My Book Suggestions

I started my next book about China and it is called River Town by Peter Hessler. I am enjoying it very much and it got me thinking about other books I have read that relate to China. There were five that really stood out to me:

Probably my favorite (and also the one that I read most recently) is Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. It is a wonderful story about two very different women whose lives are bound together by nu shu or "women's writing." It is the only known language exclusively used by women in the entire world. This language was used at time when women in China were very isolated. This was their way of forming life-long friendships; they wrote on fans and other items so they could communicate without even meeting face to face. Eventually these two women do meet, but their friendship threatens to tear apart after a misunderstanding.

It is a beautifully written book that follows these two women throughout their lives: through childhood, marriage, children, and even death. It also has a very interesting (and graphic) description of how footbinding was done. I definitely recommend it if anyone is interested in women's life in China during the 19th century.

My next recommendations are two novels by Gail Tsukyama, Women of the Silk and it's follow-up The Language of Threads. Both are about Pei, a young girl from rural China who goes to work at a silk factory. Like many Chinese, even today, she sends her wages home to help support her parents. At the age of 16, she decides to dedicate her life to silk work instead of marrying. The story is about her experience working 12-hour days in the silk factory as well as the important relationships she forms with the other women in the factory. The Language of Threads picks up where Women of the Silk leaves off and we find Pei arriving in Hong Kong in the 1930s. She and an orphan named Ji Shen are fleeing the Imperial Japanese Army. Upon arrival, they settle into life with an elderly British woman named Mrs. Finch. Unfortunately, before long the Japanese catch up with them and begin their occupation of Hong Kong, while Pei is forced to find a way to survive against the odds.

These books are also well-done and provide insight into life in a factroy in China in the 1920s. It is also interesting to read about the Japanese occupation and how it affected people living in China at that time. If anyone is interested Tsukiyama has also written Night of Many Dreams about two sisters in Hong Kong, which I have not had a chance to read. She has also written about Japan.

Falling Leaves is Adeline Yen Mah's account of her childhood as an "unwanted daughter." After her mother dies giving birth to her, she is considered bad luck and shunned by her family. The story chronicles her life from the time she lived with her family and cruel step-mother to 1949 when the Red Army approached and she is sent away to boarding school to her life today. Through it all she learns to excel at school and dream of the better life that she eventually achieves. It is a tough read, but a good story. It is written with honesty and candor. This book is also called Chinese Cinderella.

Finally, I'm sure many have read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. This was also made into a movie in 1993. It tells the story of eight women, four mothers and four daughters, who are Chinese immigrants living in San Francisco. It is a sort of clash of traditional Chinese meets American ways as the Chinese-born mothers try to understand their American-born daughters and vice versa. The book is written in a sort of short story format as it goes from family to family, daughter to mother back to daughter. I originally read the book for a class and we split up the chapters by family and read them that way. The book is good no matter what way you read it and as with the rest of the books I am recommending, they are about the relationships of women.

I hope that if you are reading this you will pick up one of these five books.