Book Description

Bruce Edward Hall may have an English name and a Connecticut upbringing, but for him a trip to Chinatown, New York, is a visit to the ghosts of his Chinese Ancestors -- Ancestors who helped create the neighborhood that is really as much a transplanted Cantonese village as it is a part of a great American city. Among these Ancestors are missionaries and reprobates, businessmen and scholars. There is the patriarch with three wives (two in China, one in New York), who arrived in Chinatown just as it was beginning to take shape, and who eventually became a key player in the infamous Tong Wars that ravaged the neighborhood at the turn of the century. There is the grandfather, whose nickname, Hock Shop, bespoke his reputation as Chinatown's favorite bookie. There is the dashing aviator whose dogfight in the skies over Brooklyn made him Chinatown's first hero in the way against Japan, and the matriarch who was purchased as a bride for $1,200 when the ratio of Chinese men to women was two hundred to one. And all of them shared the experience of the great-aunt who emigrated to New York at the age of eight months, but lived in fear of deportation for the next fifty years because this country refused to allow Chinese to become American citizens.

In Tea That Burns, Bruce Edward Hall uses the stories of these and others to tell the history of Chinatown, starting with the tumultuous journey from an ancient empire ruled by the nine dragons of the universe to a bewildering land of elevated trains, solitary labor, and violent discrimination. The world they constructed was built of backbreaking labor and poetry contests; gambling dens and Cantonese opera; Tong Wars, festivals, firecrackers, incense, and food -- always food, to celebrate every conceivable occasion and to confound the ever-meddlesome "White Devils" as they attempt to master the mysteries of chop sticks and stir-fry. A vivid and tactile story, rich with the sights, sounds, and sensations of Chinatown then and now, Tea That Burns reads like a novel, but is history at its best. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

a wonderful and personal tour of chinese history
THis is a remarkable inquiry into the history of one family, from the rise of one member 900 years ago - a confucian scholar noticed his fine caligraphy in an exhibition and took him on - to martyrdom in Mao's CHina and the career of the writer as a journalist.

It takes this kind of story sometimes to bring the lessons of history out, in particular the impact of the confucian tradition on a civilisation.The book is peopled with exremely vivid characters, almost all striving to honor their family in the records that survive.To Westerners, the view into an alien and vanished worled is as fascinating as it is surprising.THere are sons who were honored as having true "filial piety" because every day for years they licked the pus out of their mother's wounded knee; the difficult father who ruined the family with gambling and sloth - a typical selfish "Asian man" - only to spur his son to greater effort; the local official who spent a huge part of the family fortune to build a splendid garden for the emperor to see as he passed their home once.

Nonetheless, this history gets a bit lugubrious with detail, particularly personal.SOme of it could only be of interest to members of the immediate family, in my view.

REcommended for those who want a quirky perspective on Chinese history.

Chinese history as experienced by individuals
Frank Ching has done a remarkable job of tracing his family tree back over 900 years of Chinese history and uncovering the stories of the many notable figures that he found there.I was struck by the continuity of Chinese life over the years and the value placed on remembering and honoring those who have gone before.The individual biographies and the overall picture of Chinese history that emerges are very interesting.

Personal look at Chinese history.
Even though this book claims to be a history of one Chinese family, it is actually a thoughly engrossing history of the China from the viewpoint of the members of one Chinese family -- one that had many famous people thoughout the years.I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand China or Chinese people better. ... Read more

Book Description

Distinguished journalist John Sack spent twelve years fearlessly shadowing and befriending the most powerful crime lord in the Chinese Mafia. Now he tells the true, unfictionalized story of mob legend Johnny Kon–“the Dragonhead.”

The Chinese Mafia has always been a mystery to both law enforcement and the media–part of an unapproachable and unfathomable conglomeration of secret societies operating worldwide. To this day, though, police and prosecutors insist that Johnny Kon’s own secret organization–the Big Circle–is public enemy number one. Now, in a triumph of literary journalism, John Sack introduces us to this secret world and its top criminal mastermind, reporting from the homes, hotel rooms, crime scenes, and jail cells of Johnny and his gang, all reported with their full cooperation. It is a journalistic coup.

From Kon’s escape from poverty in China and his golden years as a smuggler during the Vietnam War, The Dragonhead traces Johnny’s rapid rise to power and chronicles the growth of his heroin cartel, as it smuggles a billion dollars worth of drugs into the United States. With astonishing savvy, Sack reveals the humanity behind the previously impenetrable wall of the Chinese and American underworlds, rife with shocking crimes, bound by unforgiving codes of honor. At once a loyal husband and father and a ruthless crime boss, Johnny Kon is by turns fascinating and repellent, but ultimately unforgettable. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Flawed¿But Not Fataly
First of all, I strongly encourage anyone to read an excerpt of this book before purchasing it. Sack (for better or worse) is one of the pioneers of "literary journalism", which means his writing style is more akin to storytelling, with recreated conversations and whatnot, than many people will be used to. This is especially disconcerting because he explains his methodology in assembling this biography of Chinese gang lord Johnny Kon at the end of the book, instead of the beginning. If this doesn't put you off, it's still hard to ignore some of his other stylistic flaws. Foremost of these is an excess of detail-throughout the book the reader is kept up to date on every dish consumed during gang meetings, the cost, style, and provenance of every item of footwear Johnny Kon is wearing, and the precise decor of every hotel lobby and room he passes through. These details, marginally interesting the first or second appearance, rapidly grow annoying and intrusive, ballooning what might have been a 250 page book to it's final 400 pages. Another stylistic flaw is the lack of dates throughout. Once the early part of Johnny's life is past, and the Vietnam War is over, it's very hard to get a sense of what time frame is under discussion.

The life and times of Johnny Kon is certainly an interesting tale, and not one many people could have even attempted, much less completed. From a life of poverty in Maoist China, Kon escaped to Shanghai and then Hong Kong, building a semi-legitimate fur empire. Much of his fur fortune was linked to the huge US Army presence in Southeast Asia during the 1960s, and the sections which detail his interactions with the US Army are very compelling. However, in this period also lies Kon's alleged motive for becoming the leading importer of heroin to the US. I say alleged because the basis for the book is Sack's relationship with Kon and interviews with him conducted in jail, and so it's hard not to view Kon's "motive" as an after-the-fact self-justification. In any event, whether one believes it or not, the event that pushed Kon into drug dealing was the death of two of his children in the chaos of the Khmer Rouge coup in Cambodia. He lays the ultimate blame for this at the feet of the US and its meddling in other countries and spread of indiscriminate death and destruction. The book posits the dubious notion that heroin was "popularized" by all the US soldiers who became addicted during their tour of duty, and thus created the demand for Kon's operations ten years later.

So, Kon builds himself a gang comprised of a tough circle of ex-Red Guard soldiers and embarks on an effective smuggling operation that massive quantities of heroin into the US in the '80s. While the logistics of his operation make for interesting reader, the dynamics of the gang do not. There are so many members of his gang, it gets hard to keep them, their nicknames, and their allegiances straight (here, a diagram or simple list at the beginning of the book would have been a useful editorial addiction). Similarly, the Byzantine feuds of the various gangs and how they all relate to each other gets a bit tedious and hard to follow. Ultimately, Kon's downfall was predictably the result of some rather amazing bungling, silly escalations of petty rivalries over "respect" between gang members, and that ultimate foe of the gangster-betrayal.

One of the more disturbing aspects of the book are the descriptions of how the US government strong-armed a number of countries into extraditing members of Kon's family who had nothing to do with his heroin operations. They were used as leverage against Kon, forcing him to plead guilty-and while there's no denying he was a very bad drug lord, those kinds of tactics are bad precedent setters. Ultimately, the book is moderately interesting, but far too long. It suffers greatly from its more or less detached recounting of Kon's life story-especially odious are Kon's attempts to be a good Bhuddist amidst it all. The same kind of hypocrisy that infested the Irish-Catholic gangs and Italian mafia. Ultimately, unless one is really really interested in the heroin trade, or in Chinese gangs, I'd probably advise skipping this overladen book.

Not as in-depth as I would've liked.
June 10, 2002

For good or ill, the author of 'The Dragonhead', John
Sack, is the book's real 'star'. He spends an inordinate
number of words wowing or attempting to wow his readers.
His style is a marriage of Tom Wolfe's observational
acuity and novelist James Ellroy's cynical descriptive
overkill.

As may be expected, Sack's writing occasionally gets
away from him, particularly during his frequent head-
hopping. Once inside the brains of a subject, Sack
doesn't illustrate so much as wallow. I'd guess he's
fairly on the money, but this impression may stem from
the fact that the book's main character, Johnny Kon,
has a noggin that's been turned around more times than
the wind-up propeller on a child's toy airplane ("Crank
'em up and watch 'em go!").

I'm not a hundred percent on the reportage here, but
I'm more than impressed enough to believe that if not
everything in "The Dragonhead' is true, it could easily
well be. Still, it's an imperfect and not particularly
well-detailed book, and Sack and occasionally tiring
writer.

A bad guy's story
This book is about the life of a Chinese gangster leader Johnny Kon and his associates. John Jack spent 12 years talking with Kon and his criminals before he wrote this book. The operation of Johnny Kon's drug business is located in Hong Kong, my hometown. I like this book because it depicts the real life of a gangster leader and shows how he gets away from the authorities and how he runs his "business." The book unfolds like an action movie. For instance, in one scene Kon is attempting to smuggle a large amount of heroin around his waist at the airport. When he is about to be body-searched, he drops his expensive Minolta. The camera smashes on the ground, distracting all the security guards. They apologized as Kon walks away with the drugs. It is pure drama. I enjoy this book, however, I hope that readers who read this book do not have an impression that Hong Kong is highest crime cities in the world.

What a disappointment!
Before buying this book, read the first few pages. If you like the style, then you'll like the book. If not, you'll find that this is a great story that was ruined by an annoying style.

A MUST READ MASTER PIECE
In this fast pacing, action packed book, Mr.Sack by no means to
justify or glorify the notorious crimes by those vicious, ruthless gansters, but rather, in every vivid, explicit detsils accounts their criminal actitities. The auther's masterful crafting of language artfully turns words into colorful, 3 dimensional pictures, take you on a thrilling global tour, and
yet, non-fictitious. Mr.Sack not only speaks the language of a different culture but also HAS INDISCRIMINATING CONSCIENCE.Do not

miss it. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

An interesting take on racism in America
I was impressed to find this book at my public library. It is an important remembrance of some of the movements that were occurring during the 1940's through the 1990's. Lots of acronyms! Some of the history of the splits in the Party got tedious.

It was interesting to read about some of the options people had besides the Panthers, to hear the view of taking responsibilty, not only blaming the man for the situation. And to reaffirm the idea that a great shift in society needs to occur before we can have true equality.

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!

Amazing Grace

For anyone who has ever wanted to work for social change, this life story by a wise and vital woman is a guidebook. As the book's cover tells us, "Grace Lee Boggs is a first-generation Chinese American who has been a speaker, writer, and movement activist in the African- American community for fifty-five years." After earning her Ph.D. in philosophy at Bryn Mawr in June of 1940, Grace wanted to become an activist. She moved to Chicago in the fall of 1940 and began working with the South Side Tenants Organization--a group that had been set up by the Workers Party.

When distinguished "labor leader A. Phillip Randolph issued a call for blacks all over the country to march on Washington to demand jobs in the defense plants," more and more people began attending the Workers Party discussions in Chicago's Washington Park. Grace had been invited to participate in those discussions. She said, "The more I went out in the community and met people, the more inadequate I was beginning to feel." When Randolph's leadership of the March on Washington movement was successful and President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, Grace realized "the power that the black community has within itself to change this country when it begins to move. As a result, I decided that what I wanted to do with the rest of my life was to become a movement activist in the black community." To Grace, "Joining the Workers Party seemed a good way to start," and that's what she did, in order to get the political education she felt she needed.

In the 1950s, Grace moved to Detroit where she worked on the Socialist Workers Party newsletter and met Jimmy Boggs, "A rank-and-file black Chrysler-Jefferson worker and community activist." Grace liked living in Detroit because it "felt like a 'Movement' city where radical history had been made and could be made again." She also liked working with Jimmy. Having worked closely with C. L. R. James, the intellectually powerful Socialist philosopher, Grace felt that her life had been "exciting but also extremely intellectual." She reasoned that she "needed to return to the concrete." Grace and Jimmy married in 1953 and began a life together that was rooted in the concrete reality of a major 20th-century industrialized city that had been abandoned by the large corporations that built it and by much of its white population.

As Ossie Davis says in his foreword to Grace's book, "Through these pages walk causes, gatherings, confrontations, movements, and the men and women who made them: workers and students and committees of the People...." Studs Terkel has called Grace's book "More than a deeply moving memoir...." He said, "...this is a book of revelation."

It is just that, for with passion and reason, Grace invites us to join her and Jimmy. She shows how they made "Detroit Summer" and "Gardening Angels" part of a new urban economic system, and she shows us how to interact multiculturally and multi-generationally. She doesn't merely talk about it--she does it and reports on its results. Grace Boggs educates us in her book and helps us see the possibilities of what we can do in our own cities.
... Read more

Book Description

A unique story which offersa rare glimpse into the lives of a repressed but dynamic people as they were caught up in one of the most colorful times of our country's history. Beginning with Yee Ah Tye, the book details his travails and triumphs during the California Gold Rush and sheds light on the struggles of an early Chinese immigrant and his family determined to embrace their adopted country despite racial prejudice and harsh exclusionary laws.

The book is richly illustrated with more than 100 photographs, woodcuts, drawings, and maps that trace the Chinese through the years and document the remarkable experiences of the Ah Tye family.

160 pages, 8 ½ x 11; Bibliography, Family Tree, End Notes, Index. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A powerful story of a Chinese immigrant and his progeny.
This beautifully illustrated and written story of a Chinese immigrant is fascinating in its scope, detail, and in putting his experience in the context of our California history. As a fourth generation Chinese, there was much here that I did not know about my ancestors' struggles and triumphs, courage and tragedies. Enjoy this wonderful story and receive an education.

Fascinating perspective of early Asian American in Calif.
If you enjoy historical books about Asian American or California history, this is a "must read." Lani Ah Tye Farkas tells the fascinating true story of her great grandfather, who arrived in California in the early 1850s and overcame racial oppression and other challenges to successfully settle in America. She then traces the fortunes of his progeny, and tells their stories through two generations. The resulting book accurately portrays the many struggles and challenges that early Chinese immigrants faced in California in the last century and a half. The book features wonderful family photographs, some tragic stories, and is fully footnoted.

Fascinating true story of a Chinese immigrant in 1850s
If you enjoy historical books about Asian American or California history, this is a "must read." Lani Ah Tye Farkas tells the fascinating true story of her great grandfather, who arrived in California in the early 1850s and overcame racial oppression and other challenges to successfully settle in America. She then traces the fortunes of his progeny, and tells their stories through two generations. The resulting book accurately portrays the many struggles and challenges that early Chinese immigrants faced in California in the last century and a half. The book features wonderful family photographs, some tragic stories, and is fully footnoted. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Engaging and Inspirational
As an adult, I was fascinated by this book. I enjoyed the photos and the biography. I think this is a book for adults and children to read together and to use as a springboard for dialogue about life's challenges and how to deal with them, as well as the discrimination faced by a minority. It is all about the incredibly difficult challenges that one man has gone through (discrimination, parental loss as a child, polio, etc.), and is inspiring in how he reinvented himself over the years and managed to find success.

Wah Ming Chang--an inspiring book about an inspiring man
I found this book very inspirational, as it tells the life and struggles of an artist and Hollywood special effects master. The language sparked my interest and made me want to read more. I especially enjoyed the details about Chang's work with Walt Disney Studios and the Star Trek TV show. The book made me feel that I personally knew someone famous. This is an interesting story of a man who accomplished so much. As an educator, I would recommend the book to students and to adults. It will help others realize that we CAN get past difficult times and that we can nurture our own creativity in order to see our own dreams come true. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Sternberg on life, the movies, and Dietrich.
Full of cynical, razor-sharp and often very funny opinions. It's so one-sided, however, that I came away very curious to read what Dietrich herself thought about their relationship-- preferably in her own words.

Sternberg was definitely quite a character, and his autobiography is vastly entertaining. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

From Ricci and Paci, via Mao and Mozart, to Tan Dun
"How and why did Western classical music develop such deep roots [in China]?This is a question that we [Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai] have often asked ourselves-and been asked-and it is this that we set out to answer in writing Rhapsody in Red:How Western Classical Music Became Chinese."

This very readable short history of western classical music in China is more thoroughly structured than a "rhapsody," not just about music and certainly more colorful than just "red."The three most interesting chapters, in fact, cover the pre-communist era.It is generally known that the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci introduced Euclidean geometry to Chinese mathematicians in 1607, but did you know that he also presented Ming Emperor Wan Li with a clavichord?The chapter "Musical Voyages" tells the incredible story of this somewhat politically motivated adventure. In the beginning the Jesuits were sabotaged by the corrupt imperial eunuch Ma Tang and later, after the Emperor had finally received the gift, Father Pantoia, himself an amateur musician, had to instruct palace eunuchs in the art of playing the clavichord.Emperor Wan Li happened to be "on strike" and was unwilling to receive any guests.But he did seem curious enough to hear the sound of the clavichord and thus was the first "piano" recital in China given by palace eunuchs.

During the reign of Qing Emperor Kangxi, Western music had become far less exotic to the monarch.He had taken lessons and "supposed himself to be an excellent musician" though he probably "knew nothing.""There was a cymbal or spinet in almost every apartment [of the palace], but neither he nor his ladies could play upon them; sometimes indeed with one of his fingers he touched a note, which was enough, according to the extravagant flattery practised at the court of China, to throw the by-standers into ecstasies of admiration [...]."Needless to say, these extravaganzas had no musical influence beyond the palace.

"The Best Orchestra in the Far East" is another very interesting chapter dealing with the pre-communist era.It tells the early history of the (then) exclusively non-Chinese Shanghai Municipal Orchestra under the leadership of the Italian pianist Mario Paci and also describes the beginning days of the Shanghai Conservatory.The exotic mix of Eastern and Western, that decadent yet energetic cultural atmosphere of Shanghai during the "Golden Twenties" and early Thirties has always fascinated me and this chapter is giving a vivid portrait of persons and events.Yet it is quite objective in its judgment of the period,which has sometimes been hyped as the non-plus-ultra in cultural refinement but was more often denounced as bourgeois and racist in politically tainted distortions.The picture that emerges after reading this chapter is, that the Western music culture in Shanghai at that time was indeed dominated by foreigners.But it was also the cradle of all those important Chinese musicians who became the founding fathers of China's present music life, of all those early composers conductors, educators, organizers, etc.and it seems that only this fundamental exposure to the vibrancy of Western music gave them the humanity to survive those later horrors of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution."

I recommend the chapter "The Cultural Revolution" not so much for the description of the miserable yet popular model operas that were produced at that time under the supervision of Jiang Qing (Mao Zedong's wife) but rather for the touching stories about the individual fates of various musicians who either became victims or used various tactics to survive.At the Shanghai Conservatory alone 17 professors and spouses committed suicide.Some others, like the Conservatory's "hard-boned" director He Luting, defied their attackers without ever "lying down."By the time He, who reminds me a bit of Nien Cheng (Life and Death in Shanghai), was finally released from jail and rehabilitated he had written 64 rebuttals of the charges leveled against him. Central Conservatory president Ma Sicong (Sitson Ma) took a different approach: he escaped China in a very dramatic way which caused terrible suffering to many people related to him.Other famous musicians on the other hand seem to have managed to advance their careers during the Cultural Revolution.Even though Red Guards twisted the wrists of pianist Liu Shikun, he was later invited by Jiang Qing herself to play Liszt's First Piano Concerto.Pianist Yin Chengzong became a member of Jiang Qing's "inner circle of favorite artists" and contributed to the construction of the (in)famous Yellow River Concerto performing it frequently.Interestingly both pianists manage to adapt equally well to capitalism now and the Liu Shikun Piano Arts School, headquartered in Hong Kong, has branches all over China.

Personally I find the story of conductor Li Delun the most amazing document of human adaptability I have ever read."Rhapsody in Red" could also be called a biography of Li Delun, because his life is a metaphor of artistic survival and this is actually the "leitmotif" of "Rhapsody in Red." Especially revealing is the uniquely subtle manner in which he apparently went along with and yet manipulated the erratic moods of Jiang Qing.Sometimes I am reminded of the relationship between Shostakovich and Stalin, but the relationship between Mao's wife and the conductor seemed to be more flexible.

The last chapter about the "New Era" is a bit disappointing.Unlike the earlier chapters it fails to project personal experiences.The music life of China after the Cultural Revolution seems to have suddenly mutated into a carbon-copy of other Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, Singapore or Taiwan. What is lacking in this report is a clear explanation of how the earlier history has managed to influence this development and given China's music life a personal note which would distinguish it from that of the other Asian countries.Taiwan, for example, has had no "Shanghai" and no "Cultural Revolution."Yet all those modern "Chinese" phenomena described here, the (somewhat superficial) popularity of western classical music, the curious but sometimes strangely behaved audiences, the diligent but slightly narrow minded students, the naiveté, the will to succeed, the ambitious parents, the energetic but sometimes corrupt music market, etc.....; all those phenomena can equally be observed in Taiwan and in Japan and Korea as well.I fail to see what is particularly "Chinese" about this.The chapter also cannot make me believe that-inspite of the enormous outward success of China's music students-the spirit of western classical music has sunk deep roots into China's society.Music seems to be approached, rather, as an "Olympic discipline." The title "How Western Classical Music Became Chinese" may thus be somewhat misleading.

Nevertheless, I found this book to be a very interesting read and enjoyed listening to "Rhapsody in Red."

Bravo!
Ignore the drab cover, Rhapsody in Red is as dramatic, moving and packed with unexpected twists as China's own turbulent history. Although the theme is Western, classical music the book is really about the people who fought over its evolution in China. From missionaries and mandarins to maestros and Mrs. Mao, the lives described are full of bravery, treachery and above all passion for music and their country.

The style is refreshingly direct and although the research is extraordinarily thorough it never reads like a dry, academic history book. There are many wonderful anecdotes drawn from face to face interviews and the descriptive passages are beautifully written.

From imperial times right through to modern China the writers not only provide an incredible wealth of detailed information, but they also manage to capture the atmosphere of the times. Whether it be in the imperial court in the Forbidden city, or in Shanghai during the swinging thirties, or behind the scenes in China's first conservatories of music, or in the caves of Yanan where many of the theories about the role of culture in Communist China were first set out, the combination of the occasional poiniant descriptive passage, biographic details of individuals and thorough historical research really bring these places to life for the reader.

Western classical music also proves to be a fascinating vantage point from which to analyse and develop a deeper understanding of the many debates that raged about the role of culture in Chinese society as a whole, as well as how The Middle Kingdom should respond to foreign powers.

For musicians and musicologists, sinologists, historians and anyone interested in the cultural interaction between East and West, this is one of the very best books on the subject out there today.

best story this year
"How Western classical music became Chinese" doesn't capture the real subject of this book: this is probably one of the five best books in print on Chinese history and cultural interchange. Using "classical music diplomacy" as a uniting thread, these authors tell the story of China's encounter with Western Europe and North America from the mission of Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci in the early 17th century through the "model operas" of the Cultural Revolution, one of which was performed for Nixon and Kissinger, to the break-through popular composers of contemporary China. They use fascinatingly detailed personal stories to illustrate these convergence points. Musicologists will love it, but it is no more about music than Nixon's diplomacy was about ping-pong. This book cannot be missed by anyone who loves a good story. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Could have been better .
Basic information on Lin's life is there, and some art terms and other words are defined in the text and in a glossary. But the book begins at the peak of excitement ("She won!") and immediately falls into a description of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial competition that fails to hold interest or build a strong storyline. Ling provides good context for Maya's work with information about her family and childhood, but the complete lack of family photos is surprising. For instance, a discussion of Henry Lin's ceramic artwork is illustrated with a generic photograph of an unidentified artist.

One mistake: Maya graduated from Athens High School in June,1977. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Intelligent and colorful memoirs
The American market has been flooded with memoirs from the Mao era that present this time, especially the Cultural Revolution years, as a purely dark, depraved, and tragic age with nothing but victims and victimizers, inhumanity, cruelty, and sexual repression. The editors of this volume, in their probing introductory essay, have no quarrel with these individuals representing their tragic experiences through memoirs, but do take issue with the assumption that many Westerners (and in some cases the authors of these other memoirs) take for granted, that is, that these victim/victimizer memoirs speak for all Chinese women who grew up in this era. The authors of these nine chapter length memoirs grew up in big cities in China during the Mao era, and all have gone on to PhDs and American professorships. While they note that this makes themselves unrepresentative in a sense, they are representative in that the vast majority of urban women were never victims or victimizers during the Cultural Revolution. These authors have both good and bad memories, were both harmed and empowered by the state's official ideology, and experienced personal growth.

One of the authors mentions that American friends act almost disappointed when she tells them she has no personal horror story to share. The editors mention a revealing anecdote from an American academic conference in 1999 titled "Memory and Cultural Revolution". During the Q&A session, someone said that their memory of the period did not coincide with the panel's wholly gloomy and tragic view, rather they recalled a high and youthful spirit, and that they were neither victim nor victimizer. The chair of the panel condescendingly dismissed this by saying that some Holocaust survivors are nostalgic for their camp days too. Thus, no more time needed to be wasted on such invalid memories, and the panel moved on with their discussion of politically correct memory. These authors simply want to add their experiences, and their astute and balanced analysis into the mix.

All nine memoirs are high quality and raise our understanding of what it was like for an average girl/young woman in urban China in the 1960s-70s, and they raise important philosophical and sociological questions about gender. Many are moving while always avoiding pretentiousness. Moments of humor are common. Horror story memoirs are sadly true, but the other reality is people laughed, children played, parents and children argued and bonded, adults gossiped, youth aspired, friendships formed, people worked, students studied (usually), performers performed, farmers farmed, and ordinary people lived their lives. These memoirs, being full of rich, colorful details of family and neighborhood life, increase our knowledge of Chinese culture as well as the Cultural Revolution.

Here is a brief description of each memoir. This by no means does them justice.

Naihua Zhang -- "In a World Together Yet Apart: Urban and Rural Women Coming of Age in the Seventies" -- tells a moving story of life long bonds formed with 2 rural young women after being sent to the countryside.

Wang Zheng -- "Call Me 'Qingnian' But Not 'Funu': A Maoist Youth in Retrospect" -- shares rich details of her happy childhood during the CR, then applies her scholarly expertise (women's studies) to her own life coming of age as a young woman in a time of empowering feminist ideology, yet continuing influence of older cultural assumptions about gender. Insights abound.

Xiaomei Chen -- "From 'Lighthouse' to the Northeast Wilderness: Growing Up Among the Ordinary Stars" -- was the daughter of two elite theatre stars who were persecuted during the CR. She nevertheless had a "happy, even exhilarating childhood, though I was not spared growing pains", including a sent-down experience where she got to understand ordinary people in the countryside via work as a reporter.

Bai Di -- "My Wandering Years in the Cultural Revolution: The Interplay of Political Discourse and Personal Articulation" -- Bai, who is from Harbin in northern China, discusses, among other things, how the CR impacted the parent-child dynamics of households in her neighborhood.

Jiang Jin -- "Times Have Changed, Men and Women are the Same" -- was the daughter of Shanghai intellectuals, a red guard, a sent down youth, a university student, and now a historian in the US. Inspired by her parents, especially her liberated mother, and using their private library of classics, she aimed to "read 10,000 books, travel 10,000 miles [for true knowledge]", a Chinese expression.

Lihua Wang -- "Gender Consciousness in My Teen Years" -- discusses her evolving perceptions and consciousness as a female worker (and later college) who ultimately realizes her aspiration of being an educated independent person who contributes to society while finding self-fulfillment.

Xueping Zhong -- "Between 'Lixiang' and Childhood Dreams: Back from the Future to the Nearly Forgotten Yesteryears" -- from Shanghai, whose parents instilled in her a love of learning early on; her mother pushing her to model herself after great intellectuals in history, like the author of _Dream of the Red Mansion_, Cao Xueqin. She did in fact follow the CR trend of rebellion, studying hard for college while others were not. Throughout, the conflict and harmony between lixiang [ideals] and personal aspirations are discussed thoughtfully.

Zhang Zhen -- "Production of Senses in and out of the 'Everlasting Auspicious Lane': Shanghai 1966-1976" -- a Cinema Studies scholar at NYU today, discusses her unique neighborhood, her childhood love of films and literature, her amateur performance experiences, and intellectual maturation.

Yanmei Wei -- "'Congratulations, It's a Girl!' Gender and Identity in Mao's China" -- the only one of these memoirs of someone who grew up mostly in the post-Mao era, which makes for an interesting point of comparison with the others. Expectations of female behavior evolved, but with some continuities too. ... Read more

Book Description

Young Laurence didn't really where he fit in. He thought of himself as American, especially since he didn't speak Chinese and couldn't understand his grandmother, who lived in Chinatown. But others saw him as different in the conformist American of the 1950s. In this engaging memoir, the two-time Newbery Honor author tells how writing helped him start to solve the puzzle.

Reviews (1)

Interesting, but not that good
I had to read this book for Language Arts. I didn't like it at all. It's good read, don't get me wrong, but unfortunently it just doesn't have that...um...spark that I'm looking for. It's a good book for a memior, but I wouldn't suggest it. In short, you shouldn't read this book. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Great Read!
I first read Maxine Hong Kingston's Woman Warrior when I was in 10th grade and I fell in love with it! I am Asian American myself and I could relate to various aspects in the novel. However, a lot of the novel can be confusing so I was not sure if I had gotten enough out of it. So, when I saw this book, I had to buy it! I wanted to know her thoughts and feelings about the book and everything else. I was not disappointed! This was a great supplement to her novels and a great read in general. If you are a fan of Maxine Hong Kingston, this is a definite must have! ... Read more