2 comments about Su Dongpo: Chinese Genius.

1. Written and illustrated by Demi, "Su Dongpu: Chinese Genius" is the picturebook story of a man named Su Shih in ancient China who as a boy began to write stories and versus expressing an admiration of the natural world. When Su Shih grew up to become an important scholar and influential statesman, he changed his name to Su Dongpo and risked his life by promoting justice and condemning corruption. The celebration story of a life of hardship and success lived with grace, ;humility and compassion that is designed to inspire young readers with a real-life example of dignity, ingenuity, courage, and resilience, "Su Dongpu: Chinese Genius" is a strongly recommended addition to both school and library picturebook collections.



2. Demi's new picture book, "Su Dongpo," is an entrancing work of art.
   
   "Su Dongpo" is a biography of "China's greatest genius." Su Dongpo (1036-1101) was "a statesman, philosopher, poet, painter, engineer, architect, and humanitarian who approached everything with joy and grace." Demi tells the story of Su Dongpo's life, illustrated with poetry about and by Su Dongpo. It's a fascinating tale in and of itself, but the poetry and the pictures are what really make this book.
   
   Here, for example, is one of Su Dongpo's poems he wrote as a schoolboy:
   
   "To what can human life be likened?
   Perhaps to a wild goose's footprint on snow;
   The foot imprint is accidentally left,
   But carefree, the bird flies east and west."
   
   Demi's illustrations are stylized, accented with gold ink, and truly breathtaking in their beauty. I had to stop myself from cutting them out and tacking them up above my desk.
   
   "Su Dongpo" is out this month from Lee & Low Books and would be an excellent addition to any school (or homeschool) unit on China and Chinese history.

1 comments about The Sammy Wong Files: Confessions of a Chinese American Terrorist.

1. Did you ever wonder what happened to the Chinese American family that ran your favorite Chinese restaurant? Remember the girl with pony tails and knee socks, doing her third grade math homework at a table piled high with folded napkins and cutlery right next to the cash register? Or that affable but slightly rumpled gentleman with three pens in his pocket protector who always seemed to be at the bar or the cash register, ready with a big smile and kind words no matter whether you were having dim sum on Sunday or grabbing takeout at 10PM on Thursday?
   
   Well, look no further. Eleanor Wong Telemaque, who grew up working at her family's Canton Cafe in Albert Lea, Minnesota, provides insightful and often hilarious vignettes of her life on the Minnesota-Iowa border in the 1940s. Her newly published memoir, "The Sammy Wong Files: Confessions of a Chinese American Terrorist," starts in Minnesota but ricochets from China to Canada to New York to Chicago. Add in the absurd and frightening way she was caught in the anti-Chinese Communist dragnet of the 1950s, freed by a member of President Kennedy's staff, and propelled into the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and you have a fast-paced memoir that makes for a great read at the beach this summer.
   
   Elly, as she is known to her many friends, first burst onto the literary scene in 1978 with "It's Crazy to Stay Chinese in Minnesota," a young adult book that was not accepted by the publishing industry as an adult novel because her protagonist, Bingo Tang, was not white. Elly was urged by people familiar with the publishing world to make this change, but she refused. After years marching, writing, and working for civil rights, including years on the staff of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, she was not about to back down on this important issue.
   
   Enter her name in Google. however, and you will get an idea of the impact that "It's Crazy" has had over the years. Excerpts have been included in anthologies about Asian Pacific Americans, women, the midwest, and Minnesota. Courses use the book to represent Asian Pacific American life in the midwest.
   
   Another place you may remember seeing Elly Telemaque's name is her 1980 book "Haiti Through Its Holidays," written to honor her Haitian-born husband Maurice Telemaque and her Haitian-Chinese-American daughter, Adrienne Chi-en Telemaque, who works as a physical therapist but who has been seen on stage and screen as an actress and dancer. Elly also has appeared in Amy Chen and Ying Chan's award-winning 2001 documentary, "The Chinatown Files," which examines the effect of Cold War anti-Chinese communist hysteria on Chinese Americans.
   
   Elly Telemaque is a master of dialogue and character development, and her decision to use the Chinese words as she heard them, and not necessarily as they would be written in a Chinese language text, is a wise decision.
   
   You can almost imagine yourself in her hometown, when her mother discovers three photographs of naked women that a passing tramp gave a young Elly and her brother Don in exchange for a glass of milk and two day-old doughnuts. "When Mother found the photographs, she knuckled our heads. 'Chuk nee ah,' she screamed. 'What example will you be to your children? You'll become white devils!'"
   
   The tensions between a father who supported Chiang-kai Shek and wanted to be one hundred percent American and a mother who learned little English and longed for the old country is a standard plot device. In Telemaque's deft hand, however, we understand the racist immigration laws that forced father to come in as a "paper son," and follow the family story as it describes the lives of her siblings and Wong cousins.
   
   Elly does all women a service in her book by going into detail about how her trust was violated at a young age by a visiting older relative who was a sexual predator. While she was able to run away from him and then keep him at bay when he tried to visit her at college, her words are a reminder that the "model minority" myth obscures the reality that the Asian Pacific American community, like every community, has its share of problems.
   
   "The Sammy Wong Files" is full of wonderful ironies, like the soy sauce factory co-owned by Elly's father where only the African American janitor remembers the secret recipe. As each chapter unfolds, however, you will see that when Eleanor Wong Telemaque describes her Asian Pacific American immigrant life for us, she is really celebrating an American history that is as varied as the lo mein and milk-fed turkey sandwiches served at the Canton Cafe.

No comments about The Transnational History Of A Chinese Family: Immigrant Letters, Family Business, And Reverse Migration.

No comments about The Doctor Who Was Followed by Ghosts: The Family Saga of a Chinese Woman Doctor.

1 comments about Chinese In St. Louis: 1857-2007 (MO) (Images of America).

1. As the sister book of Professor Ling's 2004 book, Chinese St Louis - From Enclave to Cultural Community, this one is the family album of Chinese-American residents with hundred of pictures in six chapters, each with a page orientation after the introduction. She did a good job in researching the first Chinese settler and Hop Alley in Downtown St Louis till 1966 when Busch Stadium replaced this landscape with the progressive development of laundry and restaurant to highly educated professionals integrated into the main stream society in a cultural community.
   
   Dr. Ling personalizes the face and voice to the Chinese St Louis who may not be able to do so especially in the early years of bias and discrimination. This book is a respectful and grateful acknowledgment of this legacy of courage, struggle and success in a meaningful 150 years commemoration of the pioneer Alla Lee, the first Chinese in St Louis and subsequent Chinese American settlers. This is a welcome invitation to the city - Meet me in Chinese St Louis.

3 comments about Bury My Bones in America: The Saga of a Chinese Family in California, 1852-1996--From San Francisco to the Sierra Gold Mines.

1. 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.



2. 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.



3. 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.

5 comments about The Gary Snyder Reader.

1. Gary Snyder has been an inspiration to me and to a lot of other people for many years now. This book is a joy to read because it gives us so much of his poetry, as well as his philosophy of life, nature and Buddhism over a course of 46 years. Much of it has been pulled from his various books, but reading it again after time has passed brings a new perspective and an added appreciation for the work. Thanks Gary, for doing the real work for all these years.



2. Gary Snyder's power appears to come from mountain, meandering and meditation. In this thick sampler we visit his life to age sixty-eight through notes, prose and poems. The soil of his writings range across a fire lookout station in the Cascade Range, a Japanese Zen temple, the engine room of a Pacific freighter, an audience with the Dalai Lama, work and climbs with Ginsberg, Kerouac, Lew Welch, and Nanao Sakaki, travel in Botswana and Zimbabwe with his sons. The essence of his power is nature. "Nature is not a place to visit, it is home-and within that home territory there are more familiar and less familiar places." Two sons, one Pulitzer, many other awards so far. He writes, he reads, he teaches. One hopes that he never tires of planting words in the soil that is us. If there are any legitimate Earth heroes, Gary Snyder is one.



3. most of us first heard of snyder though kerouac's dharma bums. and i must confess that is why i was 1st attracted to him and his writings. but to list snyder as just another beat it not only inaccurate it does a diservice to him, his writings and his fearless intellect. snyder is not only a great poet but is also an insightful naturalist and a true zen master. this anthology is actually a zen bible for the 21st century, filled with enjoyable reading and great insights. these writings would make the soul of han shan dance, and sakyamuni smile. this is one of my favorite books. just reading it will lighten your spirit and make your soul dance with joy.



4. Gary Snyder is an amazing person. He is an intellect. He is a poet. He is a teacher, a traveler, and he is a deeply spiritual man. He lives the life that we should all attempt to lead, a conscious thinking, methodical, contemplative life, asking questions arriving at conclusions and taking action.

   The Gary Snyder Reader is a good compilation of his life's work, the variety inside includes essay, interview, and poetry. This book is a well rounded view of his feelings and belief's about nature, and that of the nature of the soul, the nature of man. I agree with other reviews written here about the power of Synder's writing. His is a strong voice which is able to make a terrific argument about everything from the history of the Christian church and some reasons for underlying social perils to making a call for more activism in one's own community. Make a difference, be responsible, see things for what they are, yes this is all there.

   There is also the voice of pain, loss, suffering, anger, and very deep love. Above all else, one REALLY gets the feeling that Synder loves, passionately. Gary Snyder is an extremely talented writer and poet. The same voice that won the Pulitzer is still here. Do more than read and enjoy his works, read and be changed.




5. 
   Gary Snyder's writing style is clever and a part of poetic history--beat. This is a different kind of poetry. It's a good read.

2 comments about Confucius and the Analects: New Essays.

1. Confucius and the Analects is an important collect of studies on a pivotal figure in world civilization.
   Editor excerpt: Imagine a person who has an influenence on his native tradition comparable to the combined influence of Jesus and Socrates on the Western tradition. Such a person was Confucius.
   The similarities continue. Although all three were literate, perhaps all highly so, neither Confucius, nor Jesus, nor Socrates left behind any of his own writings. We know each only through the later writings of his admirers and detractors. In addition, each had a distinctive, charismatic, and complex personality. These three common features have made each the object of love, hatred, admiration, denigration, and debate for over two millennia.
   Though Confucius is referred to in a variety of early Chinese texts, one of our most important sources of information about him is the Analects, a collection of sayings, brief discussions, and observations by and about Confucius, his disciples, and his contemporaries. Despite its great importance, prior to this volume there has never been a collection of secondary essays in English on the Analects. This volume is a collection of essays on the Analects, and on Confucius as seen (primarily) in that classic.
   For the last two millennia, most scholars (whether Eastern or Western) have taken all twenty "books" of the Analects as an accurate record of what Confucius and his disciples have said. But scholarship in recent centuries has become more suspicious, investigating such issues as the historical composition of the text of the Analects and the sectarian motives behind various conceptions of Confucius. Consequently, the essays in this anthology are loosely grouped into two sections (based on an aphorism from Analects 2:11: "One who can keep warm the old, yet appreciate the new, is fit to be a teacher"). "Keeping Warm the Old" consists of essays that do not call into question the view that the received text of the Analects represents a coherent worldview. In contrast, the essays in "Appreciating the New" either call into question the integrity of the received text of the Analeces, or explore aspects of the image of Confucius that have been neglected by some of the dominant interpretive traditions.
   Why has Confucius been, and why does he continue to be, such a source of fascination? One easy answer is that he has been a symbol for a variety of different (and often contrasting) things: meritocracy, aristocracy, traditionalism, rationalism, aestheticism, "feudalism," secularism, wisdom, ignorance, Chinese culture, virtue, hypocrisy, and "the Orient." On this explanation, Confucius is almost a cipher that functions to mediate our interest in other ideas and institutions. This explanation is not completely inadequate. All of us, at our worst, reduce Confucius to the father figure we either love or love to hate. However, I am enough of a traditionalist to believe that there is something about genuine classics that draws us to them, again and again, independently of accidents of historical association or privileging. Some texts and thinkers touch on central aspects of human life in a way that is elusive, yet unendingly evocative. Confucius was such a thinker, and the Analects is such a text.



2. A great collection of essays. I learned a lot. My favorite essays were: (2) Naturalness revisited: why westerners should study Confucius, (3) Ren and Li in the Analects, (4) "What does Heaven Say?", (6) Whose Confucious? Which Analects? (7) Confucius and the Analects in the Han, (9) Unweaving the "one thread" of the Analects 4:15, and (10) An existentialist reading of book 4 of the Analects. I highly recommend it.
   
   The other book reviewer asked rhetorically, "why does Confucius continute to be a source of fascination?" Confucius had a penetrating view of humanity. The book under review is a stimulating academic book, but it does not bring you in touch with the transforming power of Confucius's lessons. To appreciate the power of Confucian lessons to change lives I recommend the book by Robert Canright: "Achieve Lasting Happiness, Times Secrets to Transform Your Life."

No comments about Who Am I?: An Autobiography of Emotion, Mind, and Spirit (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography).

5 comments about The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the Marvelous Chinese Conjurer.

1. Really a wonderful book. As in "hiding the Elephant" Steinmeyer gives a vivid description of what was the magic business in the early years of the 20th century. The style is pleasant and quick to read. The hystorical details are all referenced. Really a must have if you are interested in the history of this wonderful art.



2. This book is about the world of magic in the early 1900's full of illusion and sometimes deception at the time vaudeville was being formed. Described as a combination of minstrel (Al Jolson), circus (fire-breathing acts), and variety saloons (singing, dancing), along comes William E. Robinson who leads a double life.
   
   He'd been the backstage manager for Hermann the Great, America's #1 magician, and married his assistant. They re-invented themselves as the "Marvelous Chinese Conjurer," Chung Ling Soo, and Suee Seen (Water Lily). He was a New Yorker and performed in the Black Art act, costumed as a king at the Bijou before he went out on his own. Harry Kellar, born in Erie, Pennsylvania, was the #2 magician at the time.
   
   As the Chinese marvel, Robinson wore an oriental costume with long pig-tail and slippers with up-turned toes. London had a whole troup of Chinese performers led by Ling Soo, and they arrived at the theaters in a long red Panhard touring car, top down, in style. In England, he also formed a second family with wife, Lou, and three children, Hector, Mary, and Ellsworth.
   
   There is a picture on p. 387 of him in costume, about to catch the bullet with a porcelian plate, the act in which he was killed. After his death, an investigation revealed the deception played out on the world stage, not just Amreica.



3. I don't give out a lot of 5 star reviews. This book gets 5 stars from me because of 3 reasons:
   
   1) It's a great story about a complicated and interestingly flawed person. Will Robinson was an ambitious showman, who recoginzed the flaws in his professional self and worked tirelessly to overcome them, but failed to overcome the flaws in his personal self, leaving an estranged wife and an abandoned son behind him. That he's a world-class illusionist and turn of the century entertainer makes him a lot more interesting.
   
   2) The author is a great historical writer, and he brings turn of the 20th century vaudeville to life in a real page-turning way. He does a great job exploring not just the main character and his wives and children, but the giants of magic at the time. Will Robinson spent a lot of time going back and forth between the two greatest magicians of the day, who were also bitter rivals. You learn so much good stuff about Kellar and Herrmann that the book feels like it's two or three books in content, without being two or three books in length. The author must've worked really hard to keep the book this packed and this short and accessible.
   
   3) And to me, this is what earned the 5th star in a big way: the author actually explains how the cutting edge (at the time) illusions worked. In detail. With no warnings about how "the brotherhood of magicians would kill me if they knew" or other such blather. He warns us at the beginning that illusionists don't protect the secrets from the audience, but the audience from the secrets. Once you know how it's done, you a) don't enjoy the trick anymore and b) feel foolish for not figuring it out yourself. So, knowing that ahead of time, when he reveals all the ingenious stuff the magicians build and skills they learn, he does it in a way that makes you feel like an insider, like a performer or production assistant. It makes you (well, it made me... your mileage may vary) feel like a part of the story somehow, since the discovery, invention, and espionage behind illusions is an important, sexy, and treacherous part of being a professional conjurer in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
   
   Anyway, that's why I love the book and give it a perfect score. Can't wait for his next one.



4. Jim Steinmeyer gives us a labor of love with this fantastic book. For the professional or the curious, the book tells the story of magic during that exciting time of Keller, Herrmann, and Houdini (and many others)from the perspective of a man who touched the lives of each of them and contributed to their success as magicians. Only someone with the technical and historical knowledge and experience of Steinmeyer could explain the life of William Robinson aka Chung Ling Soo in the depth and with the understanding that this book achieves.



5. I'm puzzled by the many rave reviews for this book, which I enjoyed but found took effort to get through. The book reads like a list of stories about Robinson's life, told without the benefit of insight into the magician's psyche, and lacking much of a plot or theme to pull them into a continuous whole. At times the book seems to be a collection of loosely related encyclopedia entries. Moreover, the writing style is overly simple and lackluster, as if dumbed down. Fortunately, the stories are often interesting -- the tales of the Great Lafayette are entertaining.