought reform.
Review:
Although the translator states that Henry Pu Yi’s life is an excellent way to examine how China survived so many upheavals in the early 20th century, after reading the autobiography I simply cannot agree. Henry Pu Yi’s life was incredibly unique and absolutely not a reflection of what was really going on in China at the time. If anything, he seemed to operate from an oblivious perspective up until the communists kind of smacked him in the face with reality. For instance, during the time of chaos, civil wars, and famine in China prior to WWII, he states:
Just as food was cooked in huge quantities and not eaten, so was a vast amount of clothing made which was never worn. (location 544)
When reflecting on his past perspectives, it is evident that his past self did not understand why such wastefulness would infuriate China’s poor or make them push for a republic via Chiang Kai-shek. Of course, one cannot entirely blame Henry Pu Yi for this short-sightedness. He was raised from a young age being treated as a god by all those around him, being told it was his destiny to be the holy emperor. That would mess with anyone’s mind. However, as he became older he did have teachers and advisors who tried to enlighten him, he just refused to listen.
Eventually, Henry Pu Yi reached this odd mental compromise where he believed everything Western was good, except for their ruling system.
I also became far more convinced than I had ever been in the days when Johnston was with me that everything foreign was good and everything Chinese, except the Imperial System, was bad. (location 2184)
His selfish mindset saw everything good he himself could garner from the west, but didn’t seek out anything positive to change or do for his people. This self-centeredness in a ruler is disturbing at best.
This is even more evident during the time of his life when Pu Yi was puppet ruling for Japan in Manchukuo (Manchuria). Pu Yi increasingly came to fear more and more for his life as it became more evident that Japan would lose the war. The more afraid he was, the more he beat members of his household and staff. Yet he simultaneously claimed to be a good Buddhist who would not even harm a fly. It seems the only thing Pu Yi excelled at was compartmentalizing his actions. A former servant of Pu Yi summed up his personality quite eloquently during one of the criticism sessions of the communist thought reform:
Pu Yi is both cruel and afraid of death. He is suspicious, tricky and a hypocrite. When he beat or scolded his servants, it was not for mistakes they committed, but due to his own mood at the time. (location 4020)
Pu Yi, for most of his life, was incredibly selfish. He was obsessed with his own death and life and with maintaining his emperor status. He cared little to nothing for those around him or for the people of China. One must wonder how things may have been different if a strong, selfless man had been made emperor during the same time period.
Thus for most of the autobiography, we’re reading about a most unsympathetic man from his own perspective. That can become a bit tough to endure. The light of the autobiography comes in the last quarter of the book, though, when he recounts his time in thought reform.
The translator refers to this time period as Pu Yi being brainwashed. I can’t say that it appeared that way to me at all. Pu Yi was not tortured, made to starve, or beaten. He was simply placed in prison and reformed. Frankly, I think his time in communist prison did him a world of good. Suddenly he was having to fend for himself. Where before he never even had to open a door or mend a button, suddenly he did. Slowly the communists gave him more and more responsibilities so that eventually he was on the same cleaning and work rotation as the other men in the prison. Pu Yi says himself that he came to realize how truly useless he was at doing anything worthwhile. Although at first he blames those who raised him, he comes to acknowledge his own bad character eventually, being ashamed for how he behaved. When he is eventually deemed reformed by the communists, he enters society as an equal and works hard to do his fair part. Personally I think if American prison systems could have this kind of excellent 180 result, we would soon see a much smaller inmate population. For isn’t the purpose of prison supposed to be reform? And one cannot deny that Pu Yi came out a better man than he went in, even if communist China has made many other mistakes, it is evident with Pu Yi things were handled quite well. A man was reformed and made useful in society instead of senselessly killed off.
It is a bit of a wait to get to the interesting thought reform portion of the book, however. Pretty much everything before that makes you want to attack Pu Yi through the pages. His style is a bit rambling, although the translator claims that’s partly just Chinese culture versus Western culture. It is an interesting read, but I do think it will only really hold the attention of those with a strong interest in China.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
Book Review: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
Summary:
In this memoir, Jung Chang recounts the lives of herself, her mother, and her grandmother growing up in pre-communist, revolutionary, and communist China. Mixing extensive historical facts with intensely personal remembrances, Jung Chang presents a vivid portrait of real life in China.
Review:
As an American, I was raised being told communism is bad, but not particularly taught much about it. So when Meghan blogged about this memoir, I was immediately intrigued. My history BA taught me to favor first-person accounts over academic ramblings, so a memoir of communist China from a woman’s perspective was frankly ideal.
It has been a very long time since I’ve learned so much from a memoir. Chang was extremely careful to verify the facts of the historical events surrounding her family’s various issues. Starting with her grandmother who had bound feet and was essentially sold by her family as a concubine, Change moves up through the drastic changes in China. From her mother who was part of the communist revolution to herself who ended up an ex-patriot in Britain.
My preconceived notions of communism were frankly tromped upon by this memoir. As a liberal person, I never quite understood what was so bad about communist China. Chang makes it clear throughout the book that the governing body of China never actually lived up to the communist ideals of her revolutionary parents. The passage where Chang best explains the warped version of communism enacted by Mao states:
The Cultural Revolution not only did nothing to modernize the medieval elements in China’s culture, it actually gave them political respectability. ‘Modern’ dictatorship and ancient intolerance fed on each other. Anyone who fell foul of the age-old conservative attitudes could now become a political victim. (page 413)
Thus, communism in China was and is not at all what many hippie Westerners believe and/or believed it to be.
Beyond opening up understanding of communist China, this memoir also distinctly demonstrates the human spirit under pressure. From Chang’s father who stood by his ideals at all costs to her grandmother who simply wanted everyone in her family to be comfortable and happy to neighbors with their own agendas, Chang demonstrates how an oppressive regime s bring out both the best and the worst in human nature.
This is a fascinating book both for its insider’s view of communist China as well as its female perspective on said regime. Similarly, it offers an intriguing commentary on human nature. I recommend it to anyone interested in the history of China as well as those with an interest in women’s studies or political science history.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: SwapTree (now defunct)
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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