Showing posts with label memoirs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memoirs. Show all posts

The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (Studies on China) Review

The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (Studies on China)
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The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (Studies on China) ReviewThere are some definite highs and lows in Deborah Davis' book (lows being the very first chapter on housing developments and an entire chapter devoted to greeting cards), but the book gives a very in-depth analysis of the effects rapid consumption in urban areas has had on the daily life of urban Chinese citizens. Davis selects essays that show changes in culture, like the essays regarding McDonald's, discos, and bowling. Davis even shows us consumption patterns in the more marginal cultures of China. For instance, there is an essay devoted to the Hui (an Islamic minority in China) wedding tradition. Since rapid consumption has happened in China, these Hui women are starting to wear more Western-style wedding dresses. These dresses greatly resemble the dresses we see everywhere in America, with the exception that the Hui women's dresses are brighter in color (coral, pink, red).
Davis also devotes much of the book to showing changes in eating traditions. One chapter on outdoor food markets explains the shady side of economics in China. Food vendors will cheat Chinese so much that some Chinese will bring their own scales to weigh the food. Also, in the chapter dealing with the influx of McDonald's into urban China, we can see that the push for modernity can sometimes win over Chinese tradition. For instance, some people will go into McDonald's and just sit by the window so they can have a sense of superiority over the people walking by on the street. Many Chinese people don't even like the food at McDonald's, but feel the need to go to express their modernity.
Davis' book shows us many different effects of the consumer revolution, both good and bad. I recommend this book for anyone interested in studying China. Just don't get discouraged when you come across a dry chapter!The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (Studies on China) Overview

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Mao's Last Dancer Review

Mao's Last Dancer
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Mao's Last Dancer ReviewLi Cunxin accurately portrayed the differences between life in rural China and life in the United States. The difference between city life and rural life in China differs greatly. A great point in the story is when Cunxin was leaving home for the first time, and his brother gave him two Yuan that he had been saving for two months. I also enjoyed reading about Cunxin's life in America and how it greatly differed from his life in China. I was amazed by his change from being a poor farm boy to an international star. That took years of hard work and determination. The story teaches the lesson that no matter what your family background is, it is always possible to leave this path and seek a better life. Overall, this book is well written and I recommend it to people of all ages. Even though the novel does not reflect the lives of all people in China, it gives readers a perspective of rural life in China.Mao's Last Dancer Overview

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The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng Review

The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng
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The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng ReviewThis book set me off on a binge of Chinese history reading. I had to know more about Kang Sheng, for example, and "Claws of the Dragon" helped shed light on this "immortal". Then there were: Zhou Enlai's hagiography 'Eldest Son' at the hands of Han Suyin; The White Boned Demon, about Jiang Qing; Mao's doctor's self-glorifying account; Deng's biography. Nothing compares to this book for readability and sense of magnitude. You meet the twenty or so people who decided the fates of a billion Chinese. Modern democracy has nothing to compare. The personalities in recent Chinese history, the importance of them, are staggering. The Great Leap, the Cultural Revolution--these hellish mass movements affected hundreds of millions of people. You get to see the tiny coterie which ordered the lives of a significant portion of the Earth's inhabitants for fifty years. An amazing book.
I wish Harrison Salisbury were still around to write an update. TNE stops in 1991 as the economy is slowing and the hardliners are asserting themselves. Deng visited the "new cities" on the South China Sea in 1993-4, invigorating them and the "capitalism with Chinese characteristics" which they represented. What followed, of course, is our recent history of China thinking itself as a great power.The New Emperors: China in the Era of Mao and Deng Overview

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Escape to Shanghai: A Jewish Community in China Review

Escape to Shanghai: A Jewish Community in China
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Escape to Shanghai: A Jewish Community in China ReviewAs readable as a novel, but based on painstaking research, Ross's account of the Jews who lived out the Holocaust in Shanghai focuses on four individual and their families. There is another book that deals mostly with the religious Jews in Shanghai (which Ross, disappointingly, ignores except for one or two disparaging remarks), but this book presents an excellent overall picture by following the lives of specific people. Highly recommended.Escape to Shanghai: A Jewish Community in China Overview

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Voices from Shanghai: Jewish Exiles in Wartime China Review

Voices from Shanghai: Jewish Exiles in Wartime China
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Voices from Shanghai: Jewish Exiles in Wartime China ReviewThe book is very good. The kindle edition very poor. The tipography sizes varies wildly. Some text is presented as an image and the font size is very tiny and you cannot change it (because it was scanned not typed). Some text in the same phrase is not horizontally aligned.Voices from Shanghai: Jewish Exiles in Wartime China Overview

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Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl's Journey from Hitler's Hate to War-Torn China Review

Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl's Journey from Hitler's Hate to War-Torn China
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Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl's Journey from Hitler's Hate to War-Torn China ReviewWhen I started Shanghai Diary, I found that I simply couldn't put it down. I hadn't known the story of the Shanghai Jews in the Hongkew ghetto, and I was riveted by the well-written story of Ursula Bacon's 8 years as a young girl in Shanghai, where it was nothing to see a dead baby girl thrown on a heap of trash and where day-to-day existence was harsh and often degrading. Despite all of this, Ursula's family managed to maintain their dignity and prevail. To me it was a story of great courage. When she left Shanghai at the end of the war, far from being devastated by the experience, Ursula took away the lesson that she had seen first hand what hate can do, and she would never hate anyone as long as she lived. The book was so moving that I had to sit quietly and reflect for quite some time after I read the final page.Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl's Journey from Hitler's Hate to War-Torn China Overview

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My Journey in Mystic China: Old Pu's Travel Diary Review

My Journey in Mystic China: Old Pu's Travel Diary
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My Journey in Mystic China: Old Pu's Travel Diary ReviewJohn Blofeld's account of his travels in China during the 1930's & 40's are translated for the first time and it is a cause for celebration for all Sinophiles. His words are a visual canvas of pastels and rich colors, smells, and tastes of a China no longer to be seen. Blofeld comes across as a gentle loving soul that if one were to accept reincarnation as a fact, then this British born man was truly Chinese in his soul. Besides a journal of his travels, he also offers folk stories and accounts of inexplicable sights and people he encountered along the way.
Blofeld is a fine writer of great subtlety and nuance. Normally I am a quick reader but like a fine tea I wanted to savor each page and chapter of this book. The translation by Daniel Reid is superlative. Reid's deep friendship and admiration he cultivated in the last years of Blofeld's life imbues this work with a warmth and charm too little seen in memoirs today.
For those interested in the history of China, Chinese folk life, Taoism, Confucianism or Buddhism this book is recommended. I know this is a work that I will return to every so often like a visit with a good friend and raconteur.My Journey in Mystic China: Old Pu's Travel Diary Overview

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Msg: Memoirs From China Review

Msg: Memoirs From China
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Msg: Memoirs From China ReviewWith a wry sense of humor, Ms Kindred's diary of six months in Lin'an and Shanghai with brief side trips to Nanjing, Beijing, Harbin, Guilin and a few other stops quickly becomes very predictable. From a student's/part-time freelance English teacher's perspective, I often wondered how much was filtered through an alcholic haze. That's not to say her observations aren't true, they just pour out without any insight or with feable attempts at balanced viewpoints. Many people come to China with a sense of awe and wonder. The reality, however can be quite different and many foreigners simply reject all that is different ftom their cozy world back home. What you read in this published version of Ms. Kindred's blog can be found in several China-based forums and you'll save yourself some money.Msg: Memoirs From China Overview

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