The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • Brilliant!
  • Prepare for the unexpected.
  • Interesting motive, fails to deliver
  • Interesting Perspective Rarely Seen
  • who's talking now
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
Maxine Hong Kingston
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679721886
Release Date: 1989-04-23

Amazon.com

The Woman Warrior is a pungent, bitter, but beautifully written memoir of growing up Chinese American in Stockton, California. Maxine Hong Kingston (China Men) distills the dire lessons of her mother's mesmerizing "talk-story" tales of a China where girls are worthless, tradition is exalted and only a strong, wily woman can scratch her way upward. The author's America is a landscape of confounding white "ghosts"--the policeman ghost, the social worker ghost--with equally rigid, but very different rules. Like the woman warrior of the title, Kingston carries the crimes against her family carved into her back by her parents in testimony to and defiance of the pain.

Book Description

A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Brilliant!.......2007-08-25

An excellent book, funny, insightful, poignant. Ms. Kingston brilliantly conveys how cultures can clash within the minds of those who straddle them. After reading this book I bought half a dozen copies to give to close friends.

5 out of 5 stars Prepare for the unexpected........2007-03-22

This is a tremendous novel. The author threads the stories her mother told her when she was a child, through the retelling of her own life, using them to draw you into her own imagination. As she grows up, living half immersed in traditional myth and half in gritty reality, where mothers and daughters are only human, the reader grows up with her. The first person telling of her childhhood stories puts the reader directly in the shoes of a child/young adult working through the stories she has been told, using them to form her hopes and dreams and her understanding of the world.

(N.B. You may not think that your childhood stories influenced the way you live, but if you think for a minute, I am certain some will come back to you and you'll realize that just the other day you did something based on or combatting that belief. Maybe you even still wish on stars?)

2 out of 5 stars Interesting motive, fails to deliver.......2007-01-12

While the perspective and ideas of this novel are ones rarely seen in modern day literature, Maxine Hong Kingston fails to captivate a reader in a way that one would expect from a novel dealing with the difficulties of not only being a minority in the U.S., but for simply being female.

The story starts off with the tale of Kingston's deceased aunt, who brought shame to the family and was unmentionable due to the fact that she bore an illegitimate child. As she gets into the tale and finds a parallel between herself and her aunt, both not wanting to conform to societal expectations, the story quickly changes to a story of a legendary girl trained by two old people to battle evil. The narration is filled with melodramatic elements and disorganized and often random occurences that make no sense at all, thereby losing the reader's interest early on in the book. The story then changes a few more times to different events in her family occuring in different eras, making it hard to grasp the relationship between themand her purpose for doing so. As you can see, the organization in this novel seems to be its biggest flaw. Instead of focusing on one tale and going in depth about it, the fact that Kingston changes stories so frequently and often before they are fully developed is annoying and seems to be pointless. While the stories she includes share a common theme of decpicting independent and strong women, her melodramatic and ineffective ways of narrating not only loses the reader's interest but in the process, I think even Kingston got confused about what she was trying to say!

4 out of 5 stars Interesting Perspective Rarely Seen.......2007-01-12

Kingston combines the use of allegory, fantasy, and real life elements of her childhood to explore the social status of Chinese American women from the 1940s to the present in The Woman Warrior. While at first all of her stories may seem random, they all connect to Kingston's point of view as to how not just being a minority but also being a female made life difficult for her in both cultures. Her interwoven stories were so fascinating, as she brilliantly compares what she truly wants and what society is willing to allow her to do. It is crucial that the reader pay close attention to when her stories shift. My one problem with her plot organization is that she focuses on one story, and then suddenly shifts to another story. I couldn't understand until I was at the middle of the plot to comprehend each story's purpose in the bigger picture. But once the reader succeeds in getting over that one flaw, the rest is amazing. Kingston develops a unique style all on her own as she somehow connects the fantastical parts of her dreams to what she is forced to experience in everyday reality. In the backdrop of her personal experience, Kingston describes America's problems with racism and sexism different women in her lives are hurt by this. Kingston needed to maintain her flow; but the intriguing connections involving fantasy and reality work effectively to enhance her purpose.

1 out of 5 stars who's talking now.......2007-01-11

This book tries to do too much! and doesn't succeed.

Even though this book had a good story over all, the confusing narration completely distracts from the intended message.

The entire story is in first person, no matter who is talking. This gets very confusing when the story suddenly shifts to another woman's story and you still think you are reading about the previous person. Suddenly you are reading and you think that the same character has somehow appeared on the other side of the world having no idea how she got there.

You will end up spending the whole book just trying to figure out who is speaking that you will miss most of what the book tries to say.

This is supposed to show the reality of what it is like to be a chinese woman but this is too hard to see when everything else is in the way.

This book does do some things well like its clever incorporation of irony in the narrator's retelling of a story that she has been forbidden to tell. It also incorporates superstitious elements such as her mother's battle with ghosts while at college and the enticing tale of the woman warrior. There is more irony seen here when most women in the story are seen as being weak, yet the woman warrior is strong and represents all the women with its title.
Journey Across the Four Seas: A Chinese Woman's Search for Home
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • An extraordinary journey, an extraordinary woman
  • Education of Women in the Third World
  • Deep, Intriguing Story
  • Jouney Across the Four Seas: A Chinese Woman's Search for Home
  • History distilled
Journey Across the Four Seas: A Chinese Woman's Search for Home
Veronica Li
Manufacturer: Homa & Sekey Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1931907439

Book Description

This is a true and touching story of one Chinese woman¡¦s search for home. It is also an inspiring book about human yearning for a better life. To escape poverty, Flora Li fought her way through the education system and became one of the few women to get into the prestigious Hong Kong University. When the Japanese invaded, she fled to unoccupied China, where she met her future husband, the son of China¡¦s finance minister (later deputy prime minister).

She thought she had found the ideal husband, but soon discovered that he suffered from emotional disorders caused by family conflicts and the wars he had grown up in. Whenever he had a breakdown, Flora would move the family to another city, from Shanghai to Nanking to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Taipei and finally across the four seas to the U.S. Throughout her migrations, Flora kept her sight on one goal¡Xproviding her children with the best possible education.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars An extraordinary journey, an extraordinary woman.......2007-03-06

A book about a beautiful, determined, intelligent and well-educated Chinese woman, Flora Li, who overcomes all obstacles to ensure an education and a future for her children. She is focused and committed. She refuses to allow a difficult marriage, the frequent need to relocate her family, and the hardships of war stand in the way of her goals for her children. No matter what problems she encounters on her way, she can and will cope.

Her story is at times inspiring and at times harrowing, but there is humor here and the sometimes unexpected twist which surprises and delights. The language is lively and the story is full of cleverly-translated Chinese idioms that are colorful and exotic. The author has captured her mother's voice perfectly. By the end of the book, the reader knows Flora intimately, like a member of one's own family.

As a western reader, I was also fascinated by this glimpse into an unknown world -- that of women in China and the Far East in the decades before and after World War II. Highly recommended.

5 out of 5 stars Education of Women in the Third World.......2007-03-02

At least three strands run through this book. One is of course embedded in the book title: The heroine, Flora's, search for home. A second strand is the Chinese Women's lib: how the attitude of women in China (in this case mostly Hong Kong)changed during Flora's life span from bound feet and near-slavery to full emancipation. But I find the third strand, education, particularly striking. It emerges first in the story of young Flora, an impoverished orphan, who against all odds manages to get herself into primary school, then secondary school, and finally into the prestigious Hong Kong Unversity. The education story re-surfaces during Flora's motherhood when she realizes that her children, particularly her oldest son, will have little or no chance of getting good education unless she transplants the family across the four seas in the USA. And that is what she does.
This is a powerful story of a determined woman who through sheer grit and determination rises from poverty and leaves her children with a solid educational foundation on which to build their lives. A must-read for people concerned with the importance of educating girls in the Third World.

Sverrir Sigurdsson,
Vienna,
Virginia

5 out of 5 stars Deep, Intriguing Story.......2007-02-28

This book was very difficult to put down. It's a fascinating story with many interesting characters that places the reader in a former world that not many know about. The one thing that got to me was the fact that this is plain and simple, a true story. It has the potential to make one more appreciative of life, knowing some of the hardships that Flora confronted as a young woman.

5 out of 5 stars Jouney Across the Four Seas: A Chinese Woman's Search for Home.......2007-02-27

Veronica Li surely has inherited her mother's gift of story telling. It made me feel like I was there in person to witness the events. This was a fascinating story of how one woman struggled and sacrificed for the betterment of her family. You will laugh and cry with Flora. You will learn about the customs and the way of life of Chinese people during World War II.

Do not read this book unless you have several hours to yourself. Once you have opened the book you will not want to put it down.

5 out of 5 stars History distilled.......2007-02-27

Veronica Li has gleaned the most meaningful aspects of her mother's experience during the great revolution of her prime, weaving it into a heartening story of a woman who recognizes her own strength by fearlessly wading through a life that is tumultuous on both political and personal fronts. Through the tale of one woman, undauntedly persistent in her pursuit of a better life for her children, Veronical Li has chronicled the epic of the Chinese American woman's rise to power.
A Daughter of Han: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • A rare look at life at the turn of the century in China
  • Superb documentation of a Chinese working woman
  • A Slice of Life
  • I Really Liked this book!
  • life of one Chinese woman
A Daughter of Han: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman
Ida Pruitt
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0804706069

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars A rare look at life at the turn of the century in China.......2006-12-07

China always seems to have a veil of mystery around it. This book give a rare glimpse of life at the turn of the 19th century as the empire was dying and the nationalists and communists were gearing up for battle. I read this book for a class on Chinese women and absolutely loved it. I will always remember the part of having her feet bound and how her mother would lay on her legs at night so that she could sleep. Unfortunately I lost the book after many years. It wasn't until now, as I was conducting inventory of our biography collection at the library where I work, that I came across the sequal to this book. For those who could not get enough of Lao Tai-tai, there is a second book by Ida Pruitt titled "Old Madam Yin: a memoir of Peking life 1926-1938." The copyright date is 1979. The Daughter of Han is now a wealthy widow struggling to adapt to the new order. If you can't find it on amazon you can always Inter-library loan the book, I know there's at least one library in the midwest that has it ;).

5 out of 5 stars Superb documentation of a Chinese working woman.......2006-01-19

This riveting book details an area of Chinese life seldom touched by written records. The remarkable friendship between Ida Pruitt and Ning Lao Toai-Toai has led to this very readable, and beautifully textured description of Ning Lao Toai-Toai's life in the late 19th and early 20th century. I found it both an enjoyable read and a valuable source of information about my research related to Chinese family life.

5 out of 5 stars A Slice of Life.......2004-02-08

Ning Lao Ta'i-ta'i. _The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman. Translated and Transcribed by Ida Pruitt. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967.

Every now and then I read an entire book in one for one or two reasons a) I have to read a book that I have put off for the time period in which I had to read it b) I become completely engrossed in it. I must say that, in the case of this book, it started off as the former and it ended up being the latter, although I still have to write a paper on it by tuesday.

This memoir was was orally transcribed by Ida Pruitt over a two year period in which Mrs. Ning visited her from 1936-38. Pruitt was forced to leave Beijing in 1938 when the Japanese invaded the series. In the brief introduction of the book, Pruitt informs the reader that she does not know what happened to Mrs. Ning after she returned to America. The brutallity of the Japanese army was not as great in Beijing as in such areas as Nanjing and Shanghai,but one can not help wondering about Mrs.Ning who the reader, or at least I, becomes quite attached to.

Mrs. Ning begins her tale by detailing how her family became established in the town of P'englai her family history is both entrenched in history and folklore and makes for a fascinting read. The book continues following her life from her childhood, marriage, hard times, working both for government officials and missionaries, and finally living in Beijing. The greatest thing about this book is the extraordinary detail Mrs. Ning goes into describing her everyday life. One can almost see oneself removing the fourth wall of the past and being able to see late Ching China. One gets to see a good picture of opium addiction and the dealings inside yamen, political offices, that are no longer controlled by skilled officials. A great book.

4 out of 5 stars I Really Liked this book!.......2003-05-17

I had to read this book for a core class in college and I thought that I would have hated it. Actually, I really liked it. It told of a Chinese working woman's life. It even gives the reader an insight into her lifestyle and her struggles during this tumuluous time in history. The story even touches on the japanese invasion. I didn't think this biography would be interesting but it was. I would recommended this book to anyone. It is a light read and it is very interesting.

4 out of 5 stars life of one Chinese woman.......2002-08-22

Ida Pruitt's biography of Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai (literally "old lady Ning"), a peasant woman of northeast China born in 1867, is a fascinating anecdotal retelling of Ning's personal history as she related it to the author over the course of their two year long friendship. The storyline of Ning's life: childhood, marriage, work, and children, is laid out in a chronological history, broken into separate sections at particular turning points; and yet a cohesive theme of hardship, oppression and poverty, of strong-willed women and weak men is carried throughout not only Ning's tales but also through the stories she relates of her ancestors and neighbors.

Pruitt writes in the voice of Ning as if she is translating, but what she is really doing is recalling Ning's stories of her life in the first half of the 20th century. Ning was born into an educated middle class family which had fallen on harder times. Her father wants a better situation for her marriage, but the older husband he choses for her becomes addicted to opium driving the family into poverty. To survive and feed her children Ning must become first a beggar, then a servant to various households: military, Muslim, bureaucrat, and finally to Christian missionaries. And Ning's voice does come across clearly; speaking against concubinage and prostitution, about the penury of employers, the need to support and keep family together.

By using a first person retelling of the stories Pruitt gives the impresssion of accuracy, yet there were 7 years between the conversations with Ning and the writing of the book. Also the apparent bias against Japanese in prologue and last chapter together with the pub. date of the book indicate a hidden agenda on the part of the author. Still, although limited to the view of this one woman's experience, Ning's story is reflective of the hardships of life for Chinese women before the Communist era.
A Woman Soldier's Own Story
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Important, but not necessarily good....
  • this is an overrated work.
  • A Chinese modern classic
  • a woman's revolution
A Woman Soldier's Own Story
Xie Bingying
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0231122500

Book Description

For the first time, a complete version of the autobiography of Xie Bingying (1906-2000) provides a fascinating portrayal of a woman fighting to free herself from the constraints of ancient Chinese tradition amid the dramatic changes that shook China during the 1920s, '30s, and '40s.

Xie's attempts to become educated, her struggles to escape from an arranged marriage, and her success in tricking her way into military school reveal her persevering and unconventional character and hint at the prominence she was later to attain as an important figure in China's political culture. Though she was tortured and imprisoned, she remained committed to her convictions. Her personal struggle to define herself within the larger context of political change in China early in the last century is a poignant testament of determination and a striking story of one woman's journey from Old China into the new world.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Important, but not necessarily good...........2007-04-08

Xie Bingying was many things. Unfortunately, her autobiography does not convey this well, reading like a nationalist propaganda piece. She also did not write much about the political context of the times in which she lived, although I suspect that was deliberate. Her story is still fascinating, however, because of how she navigated the shifting social intersections of China in the turmoil of the early twentieth century. To understand what women went through during this period, this is a valuable resource. I wouldn't recommend it for casual reading though.

1 out of 5 stars this is an overrated work........2005-12-08

I have just read this book for a Chinese Women's history class, and I have found that it is nothing more than a hagiography that oversimplifies many complicated facets of Chinese culture. These days, it seems to be the vogue in literature to publish books by Asian women portraying them as hobbling, footbound victims of patriarchy and oppression. While it is true that Asian culture is definitely patriarchal and something that needs to be reformed, this book is another hackneyed account of a young woman trying to escape "feudal" social structures.
I have no love for this book or any book like it because its message has been written and rewritten in various books by authors such as Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston. The translators say in the introduction that Xie is the symbol of transition from "old" to "new" China. By not clearly defining what these interpretations are, they leave it to their audience to define what "old" and "new" are based on individual interpretaion. Moreover, Xie Bingying's black-and-white, old-and-new, feudal-and progressive viewpoint oversimplifies many complexities that face women in confronting modern gender ideals. If you have read Amy Tan or any other hackneyed works, I recommend skipping this book because it is another example of the oversimplification of cultural identity today.

5 out of 5 stars A Chinese modern classic.......2003-03-13

Few people in the West realize how extraordinary this book is and how much it has influenced generations of young Chinese. I used to own the original (Chinese) version of this book while growing up as a boy in South America in the 60s. I used to read it for guidance and strength in the darkest days of my youth. I must have read and reread it a dozen times before I had to reluctantly part ways with it. This is a true modern classic that is often ignored by contemporary historians of Chinese literature, who prefer the shallowness of the likes of Sanmo. The War Diaries, which were praised by none other than Lin Yutang, are also worth reading; the translators should make them the subject of their next project.
Fine as the edition is, I wish the cover had been different. I have never seen a likeness of Xie xiansheng before and almost overlook the book because I was misled by the photograph of the woman in uniform to think it was a book about the Cultural Revolution. But I am glad the editors have included the photographs contained in the insert. I have always matched the feistiness of the woman soldier with a rather robust physique: I am surprised how fragile and delicate Xie xiansheng actually was.
This book is correctly listed as an autobiography but it reads like a fine novel, with memorable scenes and episodes. Without opening this translation and reading a single line, I can name a half dozen right off the top of my head: the foot-binding, the escapes, the dying brother, the impoverished former army girlfriend, the love triangle, etc. This book is to the Chinese literature what the Ann Frank diaries are to the European; it definitely should not be missed.

5 out of 5 stars a woman's revolution.......2002-02-07

It is a great book! this book portrayed how women were mistreated in the early 20th century in China. In that old days, girls were not allowed to be educated. They only learned how to spin cotton and embroider,, how to be an obedient daughter, and later a dutiful daughter-in-law. The reading materials for them were highly restricted to certain books such as Teach Your Daughter Traditional Rules. The worst thing was that girls had bound feet! However, there were still a few "lucky one" be able to escape from these old customs. Of course, it wasn't easy. This autobiography described an extraordinary woman, Xie Bingying who struggled to free herself from the traaditional Chinese society--received education, freed from an arranged marriage, became a soldier in the National Revolutionary Army, etc. Her experience was extraordinary!! I like this book because it is not only a truth story, it also pertains very rich information about the old Chinese customs.
To The Storm: The Odyssey of a Revolutionary Chinese Woman
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • An honest middle-class revolutionary's diary of self-deception and survival
  • A Trustworthy account of the political & social life in the Mao era
  • A true and compelling story for all interested in China
To The Storm: The Odyssey of a Revolutionary Chinese Woman
Daiyun Yue , and Carolyn Wakeman
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520060296

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars An honest middle-class revolutionary's diary of self-deception and survival.......2007-05-15

At first, Yue Daiyun and her husband were both relatively successful academics, professors at Beida University in Beijing. Yue's father-in-law was a well-respected and wealthy authority on Buddhism, an honored acquaintance of Mao Zedong himself, who had read his books. They were third-generation academics, more middle-class than Communist, yet devoted Party activists.

Because of Yue's history and worldview, her autobiography definitely feels intellectual and academic. There is a very helpful Chronology section, a timeline so that the events of Yue's life can be seen in the context of Chinese history. Her account attempts to make sense out of both the events of her life and of the revolution. She was very aware of current events and what the future might have brought. She kept up with the news and public opinion. Yue's story combines the account of a guardedly emotional and psychological personal life with a very historical feel, as if she was recounting everything important that had happened. It is a shocked and forced coping with the kind of revolution she never could have predicted, that eventually made enemies even of devoted vanguard revolutionaries such as herself.

Yue saw Jiang Qing (Mao's wife) as somewhat petty, since Jiang "furiously" publicly attacked a member of her own family with only spurious justification:

"Hearing her talk on and on about such family members, I wondered how I could ever admire Jiang Qing as a revolutionary leader when she seemed so concerned with personal vendettas (p. 164)."

Like many traditional Chinese, Yue considered family very important, and didn't partake in such vendettas even when her sister-in-law provided ample opportunity to.

This is not a coming-of-age story. Yue came of age before Mao's revolution and the Cultural Revolution that followed, so she was initially surprised by the depths of disloyalty her comrades sank to in order to protect themselves. She did not consider such supposedly revolutionary backstabbing as socially expected like later generations would. Yet Yue kept a strangely unshakable faith in the allegedly revolutionary process of ruining individuals for the sake of the revolution, even when it was her who was denounced and punished. She never even questioned such rampant political scapegoating at all until long after she became a victim herself. Yue saw the effects of chaotic revolution gone violently wild, where even those who risked their lives working against the Guomindang were later condemned as enemies of the people.

China was mostly a country of peasants. Mao was born and raised a peasant. So the purging and oppressive manipulation of the small and elite academic class was an ongoing struggle throughout her life. At one point she is condemned for Rightist tendencies. Later her husband, politically almost identical to Yue, is condemned for being too Leftist. Go figure. They survive decades of anti-academic purges and will-breaking programs designed to make them into impoverished peasants. The way that they survive throughout all the upheavals is inspiring, at times upsetting, but provides a detailed and cogent criticism of Maoism, although Yue remains a Marxist intellectual until the end.

Like Out of the Night: The Memoir of Richard Julius Herman Krebs alias Jan Valtin (NABAT), this is an honest revolutionary's diary of self-deception and survival. Highly recommended to anyone interested in revolutionary politics, who wants to avoid the mistakes of the past.

5 out of 5 stars A Trustworthy account of the political & social life in the Mao era.......2006-08-10

The book was first published in 1985 and I had owned a used copy for at least 15 years but never read beyond a few pages. About a week ago I went to check who the author was on the internet and then dusted the book out and read through to the end. In the book is one of the most trustworthy account of what the political and social life was like in the Mao era, from the founding of the PRC to the post-Mao "Democracy Wall" Movement. The author, a teacher and now a Professor at Peking University had lived through all the political campaigns of the era. She didn't just write catering to the interests of Western readers, like quite a few did. Yet the honest account proves more convincing therefore more damning to the ludicrous and absurd combination of radicalist experiments and power struggles. A famous passage from the Chinese writer Wang Meng quoted at the beginning of the book sets the tone for the whole book:

I have walked through these twenty-one years one step at a time, and I am convinced that not a single step was taken in vain. My only wish is that we firmly remember this lesson paid for in blood, tear, hardship, and unimaginable suffering so that the actual situation can recover its true features and be recorded in the annals of history.

If you are interested in the era, the book is valuable. There probably isn't a Chinese translation of the book and I can guess why. I salute to this strong and courageous woman, now around 75 years old.

5 out of 5 stars A true and compelling story for all interested in China.......2000-03-17

I just read this book and I cannot begin to describe the author, Yue Daiyuan's experiences and anguish during both the Anti-Rightist movement and Cultural Revolution in China. Her story is compelling and also reveals how indoctrinated and committed the young people during the early PRC period were to Communism and Mao Zedong. The book is one long record of the sad and horrendous events that were committed in the name of Revolution. If you're interested in modern Chinese history, this book is a must read since it provides so much first person account of what took place during the senseless period of the 1960's known as the Cultural Revolution.
Pearl Buck, a Woman in Conflict
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    Pearl Buck, a Woman in Conflict
    Nora Stirling
    Manufacturer: New Win Pub
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

    ChineseChinese | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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    20th Century20th Century | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    ASIN: 0832902616
    The Woman Warrior, China Men (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)
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      The Woman Warrior, China Men (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)
      Maxine Hong Kingston
      Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Hardcover

      ChineseChinese | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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      2. Offshore, Human Voices, The Beginning of Spring (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) Offshore, Human Voices, The Beginning of Spring (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
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      ASIN: 1400043840
      Release Date: 2005-04-12

      Book Description

      (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

      Here–for the first time in one volume–are two classic, brilliantly original works on the experience of Chinese immigrants in America. In both books Maxine Hong Kingston mines her family’s past and her culture’s stories, weaving myth and memory to fashion works of enormous revelatory power.

      The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, is Kingston’s disturbing and fiercely beautiful account of growing up Chinese-American in California. The young Kingston lives in two worlds: the America to which her parents have emigrated, a place inhabited by white “ghosts,” and the China of her mother’s “talk stories,” a place haunted by the ghosts of the past. Her mother, who had been a doctor in China but in the United States is reduced to running a laundry, tells her daughter traditional tales of strong, wily women warriorstales–that clash puzzlingly with the real oppression of Chinese women. Kingston learns to fill in the mystifying spaces in her mother’s stories with stories of her own, engaging her family’s past and her own present with anger, imagination, and dazzling passion.

      China Men, a National Book Award winner for fiction, is Kingston’s unforgettable imaginative journey into the hearts and minds of generations of Chinese men in America, from those who worked on the transcontinental railroad in the 1840s to those who fought in Vietnam. Mixing vivid fables and legends, personal stories from her own family, and details of the historical hardships faced by Chinese immigrants in different times and places, Kingston illuminates their long, arduous search for the Gold Mountain.
      Witnessing History: One Chinese Woman's Fight for Freedom
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        Witnessing History: One Chinese Woman's Fight for Freedom
        Jennifer Zeng
        Manufacturer: Soho Press
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Hardcover

        ChineseChinese | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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        ASIN: 1569474214

        Book Description

        "A glimpse not just of the true face of the Chinese government but of the threat holiness poses to the powerful. . . . A useful counterbalance to the reckless enthusiasm of our leaders and media for the Chinese miracle. . . . Should be mandatory reading."-Sydney Morning Herald

        Zheng (Jennifer) Zeng was a graduate in science from Beijing University. She was a wife, a mother, and a Communist Party member. But because she followed a spiritual practice called Falun Gong, her life in China was shattered. Adhering to the practice's simple tenets of Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance, she was amazed that the Party would institute a crack down, arrest her and demand that she recant. After twice being held at a detention center and refusing, she was sentenced without trial to reeducation through forced labor. Her "enlightenment"-in part undertaken by fellow prisoners incarcerated for prostitution, pornography and drug addiction-took the form of beatings, torture with electric prods, starvation, sleep deprivation, and forced labor. She was compelled to knit for days at a time, her hands bleeding, to produce goods contracted for sale in the US market. Many Falun Gong practitioners died under the harsh conditions. Zheng Zeng was lucky.

        Thousands of others remain deprived by an oppressive Chinese government of their freedom of speech and assembly and the freedom to believe as they choose. This is the testament to her ordeal and theirs.


        Jennifer Zeng was born in Sichuan Province, China, in 1966. She now lives in Australia.

        Autobiography of a Chinese woman
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          Autobiography of a Chinese woman
          Pu-wei Yang Chao
          Manufacturer: THE JOHN DAY COMPANY
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Unknown Binding

          ChineseChinese | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
          WomenWomen | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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          ASIN: B0007I9IJE
          Autobiography of a Chinese woman, Buwei Yang Chao,
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            Autobiography of a Chinese woman, Buwei Yang Chao,
            Pu-wei Yang Chao
            Manufacturer: THE JOHN DAY COMPANY
            ProductGroup: Book
            Binding: Unknown Binding

            ChineseChinese | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
            WomenWomen | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
            GeneralGeneral | Genealogy | Reference | Subjects | Books
            ASIN: B0007ENYMA

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