No comments about Hakka Soul: Memories, Migrations, Meals (Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies).

1 comments about Anna Chennault: Informal Diplomacy and Asian Relations (Biographies in American Foreign Policy, No. 8).

1. Anna Chennault played a role in the post World War II Republican party. As the society widow of a war hero, she played the party host for up and coming Republicans in Washington D.C.'s society. She influenced Republican strategy to the Asia and especially the ROC and PRC. This hard line approach dictated policy which resulted in the cold war in Asia.
   Even though China was Communist, her views influenced how the U.S. dealt in this crucial area of the Cold War. I am not sure this is a good thing, since Anna was from a prominent Peking family oppossed to the Communists.
   
   One thing this book explains is the October surprise that Anna influenced. The RSV was against any peace overtures to DRVN, and so Anna's influence may have killed an earlier deal in Vietnam, and got RN elected President. This chapter makes it clear on what actually happened and does show RN influenced American policy before the 1968 election.
   
   This book is a thesis for the author's PhD. Even though I don't like reading a thesis, this book explains well Anna's influence in the American political system. I think it explains well the subject's influence on American policy-right or wrong.

No comments about The Fig Tree: Memoirs of a Taiwanese Patriot.

5 comments about A Thousand Pieces of Gold: Growing Up Through China's Proverbs.

1. This book is composed of two interwoven tales: an autobiography of the author's life from the 1950s to the 1990s, and the history of China's formative years. These two tales are joined together at crucial points to illustrate how the lessons of life, love, war, and diplomacy practiced 3000 years ago by fuedal warlords are still applicable today, in this case in the life of the author.
   
   The author has had a challenging life as she had to put up with an unloving stepmother as a child and scheming siblings as an adult. She bore this anguish and torture quietly for most of her life until she finally quit her medical career and put her pain to words. The result was several books, with this as the latest. This illustrates various parts of her life and her relationships with various people, including family, friends, and people she met in her career. This latest offering shows how her relationships had parallels in the relationships between the various warlords and politicians involved in China's synthesis from 6+ various kingdoms about 3000 years ago.
   
   The text itself is broken into chapters, each of which is named after a famous Chinese proverb. Each chapter is then dedicated to the historical origins of that proverb, and how that proverb has applied to the author's life and to life in general.
   
   Overall, the book is good reading. It provides insight into the foundations of Chinese culture, how Chinese think, and the mindset of the Chinese people. To a lesser degree it also serves to illustrate the differences between Chinese and Western cultures.



2. I purchased this book by mistake thinking it was the Thousand Pieces of Gold by Mah. Each chapter is based on a Chinese Proverb with analogies between Chinese historical events and the author's life. Some attempt is made to equate some of these proverbs to English sayings, such as Pearl Harbor, some with more and some with less success. We generally don't go around saying "... a Pearl Harbor ..." or "... a Kennedy Assasination ..." as the book seems to imply. The book itself is a good reading from an historical perspective with explanations of how Chinese think. BTW my Chinese wife has not heard of some of these proverbs which makes me question their modern usage but then again China is a country about the same size of the US with a lot more people and the culture varies by province (changing though).



3. Adeline Yeh Mah is an amazing author as her autobiography "Falling Leaves" reveals. This book weaves the meaning of various chinese words and expressions into her personal story in such a way that the reader more clearly understands the historical context and contemporary meaning of each. Very very enjoyable and informative reading!



4. Bad points:
   
   1. This book had some bizarre indexing. When I looked for relevant information about Bin Laden on the pages that were noted, not one bit of it was to be found.
   
   2. I have some questions about the historical accuracy of all of this. The logic that she used was something like: China was united under the first emperor, and its history goes all the way back to the Shang Dynasty. If that were true, then it would be simple to say that the United States was united at the time of the Declaration of Independence. Sloppy reasoning. There WAS no United States before the United States, the same way there was no Middle Kingdom before it was United. China then looked something like Japan did hundreds of years ago (warring states). It just happens that one of them became dominant (Qin) and created the China. (This type of weird logic is VERY COMMON all throughout China-- allowing Chinese people to claim an extra 2,500 years of history.)
   
   2. Typical Chinese chauvinism. Vietnam and China have not been friends for a LONG TIME. Vietnam has its own language and culture-- even that has existed through the occupation of China by Vietnam. It is not quite correct to say that Vietnam was "fundamentally Chinese."
   
   3. The origin of Japan has been mythologized in China as the crossing of some river at some point in time by some number of virgins to found Japan. (This is noted on page 84 in the book.) Is this REALLY historically accurate?
   
   4. She relies entirely on the writings of Sima Qian to provide her basis of history. It has been noted by many historians (W. Jenner, Jasper Becker) that Chinese sources are notoriously inaccurate. These writings that she references quote kings and advisers talking in couplets and with great eloquence. They hark back to the books of the Bible (put together based on oral traditions and written down decades/ centuries after the fact). It's questionable how much of this is actually historical fact and how much of it is written oral traditions.
   
   5.Talking to my students, they have NO IDEA what many ancient usages of Chinese words are. I find it hard to believe that this author could sit down and very simply (with a dictionary) read works from 2,000 years ago.
   
   Good points:
   
   1. The writing is light and easy to read.
   
   2. The stories are very interesting. They put a person in mind of Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories."
   
   3. It is very informative about how much barbarism went on in the early years of Chinese history. (The early Chinese have nothing on modern day Africans.)
   
   4. There is informative writings about the separation of Legalism and Confucianism. The treatment was by no means exhaustive, but one finds that people using this or that aspect of Confucianism to rationalize something tend to mix elements of Confucianism (=morality as the driving force for all things) vs. Legalism (discourse about authoritarianism in principle and practice).
   
   5. Crooked and abusive governments in China are and ALWAYS HAVE BEEN the status quo. It will never be any different because it never has been any different. The author has made this very clear from the different stories.
   
   6. It was also interesting to know that the archives of history are a *real thing* and consist of (at that time) 3,600 volumes and 45 million words. The phrase "historical archives" is very popular, but it does refer to an actual, tangible thing.
   
   In summary, this is just one more installment in a very long list of examples that shows that China has been a VERY SLOW/ POOR learner from history. Every single story seems to say "We've been here before."



5. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and so did the rest of my family (spouse and kids). The author cleverly weaves her life's story in with Chinese proverbs and their meanings. Being Chinese but not being able to read Chinese, I have always felt a loss for knowing and understanding the many Chinese proverbs that I've heard my parents and older relatives recite. This book partially makes up for that gap. I had not known most of the proverbs cited, but had heard a few before, so it was great to expand my repetoire. One note of caution relates to the multiple layers of meanings for these proverbs. Based on the description and explanation in the book, I took away an interpretation of one of the proverbs and was going to use that to illustrate a point that I wanted to make in a public presentation. Good thing I checked first with a native speaker who is much more informed about the proverb than I. He explained that the deeper meaning of this proverb is completely different than what I had thought. I would have inadvertently made a very different and unintended meaning had I not known this. So neophytes beware.

5 comments about The Attic: Memoir of a Chinese Landlord's Son.

1. This is my all-time favorite book. I've read it three times. I suggest it to everyone. I've found myself chuckling through descriptions told with humor, but in reality must have been very difficult situations. I've heard only one negative response to the very short chapter devoted to methods of killing and eating animals. It is very shocking. It is not gratuitous violence, it's China's very ancient way. The author did not imply that these methods were widespread by any means. The rest of the book is funny and sad and thoroughly enjoyable. I highly recommend it.



2. This is a great book. Although there are some graphic descriptions of some foods, the book is well-written, absorbing. One of those good, rainy day, sitting in front of the fireplace, read-at- one-sitting books.



3. The other reviews mention the graphic, nauseating chapter on unusual eating practices in China - things so horrifying to a Westerner that I won't even attempt to describe them.

   The reviews leave out the human atrocities in the book, and there are plenty. What this author's sister is forced to do to her hand to survive chills my blood and depresses me, even now, months after my initial reading.

   Overall, this is not a novel for the faint of heart - I can't express this enough!

   The chapter on animal abuse (I can't call it anything but) is the most revolting thing I have ever read, so BEWARE! If you are a vegetarian, don't even ATTEMPT this book.

   Aside from the dark content, I just did not find this book pleasing; the author is a selfish creep who abuses his family. I suppose the reader is supposed to write this off as cruel youth, but the entire book leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

   If you want to read something both lyrical and informative about China, try Falling Leaves, or Red Scarf Girl, or Bound Feet, Western Dress. Any of those memoirs would be an excellent read. Red China Blues is also a fascinating book, though written by a Westerner. Don't bother with this book unless you want to be nauseated by the cold writing and the graphic descriptions of animal torture.




4. This is a very well written tale of survival. It is filled with instances of humor and triumph. It depicts a Chinese culture and a cuisine that is not, as one of the previous reviewers stated, for the faint of heart. This story shows a person that is both proud to have survived and troubled by some of the things that he did to survive. I was fascinated by this story and I was grateful to have read it rather than to have lived it.



5. This book is captivating and full of flavor. Cao's writing style is very wonderful. When read The Attic, you gain access to a world that is not common to 20th or 21 century Americans. Cao describes his life of living in Shanghai China with very little materials but making the very best of it. The book is an excellent example of the human spirit overcoming the challenges of life. After you get into he book you just cant put it down. I would prescribe this book to anyone that would like to see into the life of mid 20th century China. Caution, this book has customs and parts of daily life that are very different from western custom. Please read with caution if you have a sensitive nature.

2 comments about Empty Cloud: The Autobiography of the Chinese Zen Master Xu Yun.

1. In the course of a long-life, spanning almost 120 years, Xu-yun (1840-1959)had become something of a living legend. By the time of his passing in 1959, Xu-yun was the most renowned Zen Buddhist in China. Hence this biography makes fascinating reading. It details the struggles - as well as the rewards, of a life dedicated to the Dharma. Philip Kapleau Roshi used to read portions of this book to his students to inspire them and provide spurs for practice.
   
   Born around the time of the Opium Wars - Xu-yun's life spanned some of the most violent upheavals China had ever witnessed -what with being occupied by several foreign powers, the formation of the Republic, then civil war, leaving China under Communist rule. Few of China's modernisers - communist or otherwise, were sympathetic to Buddhism, leaving the fate of the Sangha uncertain. Unlike the days of yore, when official patronage and funding could be counted on, these were hard times. Hence, Xu-yun's endeavours to restore Chinese Buddhism or bring about a revival seem all that more remarkable. Similar challenges had been encountered by the eminent Ming master Han-shan, so Xu-yun came to be known as "Han-shan come-again."
   
   This book also documents Xu-yun's pilgrimages and travels - for the most part on foot, to neighbouring Buddhist lands - India, Tibet, Burma, Thailand etc. While in Thailand, the King was so impressed by Xu-yun, he became a personal disciple of the master. On a practical note, supplementary material has been added,detailing Xu-yun's instructions on Ch'an/Zen practice, at the Jade Buddha temple, Shanghai. These were highly practical and can be put to use anywhere. Master Xu-yun's inspiring story deserves a place in every Buddhist library.



2. Yes. Extraordinary. Many years have passed since I read the Autobiography of Xu Yun (Empty Cloud), an experience that proved for me a spiritual awakening. As the initial reviewer has given an excellent, comprehensive overview - including the mind-boggling duration of the Master's life (all the more remarkable when one considers the contexts of the turbulent times in which he lived - 1840-1959), I would like to share my personal, perhaps idiosyncratic, reflections on what makes his life-rendering one of the great and most edifying masterworks, a book which ought to be far more widely read.
   Xu Yun regarded the Surangama Sutra as the definitive Buddhist text. I read a bit of the Surangama Sutra and was surprised to find that it involves a radically substantialist metaphysics, demonology - a later Mahayana development - not the sort of down-to-earth empiricism the Buddha teaches directly as recorded in the Tripitaka, at least according to my limited understanding. The interpretation of the Dharma espoused here accounts for Xu Yun's extraordinary vigilance and his severe spiritual practice. To use the term "austerity" seems euphemistic when describing his practice. He recalls the early years of his aspiration when he lived solely on pine needles (not nuts, needles) and water, roaming the mountains of Southern China and meditating. He then entered a monastery and initiated formal practice. He claims that the year he spent studying the Surangama Sutra was more productive than the totality of his previous life and practice. We can see that Xu Yun lived his long life on the razor's edge, and his devotion to the dharma, extreme and transcendent as it was, was tested at every step.
   Xu Yun made a number of grueling pilgrimages through the mountains in winter, which defy imagination, barefoot and lightly clad in patched monk's robes. Like John Muir, he was made of the sternest stuff, incredibly tough, with supra-human cold and hunger tolerance, and singular devotion paralleled only in the lives of the highest adepts of any tradition. He would meditate in mountain caves in the dead of winter for months at a time and acquired the ability to transcend the normal life of the senses.
   There is some speculation that Xu Yun was motivated in his spiritual quest by the pain of tremendous guilt. He deals with this view in the book, particularly in the appended poem "Song of the Skin Bag". This strange title, a double entendre, refers in part to the fact that he was literally ripped from his mother's womb, which clung to and covered him like a body length caul at birth, causing her death (the assumption is that she suffered a prolapse). This poem he wrote in his 19th year (1858/59) when he fully renounced the world and began his noted pilgrimage. The poem eloquently states in universal terms the reasons we should adhere to the Dharma. "Clearly good and evil karmas are infallible, so why/Rely on falsehood instead of practicing the truth?" "Frustrations of a thousand, nay ten thousand kinds/Harass and make your life yet more unbearable. When you grow old with failing sight and snow-white hair /You will have vainly passed a lifetime ignorant of virtue." "To indulge in ignorance, committing the ten evils, / Exhausts your ingenuity and wins the world's contempt./Wars, epidemics, droughts, and floods are frequent,/Dearth, famine and strife succeed each other and/When weird tales prevail misfortune follows." "Impermance exposed reveals eternity./Path lies in path within your practice." "Lay down your bag of skin, leap on the Vehicle Supreme."
   One of the most unforgettable passages recounts the vicious beating he received at the hands and feet of a gang of Red Communist troops in 1953 at the tender age of 113! The beating was brutal and involved violent kicking with combat boots. Xu Yun, however, survived this most unfortunate incident in good health. A number of his attackers were reported to have committed suicide or converted to Buddhism within weeks of their disgraceful actions. Xu Yun literally rebuilt the Ch'an tradition in China during the very years his countryman Mao was busy destroying millions of lives for a stated ideal. There is a comparison we ought to ponder here. Whose life was the more valuable, and why? Which ideally promises the better form of social organization - the better way to live - the State or the Sangha?
   Another notable aspect of his autobiography is to be found in its inimitable presentation. Xu Yun will devote pages to what he considers to be the most significant incidents in his development - which sometimes lasted only a few hours in duration, and then, will give but a few lines to years at a time. I have never come across such an approach in my reading of the genre - and really, this would seem to give a more accurate perspective on life.
   There are a number of versions of The Autobiography of Xu Yun available. However, I read the Charles Luk translation listed here - and, as I have rather awkwardly attempted to say - it's an essential life - a paradigm for our most reverent study.

1 comments about The Lost Garden.

1. 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.

1 comments about Memories of Life in Lhasa Under Chinese Rule.

1. Tubten Khetsun provides a remarkably detailed and vivid account of what Tibetans have undergone during and following the brutal take over of their land by China during the period between 1959-1979. He takes you in with him during his struggle to survive in what has been the darkest period of Tibet's history and leaves you amazed and grateful in his personal victory and emancipation while simulataneously feeling open-hearted for the terrible suffering that the Tibetans have undergone. This is not only of interest from a hisorical perspective, but more importantly, from a humanitarian perspective...it's a must read!

No comments about The Man Who Changed China: The Story of Sun Yat-sen.

2 comments about Doctor Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: The Life of a Wartime Celebrity.

1. Having had to read this book for a history class I wasn't sure about whether or not I would enjoy it. But once I got an understanding of whom Mom Chung was and her importance I really wanted to read the book. I'm glad I did because Chung's story is inspirational, being the first Chinese American Female Doctor. Also Chung was a lesbian (though not 100% proved one can infer this from the evidence.) At the beginning I was inspired by Chung's strength and guts, her breaking through barriers and fighting to be successful and true to herself.(Also managing to continue fighting after several rejections.) Though by the end of her life it seems as though she lost her spunk and drive and settles into the status quo image.
   
   The author does a great job of explaining Chung's life and actually makes the ready feel her triumphs and loses. So from a biographical point of view this is a 5 star book. From the historical point of view it's not as good. She wanted to"...provide insight into the historical transformation of American norms regarding race, gender and sexuality over the course of her lifetime..." This might have to do with Chung being such a larger than life character it is easy to get lost in her and miss the general trends and changes that happened in her lifetime.
   
   With that being said read the book!!!



2. Dr. Wu astounds us by producing a work of biography that does something very rare in this age of standardized academic prose, she has produced an addictively readable volume. To tell the truth, even though I have lived in San Francisco for 25 years, I had never even heard of Mom Chung, but I guess if I lived here during World War II I would have been reading about her exploits every day.
   
   One record after another, she smashed, despite the obvious disapproval of both the Chinese and white communities here. And then there's the gender thing. She adopted, as Dr. Yu shows us, a comically asexual pose, which made it humorous for hundreds of white men and women to call her "Mom," which would have implied that she had had sex when to look at her, and to survey her lack of marriage license, she had none. There's the secret!
   
   The "fair-haired bastards" of the title were the war heroes, at first the pilots, then those who served in the Navy, then a bunch of "Kiwis" who Chung recognized for their work in the field supporting our men overseas. She attracted celebrities to her wherever she went, sort of like our own JT LeRoy in the present day. When she started out, she walked timidly, and it took a cunning and open-hearted woman like the poet Elsa Gidlow to see underneath the brim of her cloche and discover the Lesbian within. Gidlow's memoirs, from which Dr. Wu draws the story, reveal that Gidlow became Chung's patient pretty much to get that old countertransference going. And after a difficult operation, in which Gidlow nearly died, Chung finally admitted that she loved her.
   
   Later on came an intense attachment to the "last of the red hot Mamas," Sophie Tucker. Chung destroyed Tucker's letters, but Tucker carefully preserved all of Chung's little love notes and tokens--thank Goodness, for otherwise we might never have guessed the lengths to which homophobia and sexual fear drove the love affair of these two celebrities deep underground. In a way it was a perfect pose. Chung nearly built Tucker her own shrine within her lavish apartment, so that whenever Tucker decided to visit San Francisco she would be pampered like a goddess. In one letter she hopes that Tucker wears a special nightgown, and "think of me as that nightgown," getting upclose and personal with the famous Tucker body. Sophie Tucker was then coasting on a formidable heterosexual reputation, having been married and divorced thrice by the time she got involved with Mom Chung. I read a whole biography of this notorious entertainer, and the name of Mom Chung never even made it to the index.
   
   Thank the Lord for brave historians like Tzu-Chun Wu who no longer shy away from the uncomfortable truths about their subjects. How I wish that the bruited movie of Chung's life (starring Barbara Stanwyck in Chinese makeup) had really been made, in the long ago days of Mom Chung's celebrity!