The story of an era, the Chinese laborers, and one woman in particular
931787
Subtitled "The First Chinese in the West", this well-researched history tells a fascinating story.  During Gold Rush times,  thousands of Chinese came to America to work in the mines and, later, to help build the railroads.  This is their story and there is no scarcity of detail, making this whole saga come alive.

The narrative centers around Polly Bemis who was sold as a concubine to a wealthy Chinese man who had her sent to an Idaho mining camp where she was won in a poker game by an American gambler who later married her.  She lived with him for 50 years on an isolated farm, and later, in 1923, she was brought to the attention of the public and took a few memorable visits to town where she was written about in the local newspapers. This is not a novel. This is a real life story.  And so there are many unanswered questions about her life.  The author honestly brings some of the inconsistencies about her story to light, thus creating a desire in the reader to know more.

And yet, this book is much larger than just Polly's story.  It is the story of an era and the Chinese men whose labor helped build this country.  They worked as household servants, in laundries and in the mining camps.  Their lives were hard and they were victims of discrimination. Most of them came as young men and planned on going back to China which most of them did, and by the beginning of 20th century their presence had almost vanished. They either returned to China on their own or, for those who had not survived, had their bones shipped back to China for burial.

The book contains some photographs, including several of Polly.  This makes this story even more real. I, like the author, speculated about some of the conflicting accounts about Polly, and I was appalled at the conditions under which these people labored even though, in some ways, their lives were better off than they would have been in China. I learned something new on almost every page although I found the title a bit misleading because "The Poker Bride" sounds like a fictional historical novel.  However, the book is fascinating and really enjoyed it.  Frankly, truth is more interesting than fiction.
1421761
An interesting account of China that would have changed since then.
344534
Fitzgerald traces what it meant for southern Chinese people to be incorporated into the empire. The imperial court pushed its standards, its religions, its family values, and its taxes down the villagers' throats. The account captures both the devoted cultural imperialism of court emissaries, and the eclectic local resistance. I feel, however, that this was not really a matter of expansion by "the Chinese people." It was a matter of an expanding imperial system, which regarded its subjects as civilized to the degree they conformed to the hierarchical, patriarchal ways of northern warlords.

--author of A Galaxy of Immortal Women: The Yin Side of Chinese Civilization
2774287
Story based on fact about the Chinese explusions in the Pacific Northwest.  The story is told from the past and present and how things are intertwined.
2734804
Ms. Zhang recalled the history and lives of several very important people in a strange time period in Chinese history.  It shows her humanitarian and honorable spirits in recollecting the stories.  Her subtle touch as a woman and a poet lead the readers into the real lives of these people whose names normally appeared in big fonts in the newspapers.  In her book, they are real human beings with emotions, with pain, affections, mistakes and regrets.

It is not biographical nor historical, but it helps younger readers to remember the values before the communists and the persecutions of the intellectuals by a low-classed manner during 1957-1979.  I applaude the publication of this book and wish Ms. Zhang a long and healthy life in her old ages to help the government correct more wrongs they commited in the past 50 years.
4808121
If you are interested in China history, this is a good book.
3219157
A compelling story of three generations of Chinese women during a tumultous time in China's history.  I could not put it down.
2128006
...if you want to begin to understand China today, then invest the time to read this intimate and revealing look at growing up in China in the 70s and 80s.

Lijia Zhang illuminates the complexities of growing up in China. Bound by the Cultural Revolution early in the book, and the early market and political reforms in the late 1980s, Zhang opens the curtain on the family and work life stories of largely average Chinese, not connected to party power or even the middling advantages of promotion into the cadre in state enterprises.

Along the way, she provides funny and sad commentary on traditional aspects of Chinese culture that most Westerners probably are not acquainted with; speaking in metaphors, the tendency to differentiate people with common surnames with nicknames (often NOT flattering) based on their physical traits), the struggle for privacy and the longstanding divide between urban and rural dwellers that Maoism did not relieve.  As dismissive as she is of the value of her state-run factory week, she was working in relatively prestigious one; the intercontinental ballistic missiles built at her factory certainly changed strategic equations for both the United States and the Soviet Union in the early 80s.

I discovered this book through serendipity. My daughter needed it for school, and we ended up with two copies. Zhang and I have some intersections in our personal stories. I began studying Chinese at about the same time she began learning English; more than 30 years later, it's reassuring to know that the Maoist slogans I struggled to translate were as inscrutable to somebody in China as they were to us westeners. The successful launch of a product built in her Nanjing factory --which flew from western China to the south Pacific-- had a major influence on my early professional career after completing my Chinese studies.

The last half of this book offers glimpses of the beginnings of China's entrepreneurial environment that would turn into the manufacturing and economic force it has become. I remember clearly when the first "Made in China" markings appeared on things I had bought. They seemed rare and exotic then, even though they were mostly on goods that were decidedly non-durable.

How far China, the China that Lijia Zhang grew up in and Zhang herself have traveled.  If you hope to ever understand China or the Chinese, you'll have to take on the task in small chunks. Zhang's contemporaries are the ones who will guide China into what it becomes next; reading her book can help you understand where they came from. In combination with her intensely personal story, it's an amazing piece of reading.
4342313
As in so many countries around the world, China's landlords of the early and mid-20th century---a small minority---owned most of their country's land while the majority held little or none.  Taking advantage of the wealth and power land ownership gave them, the rich landowners exploited the villagers in their grasp in every conceivable way, while sometimes living a life of luxury and cultured ease behind the walls of their extensive compounds.  Even in dirt poor, remote areas, far inland, the landlords' life bore no resemblance to the life of the mass of peasants.  In some countries with such unequal distributions of wealth or land, change came gradually (western Europe)or with a foreign occupation (Japan), but in China change was suddenly imposed after the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949.  This process has been described very vividly by William Hinton in "Fanshen" and "Iron Oxen", as well as by Jan Myrdal in "Report from a Chinese Village".  Almost overnight (historically speaking), land was confiscated from landlords and redistributed among the destitute, often-starved peasants and laborers.  Clothes, food supplies, and other property were also shared out.  Violence, petty local politics, and injustices  inevitably played a role in such a vast, far-reaching transformation for alas, people are always people, no matter what color flag they wave.  Still, without the destruction of the conservative class of landlords that sat atop the country like vultures, the modern China we see flowering (or moving, at least) in a million directions today would probably never have appeared.  China might now resemble more an enormous Philippines or Egypt.

THE DRAGON'S VILLAGE provides an ant's eye view of this major event in human history, an event seldom thought about outside China now.  It is the semi-autobiographical tale of one bourgeois girl's journey to a poor, remote village in Gansu province to assist in the land reform.  While lyrically descriptive at times, the girl's own lack of understanding or perspective prevents us from thinking in a wide fashion about the whole process.  We read and perhaps realize in a very concrete way what individual cadres might have gone through at the time.  The story struck me as extremely honest with little attempt to write about anything not personally experienced.  While interesting from a social, historical, or political point of view, I would not call THE DRAGON'S VILLAGE great literature.  Anti-climax follows anti-climax, the end is disappointingly flat.  I believe that such an ending reflects reality, but art forms need not imitate life so exactly.  The author does not explore her personal trials and tribulations in a reflective manner, leaving us wondering what she felt ultimately.  In sum, for a historical moment of such excitement and importance, the novel is amazingly mild.  We appreciate the barren landscapes of northwestern China in winter, the descriptions of poverty and suspicion of the peasants.  However, the transformation process and meaning of the resistance to it are seriously underplayed.  I would recommend this book for university (or even high school) classes on the Chinese Revolution.
3109216
This was a very worthwhile read.  The author lived in China for years so his fund of knowledge came from first hand experience, not just from "research".  This book covers the period of China;s recent rapid economic growth which produced many ultra wealthy and others not so fortunate.  The fortunes of individuals in various sectors of society are portrayed in a very engaging manner.  I look back fondly on my time reading this book.  It was time well spent and I recommend it highly.
Thomas Roe
Los Angeles
1365903
I've just finished reading Amy Kwei's book, "A Concubine For The Family," and I recommend it without reservation. It's a wonderfully written story with intriguing information about an upper class Chinese family and the culture in general in the 1930s. The setting is the start of WWII with the invasion by the Japanese, which challenges the unity of the family and the very survival of its members.
3037469
Beautiful story of a deep friendship between two women over their lifetime.  I learned so much about the culture of the time and at times the rules and limitations on women in China seemed so bizarre as to belong to life in another world.
1353247
With this memoir I was able to enter the world of a Chinese worker which has been completely closed to Westerners until now. I think it is a must for anyone who wants to know what life has been like for hundreds of millions of people during the past decade in China.
4664954
I found this story equally full of Chinese history as well as a look at the culture of China through the eyes of an American. I enjoyed the learning aspect as much as I did the story of an American teacher at a Chinese university. I would certainly recommend it for anyone doing volunteer work in China, but also for anyone interested in learning more about China from the perspective of an American that spent a couple years there.
2527635
It is a long overdue photo publication on Chinese immigrants in Chicago and neighboring States by Chinese American Museum of Chicago Chinatown, in personal livelihoods, families, communities, culture and interaction with the American society.  These pioneers collectively put out their effort, blood and tears in making Chicago Chinatown among the best. This book is a community album of historical value and significance. It represented an era of Chinese struggle in coming and making a life in the middle of America.  Despite the odds, hardship and discrimination, they contributed to the society with determination, endeavor and sacrifice.  This book makes a documentary and honors this odyssey.  The repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 and the different waves of Chinese immigrantions brought along profound changes.  Refreshing this forgotten history, this volume is an encouragement for the new comers to excel in poltics, encomics, academic, medicine and art to insure that history will not repeat itself for the 60 years of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 by Congress.  It is expected the next edition "Chinese in Chicago, 1945-2005" will be as promising and exciting as this one.

A sister publication, Chinese St Louis, published in 2004 will be another good title.
1483136
This is a beautiful story about a shameful time in our history.  The author does a fantastic job of weaving the past with the characters living in modern times.  My entire book club enjoyed this book for its bringing the plight of Chinese immigrants and the effects on generations of a prestigious  white family.
1266891
This was a splendid description of the work place and life for workers during the Tiffany period!
An enjoyable read!