Life in China, with no advantages other than fortitude
356759
A plain Chinese woman tells a missionary the story of her life. All work, suffering grandees and an opium sot for a husband who sold their daughter into slavery.  Along the way, some of the finest folklore in print.

This is an excellent portrait of Chinese life in the period prior to Sun-Yat Sen's reforms.
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.
3413726
A little over-rated in the awards and reviews.  Did NOT make the Chinese government or culture at that time look good, which may be why it was banned for a time in China.  The book portrayed trials and life hardships well in a subgroup of the population of that era, but as the character became more wealthy he became a more shallow and less decent person.  The book presented a culture in which appearances to others is the prime reason for actions and wealth justifies all indulgences.  I do not believe this was the case. The author, however, has written several excellent stories and her writing style is without fault.  She uses terse dialogue well to convey much.
3239931
Opinions about China and it's development are usually ill-formed and authored be people who never explored the country. It's like they saw one picture of Beijing on CNN or Fox News and formed an exhaustive opinion based on only that. Or, there are books written by jaded people who tried to be ESL teachers for a year or two and then returned home to write a Kindle ebook about how they were horrified that China is not culturally exactly like America. This is one of those rare books that is so not that. Wade Shepard plays the role of both a travel writer and a journalist. Here is analysis of somebody who has walked Chinese streets, talked to people, and did his research. If anybody wants to even come close to understanding the emerging Urban China, this book is an absolute must read.
2288092
An engaging read that offers a glimpse into the world of people that are seen throughout China but rarely given much thought. Imparted with compassion and empathy, but not overly traffic or melodramatic, this is a story of faith in the face of adversity and the strength of friendship, personal responsibility and community, reflecting Happy's own character. Translation appeared nothing but faithful to the original text, which I am encouraged to read myself.
2672255
Overview of book:
Ji Li Jiang, was a twelve year old girl living in China during the 60's, who had everything going for her; intelligence, admiration of her peers, and a leading personality-all until Chairman Mao Ze Dong, launched his views of communism in the year of 1966. Everything began to change for Ji Li and her family, she and her family were now the center of numerous accusations, and humiliating insults all because her family's past class status. Because she was well off economically, she was criticized for over working the poor and paying them little. Some poor citizens blamed the countries poverty on unequal distribution of wealth. Many thought it wasn't fair that there were rich people driving by in their nice automobiles while poor starving beggars living on the streets were desperately struggling to survive. "Down with the Four Olds!" was a common fraise that was expressed, which meant execute old ways. The majority of the country was completely brainwashed and was teaching their children that they must get rid of the way things used to be. It got so ridiculous, almost everything you did and owned was considered a four old, and was either confiscated and destroyed or you were criticized and humiliated in public. Then, Ji Li was faced with the most important decision of her life; part with her family and follow chairman Mao, or stay with her family and continue to be humiliated and accused of breaking the four olds and live in fear of the communist party. Ji Li as well as many others lived in great fear during this time, and lives were changed dramatically forever.
Opinion:
The Ideal audience for this book was for everybody! It was a book about a serious issue that adults can understand and relate to, but it was told through the eyes of a child so that children too, can understand. The author's literary techniques were used in the form of foreshadowing, and through static characters. Ji Li Jiang, initially stayed the same throughout the story, although she was forced to mature a lot quicker than she normally would have, with having the new responsibilities of taking care of her younger brother and sister and her mother. The story was told through an interesting point of view that was very personal because it was based on a true story of the author herself. The book was an absolute page-turner with the point of the theme to show "just how much one person can effect the lives of so many". Ji Li was so innocent and had an admiring personality. She ran into breathtaking events that kept you off the edge of your seat and made it extremely interesting to read. Recommendations for this book are, I believe everyone should read this book because it teaches you a good lesson, with a little bit of history from a very personal point of view.
1971817
I enjoyed this story because the hardships faced by the main character were tolerated because she was so driven and so brilliant. Her ultimate success  despite the exploitation of her jealous aunt and below poverty level standard of living were only exceeded by her deep Chinese sense of dignity and dedication to her goals. It's both heart wrenching and motivating.
2678243
"Mr. China" is a collection of vignettes of real-life misadventures by Wall Street in its drive to invest and profit from China's production abilities in the 1990's; attempts to make profit from investing in the "one billion three." Here, the author is the first person protagonist as he tries to supervise his many venture factories.

Every possible disaster ensued: flooding; national economic downturns; international incidents. Personnel problems topped the list.  The Chinese directors manage to do everything possible to sink their own ships (sometimes to fund a new one): resist modern efficiency; embezzle; set up competing businesses; spend millions on fruitless unauthorized enterprises and to play the government and the courts against their foreign partners.  The disasters drove the author, via stress, to near death.

The book is an effort to convey and to understand what happened. The surprising conclusion of the book is that the author believes the business mismatch of East and West, when looked at from the Chinese perspective, shows, in fact, the strength of the Chinese character: in times of trouble, to look to the short term and seize advantage when offered. In the end the author became life long friends with many of his adversaries.

The book seemed long on disasters and short on solid insight. But the book can serve well as a cautionary tale to today's investors in China's industries.
853647
i wrote this book back in 2007, when i first moved to China. I was super stoked about living in China, and all the great experiences I was having. I didn't see anything wrong with China then. If I write an updated version, I will definitely list more drawbacks to living here, because there are. Overall, though, I still enjoy living here. Every day is different. There are always happy people excited to meet their first foreigner. There are tons of fun and odd jobs to take part in. There are lots of beautiful, yet humble girls here. The weather in Beijing sucks, and the air is bad, but there are many good parts. Like the people, the job opportunities, the low cost of living. So, I would still, say: "Move to China", if you are looking for a new adventure. I am working on the new version now.
2841777
This is a terrific memoir from a freelance journalist whose wife was transferred to Beijing to head the China bureau of the Wall Street Journal. Author Alan Paul, his wife Becky and their three young children lived in China for nearly four years.  What began as a great and scary adventure ended up being all that and more, as the family became attached to their host nation and its people, as well as to several other Western families who were part of their expat community.

While Becky went to her office most days and the kids were either at school or in the care of a nanny, Paul did house husband things like grocery shopping and wrote columns for several music magazines, with which he had an established relationship going back many years.  He also began to reinvigorate his own performance career by organizing a jazz/blues band composed of Western and Chinese members.  As the band got better and better they became quite popular in Beijing and environs, eventually being voted the best band in Beijing and getting as many bookings as they could reasonably play -- sometimes two or three in a week. Paul tells some very funny stories about how he and his group became "big in China," which is the origin of the book's title.

Paul also tells some good tales about his friends, wife and kids and how they adapted to Chinese customs, food and lifestyles.  The family had open minds about everything that they came across, which seems to me to have enhanced their experiences in China a great deal.  I very much enjoyed reading about the markets, foods, pastimes and other facets of Chinese culture that are under reported or ignored by most mass media outlets. Since Paul is a professional journalist, the book reads well and has that feel of immediacy that engages readers and gives us a reason to keep turning the pages.

If you read much about globalization, especially nonfiction tomes and serious news reports, the prevailing view of China as an economic competitor to the US, while perhaps true, is a narrow and biased perspective that can get a bit depressing. Big in China will give you a different (and for me much appreciated) point of view about our 'global village' and the basic goodwill of the people in it. Highly recommended.
2900409
A complex microcosm of the world is captured in the faces of those who comprise a quarter of Earth's population, depicted in this kaleidoscopic composure of life. Perhaps Shanghai Province is the most diverse. Smiles and sad faces greet readers, mimicked by stressful expressions on those of "China's Wall Street" investors. Carter has concocted a Rubik's Cube-view of China.

The Magic City of Hong Kong features "the best of Beijing and Bangkok, London and Las Vegas, New York and New Delhi. [T]here truly is nowhere else in the world like Hong Kong...China's wealthiest city." Originally a Portuguese colony, neighboring Macau has taken on the flavor of Las Vegas, where mega-hotelier Steve Wynn influenced Vegas-style over-the-top gaming resorts in China. The "Chinese have turned Macau into their own Sino-Sin City."

Carter chooses to depict China's peoples as they are: the hopeful, the deformed, the sad, those who toil in coal mines and "pink-light" districts. And the coldness of steel reflected in the faces of military personnel. This is a study of China, portrayed by the artistic eye of the photojournalist. As lyrics from Daniel Powter's song, Bad Day, would have us believe, "the camera don't lie." The soul of China is captured by Carter's camera and journalistic text. Perhaps the overwhelming charm of the camera to make people smile unites more than political open-door policies could ever fathom.

Carter's camera captures Xanadu, "the summer palace of Kublai Khan." A "rowdy drinker" in Chaoyang, Beijing Province, laughingly offers American-born Carter, who now lives in Beijing, the American single-finger salute. In shadows of gleaming glass-and-steel towers, ancient tiled pagoda-temple roofs crumble from neglect.

This is a somewhat voyeuristic view of the peoples who are the soul of China. The 33 chapters coincide with China's equal number of provinces. Most notable is the ever-present smile a camera generates. Contrasts abound: A street cleaner who earns $800 a year is featured daydreaming in front of a luxury-car dealership.

Poetry introduces each chapter/province, and not only the pictorial kind. From Chapter Ten, Zhejiang Province, poetic prose lures the wanderlust:

  Lady Zhejiang here we must part,
  For the next province awaits my embrace,
  Sad wanderer once you conquer the East,
  Where do you go?

Imagine capturing the spirit of fifty states in six hundred pages. Twelve pages for New York State would include only two for New York City. California would use up one pixel for each city and town.

Tom Carter has truly portrayed the "Portrait of a People." This is a must-read pictorial journey of eternal China.

  ---Reviewed by L. Dean Murphy
1390497
Upon reading and viewing the images of Tiziana & Gianni Baldizzone's "Esprit Nomad" on Le Figaro, a photo exhibition in Jardin du Luxembourg earlier this year in Paris, one name came immediately to my mind--Tom Carter.

It's neither your highly publicized new Modern China of concrete jungle, the new wave of gold (money) rush and the 2nd world economic power, nor it is your romanticized China in Zhang-yimou's  gold-glazing extravaganza  and seductive women loosely wrapped in lavishing and silky dresses. This is the other side of the China story, the story that you've not yet been told.

Tom Carter takes you to the alley of Beijing Hutong  to meet the young women working in the pre-Beijing Olympic pink-light district; the high-rise building (completely beyond the realm of aestheticism) juxtaposed to the ravished old lanes houses of shattered beauty and buried stories; the daily Salah prayer in a 15th century Id Kah Mosque, a Tibetan Buddhist embarking on a long and painstaking journey to the holy capital Lhasa with nothing but a leap of faith.

It's the portrait of a rapidly developing China, the fragility of a new-born national and cultural identity in the making, the colorful and vibrant landscape of multiculturalism, the shocking contrast of old and new, modernization and the remains of their past, ancient wisdom and certain painful memories. It is a portrait of a people in all its complicity and simplicity.

Tom is very proud of his book. When I spoke to Tom 2 years ago, he told me that his book could be used as educational material, even for school kids. Carter opens your eyes and invites you to witness, even just in a few glimpse of the modern China and its minority cultures from its everyday life to hidden and unusual scenes, from the modernization of Shanghai, Beijing to the remotest corners of Yunn, Kashgar and Qinghai, untainted and still seem to be frozen in time.

Indeed, it's the smile of a Al Ha minority woman (a smile not yet "contaminated" by modernization, materialism and economic growth?), the luminous eyes of a Uyghur girl that made us realize that it's a culture not lost but found and thanks to Carter, captured by his lenses in this two-year journey across 33 provinces and +800 images.

Under the immense sky, there lies the jaded-green Yamdrok-tso Lake, if you are willing to stay still for a while, maybe you will also hear the rest of the China story and the Portrait of a People.
1451703
After I arrived in the US in 1994, a friend lent me a copy of "Life and Death in Shanghai". I cried many times while reading it.  It brought back my miserable childhood and the humiliation and suffering I and my family had experienced in China.  It was then that the idea was born to share my story about how a little class enemy became a world citizen and my book "Flying High out of a Tibetan Valley" came into being. Thank you, Nien Cheng.
I grew up in an isolated Tibetan town in western Sichuan Province. At the age of 12, I witnessed a "struggle meeting" in which my parents were denounced as enemies of the state and repeatedly beaten.  Soon both my parents were jailed and I had to live on my own. During high school and in the countryside as an Educated Youth, I was often chastised and shunned, not only for my family background, but also for my unusual ambition to become a writer and translator and to fly high out of a Tibetan valley as a world citizen.
Nien Cheng suffered unthinkable persecution as an adult during the ten years of madness, while I suffered oppression as a child.  So I wrote of the Cultural Revolution from a child's point of view.  Nien Cheng came from Shanghai, the biggest city in China, while I came from an isolated Tibetan valley.  As you read such personnal stories you will get a better understanding of what Chinese children and adults went through during Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.  Thanks to Nien Cheng, Americans can know what Life and Death under a dictatorship is like.
4589785
China's most famous and beloved novel is The Dream of the Red Chamber (also known as The Story of the Stone or Hong Lou Meng).  China's own version of the TV show Dynasty, the story features an 18th Century noble family's soap opera of daily life and vices. It might even make a good mini-series today.

The story begins in the heavens, where a stone accidentally acquires knowledge.  As a result, it tells the gods it wants to spend time on earth learning about human emotions.  When the stone receives permission to visit earth, two gods come along, disguised as a Buddhist monk and a Daoist monk. They follow the stone as it falls into the hands of the spoiled and effeminate youngest son of a powerful clan, Pao Yu Chia, sometimes intervening in events.  The Chias are a very rich and powerful Mandarin family, unaware that their actions will soon lead them into financial and moral ruin.  The story is complemented and complicated by the intermingled storyline of Pao Yu Chia's evil twin, Pao Yu Chen.  The Dream may be read on many levels: a love story, a social history, a philosophical musing on the futility of human existence, or a repository of Chinese artistic and literary values.

The story provides a picture of courtly aristocratic life in the Qing dynasty.  It reveals the hierarchies among the female family members and concubines and among the female servants, which result in numerous intrigues and machinations.  This story shows how having multiple wives can create many more hazards than pleasures--certainly for the wives, as they vy for power, enact revenge, and create or endure manipulative schemes. Among both the men and the women characters, the plot is filled with ridiculous squabbles and misunderstandings that sometimes are just farcical, but other times end in lawsuits or even tragedy.  The elaborate protocol used in a courtly residence to create "face" also often causes unintended slights or misinterpretations that cause a loss of face instead.  Then the story focuses on the characters' social gymnastics to undue the damage. Certainly through all of this the benefits and drawbacks of strictly adhering to Confucian philosophy are made clear.  The book is also reminiscent of a Victorian comedy of manners.  The characters are concerned with love, destiny, and their social position, all shaped by Confucian protocol.

Unfortunately, this particular translation left me questioning why this story is considered China's best novel.  This condensed version was clearly a mistake.  I got a flavor for the story, but so much was lost that it would have been better to start with volume one of the long translation. (I have since discovered that the original is a five-volume edition.)  What you get with this short translation is a good feel for the main characters, especially the love triangle, and for the social dynamics within the family.  If you're short on time, consider this version as an appetizer before the full Chinese banquet of the original.  That said, it might also be better to read it in the original Chinese, if you have the privilege of being able to do so.  A family tree and a list of characters would also have been very helpful.  If you read it, create your own, as it can be difficult to keep track of who's who.
2677875
We are going to China next Fall, so I thought I would try out the Shanghai Daily, an English newspaper published in China.

I actually quite like it. As I write this the massive earthquake is still the top news, so the paper is steeped in reporting death tolls, survivor stories, etc. I certainly have been getting a more in-depth look at the aftermath of the earthquake than I get on the 30 second sound clips on the local news.

What makes the paper 'interesting' is the editorial opinions. As you read these you realize that this paper must 'toe the line' with the ruling Communist Party.

For instance, several US newspapers had written that due to China's "one baby" rule (a family cannot have more than one child) many married couples who lost their one child in the earthquake are devasted by, not only due to their losing their only child, but, due to age, they can no longer have any more children. To face old age in China without children is unthinkable.

Yet the editorial piece in the Shanghai paper took the US papers to task, trying to be 'sarcastic', but with a noteable lack of success. The editor asked (paraphrase): "Are the US papers suggesting that the sense of loss to a Chinese parent is lessened if they have two children and lose only one; or have three children and yet lose only one; or have four...."(you get the drift; they went up to TEN children). The piece did not make a lot of sense (I know I am reporting the piece very poorly), but the editorial completely, and knowingly I bet, missed the whole point of the US articles. Never once did the editor address the fact that older women would not be able to have another child. Rather, the editorial ended up praising the one-child rule.

The paper is also interesting in how it reports the number of Chinese citizens thanking their leaders for all the help provided after the earthquake, or how a child in some province was urging people to donate 10 cents apiece; or how a businessman shamed his family by only offering 100,000 huan to the victims, representing only 1 percent of his wealth, etc.

The paper also reports US sports (it is a newspaper for people who speak English living in China, much like the Paris Tribune) and entertainment. It was rather a shock, in my first Kindle issue, to finish reading about the structural damage to various dams in western China, then 'flip' the page to see a headline about Angelina Jolie expecting twins.

I'm not sure why I am giving four stars rather than five. I guess because I sense I will probably grow tired of it after a while (especially after I return from China and the novelty has worn off).

Edited to Add: Another 'editorial' addressed some of the critics who say that the reason China's leaders have been so 'open' about the earthquake is because of the uncoming Olympics; that they feel pressure to be transparent about the earthquake, victims, etc. The person writing the editorial says that the critics are wrong! How did he prove this? He wrote (again, paraphrase from memory): "They are so wrong! I went to the Vice Premier of the People's Communist party and he assured me that the critics are wrong!" Ah, proof indeed!

Again, while many of the 'editorials' seem to have been written by High School students taking a journalism class, many of the news pieces are very, very information. Indeed, some of the news pieces about American politics are more informative than the sound bites we tend to get from our news sources.
172632
In China, duty has long trumped feelings, and happiness as a concept typically does not register as it does in America where people prize their right to the pursuit of happiness.  The West has become accustomed to a society infused and perfused with notions of romance and sex continually streaming from the media and entertainment industry.  So presentism can make it nearly impossible to conceive of living in a culture devoid of talk, literature, and images about dating, finding soul mates, and forming fulfilling marital bonds.

In this gem of a first book by Melissa Margaret Schneider, these vast differences come alive through 27 fascinating, very personal and sometimes raw stories.  Based on one-on-one interviews during Schneiders recent years of living in Shenzhen, these vignettes allow both men and women to describe their individual path to meeting, dating, having sex with, marrying, and sometimes divorcing their significant other or spouse.  They not only reveal much about familial and societal constraints, but also share many aspects of Chinas all-pervasive government directives and pressures.

The stories are arranged by decades, and each section opens with an overview that includes both a historical backdrop and cultural setting.  In this way, each generation, from those born in the 1950s through those entering the world in the 1990s, tells love and marriage stories in the context of its coming-of-age years.

Perhaps many readers will learn the difference between baby-managed marriages and baby-raise wives as well as what an Iron rice bowl job is and how parents use public marriage boards to this day.  People from the West might be most struck by the freedoms they enjoy and even more, the opportunities they have experienced to think and dream about love.  On the other hand, many Chinese men and women might well see themselves in one or more of these stories where marriage was viewed through the years as a necessity for procreation, and in-laws were to be revered over the spouse.

This book contains a timeline of Chinas recent history, which provides a handy reference.  It is an enlightening read on the evolution of love and marriage in China and will undoubtedly stimulate a great deal of comparisons and soul-searching about how cultures allow people to make life choices.
1733038
Jenny Bowen and her husband decided to adopt a Chinese girl after hearing about the plight of unwanted girls in China. Their own children were grown and out of the house. They had a busy life as film producers. Yet they felt they had to rescue at least one child from the horror.

After adopting and realizing how bad the orphanage conditions were, Jenny committed to changing that situation. Although clueless as to how to begin, she began assembling people around her who could help her form a non-profit dedicated to improving the orphanage conditions in China.

This book tells the tale of her multi-year struggle to make headway into the Chinese government and to finally convince them of the need for more human, happy, and healthy orphanages. She documents the victories as well as the setbacks. Ultimately, they end up moving the Chinese government to reform, and adopting another girl they fell in love with during the process.

While its a good story with a happy ending, I was left a little confused. It seems odd to me that the Chinese people had to be told its a bad thing to tie an infant in a crib with a bottle attached to her and leave her that way for hours. That its a good thing to hold a child and comfort her. That potty-training does not mean strapping 1-year-olds to toilets all day, every day. That toys should not be broken. That the rooms should not be dark and dirty.

I mean, are the Chinese people stupid? Are they uncaring and evil? Have they never raised children before? Why do they need a white woman from America to come in and work VERY HARD to convince them of the need for relatively small and inexpensive changes? Its odd. I have a sense they were playing her. Of course the knew the conditions were horrendous, but like all government projects, quality is not the goal. I think the failure was a failure of their vaunted government and to change meant to admit that. I think the only reason they did change was to save face with the rest of the world. I think they are so enamored with government and efficiency and have so little respect for human life, that this is what that looks like.

She had no real words of condemnation for this mentality. She didn't comment on it at all. Its clear that she is not a Christian, but is kind of spiritual. Obviously she cares more for humanity than for a political system saving face. But why did she never critique their worldview? Why did she never wonder how the system came to be? Why didn't she at least attempt to get into their heads? Maybe she didn't want to lose access. Thats fine, I guess. Maybe I'm looking at this too politically and neglecting the beautiful story of salvation contained within the book. But still, I felt strangely disappointed at the end of a book that should have left me with hope.