One of my last and best few friends in China ordered and delivered this book to me one day before I came back to Seattle after mom’s funeral. She said it was a hilarious book and would cheer me up. I was suspicious, not about the cheer-ability of the book, but about my capability to read any books in such a state of mind. But its small size made it perfect to put in my handbag and I started reading it at the airport over a bowl of Korean bibimbap.
My friend was right, it was hilarious, not in the way of being funny or humorous, but brutally frank and relievingly enlightening about her aging as a woman (in particular the menopause as what the title says in Japanese), about being a mother and then a grandmother for the first time, about her life falling into pieces and putting the pieces together again, about living on the other side of the vast Pacific Ocean, about losing her mother, and then her father, about my current life and my life in the future. We all know that we will get old and die one day, even my four-year-old says: “We will die at one hundred years old.” But I never pictured in detail how it would look like or feel like. I doubt I was ever able to until the death of my mother. Getting old means wrestling with my own body, while being here looking after my children and flying over the Pacific Ocean several times a year (even if not every month as Ms. Ito did) to look after my parent. Getting old also means that I will have so many experiences under my belt that I don’t care any more about what others think. In the very early years of my motherhood, I used to looking forward to the post-menopause life stage when the children will be adults and we will be empty nesters so that we could travel wherever we want and do whatever we want. But now I think that the next ten years from now on will be the best when my husband and me are physically fit (hopefully), the children can tag along (in most cases), and my father is still alive and healthy (hopefully).
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I’m struggling to find words for “Tenth of December”, a wonderful and powerful collection of short stories by George Saunders. The plots, the lingo, the style were like nothing I’ve ever read so far, were not expected to be liked by me. Yet I adore it, treasure it, reading through each story with an earnest hurriedness and meanwhile reluctancy to finish. The tenderness and warmth in the unbearable pain in each story of this collection makes life, whatever life, bearable. “A book to make you love people again”, as Sian Cain wrote about the book for The Guardian, who finished reading it in tears in a cafe in Notting Hill. This is not to say that it’s melancholic, quite the contrary, it’s brutal and controlled, in a very honest and ordinary tone. However weird and distant situations the people find themselves in the stories, you feel a certain relatedness and empathy. And that’s humanity. GO READ IT. And don’t read the reviews by The NY Times or NPR. Why do the Americans have to mess everything up with politics? Read The Guardian review here. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/dec/28/tenth-of-december-by-george-saunders-a-book-to-make-you-love-people-again
Claire Vaye Watkins definitely has talents. You can tell that almost from the first paragraph of the first story in her first collection “Battleborn”. Her words are both poignant and poetic. I read half of the collection and tried hard to like it, until I finally decided that I am not obliged to like every author who made their name into the “best of the year” list. Nevada - the place and the people, the myths and the miseries - just cannot connect with me, even though the author / narrator weaved cleverly her real own life and history into it. Her narrative techniques, shifting time, tenses, and formats, are a bit too much effort for me, and I am not surprised at all to know that she teaches creative writing at a university. Alors, to counteract my fussy comments, here is a positive review written beautifully by Antonya Nelson for NY Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/books/review/battleborn-by-claire-vaye-watkins.html I have always had mixed feelings about reading Victorian literature. It was a big part of my literature education back in college, so reading, or rather re-reading, Oscar Wilde feels like revisiting the pure and immature love one had at one’s young age. Wilde is certainly charming, witty and hopelessly romantic. If anyone wants to strike an impression in conversations, just memorize some quotes by Wilde, which are plenty. Though I enjoyed “The Importance of Being Ernest” half-heartedly, I could hardly finish “De Profundis”. Repetitive narcissism in a very witty and artistic manner, which could be swallowable if it was half the size. Mais quel pauvre! He just couldn’t get rid of Bosie, after all that he had done to him. Even after he came out of the prison at the end of two years, physically, financially and socially destroyed, he got back together with Bosie. What is that but love? Period.
This is the second time I checked it out of the local library, and this time, I finished reading it, within a week. It is surprisingly very easy to read for me, probably because Ken Liu, who moved to the US at 11 years old from China, draws heavy inspirations from the Chinese culture in some of his short stories in this collection. He is a fascinating story teller. I am particularly impressed by State Change (charming story, but why on earth didn’t she carry more ice cubes?!), Good Hunting (which I read has been adapted, deservedly, into a short film), The Literomancer (a bit too forcing on the reading of Chinese characters, but what a tragic twist of destiny!), The Paper Menagerie (the letter from the mom at the end is a bit too melodramatic but it perfectly succeeds in inducing tears to roll down my cheeks), and The Perfect Match (did I just write about the sci-fi romance film Her?)
Ken Liu possesses a very interesting background of culture and career, so I doubt if he would ever run out of inspirations for stories short or long. I cannot help comparing his work with the last book of short stories that I read: “Dear Life” by Alice Munro, and it’s very unfair to do so I admit. Liu is a very good craftsman, while Munro is an effortless artist. You read great stories, and bit of history in Liu’s words, but you see lively individuals in Munro’s stories, flesh and soul. I cannot recall when was the last time when I finished a book of fiction within one week. Certainly not since I got any child. Dear Life - a collection of short stories by the Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro - certainly made my time well spent. Actually it made me almost feel like an intellectual again, if I was ever one before. I did remember that I was assigned to read one of the stories about 18 years ago by the teacher of English Literature, who was an American novelist himself. “Gravel” was the name of that story, and probably the only one that has the slightest association with the complications of man-woman relationships, though it’s tempting to think that the death of the sister, which is the whole thing about this story, is due to a man-woman relationship. But that was still the safest choice of our teacher for a group of Chinese kids who just turned 20 and mostly didn’t have any experiences or insights into man-woman relationships. I mean now at the age of 36, I feel that I am just starting to understand or guess around the feelings and emotions in those short stories. “No other author can tell quite so much with so little”, I cannot agree more with what Chicago Tribune wrote about Munro. I would argue further that she didn’t even tell that much, but left so much space for you to think, to feel. When I am bored, almost insulted sometimes, by films that are trying so hard to reveal so much about so many things, it’s always a good idea to read a short story by Munro.
It's eye-opening and jaw-dropping to read this book by Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong, especially as a parent.
Main points: 1. Marriage is invented by humans to ensure the reproduction, not for legitimizing sex. 2. Reproduction (raising kids) is a truly altruistic cause at the expense of oneself. 3. The family is dual-line which includes both sides of the parents, while the clan is mainly single-line. It's not a cheerful relationship that he depicted between the married couple, but it's also very interesting and inspiring to read about his observations of the differences between the past and the current (which was about half a century ago), as well as between the west and the east. I didn't see the English translation of the book, but the original Chinese version is available at Amazon or Kindle. Hello! I am back, after almost two years! Lots of things happened, as in everyone else's life: a new baby, a new house, and then Covid. I have been writing in Chinese in my Chinese blog, but now I have decided to move my writing to the English platform. I have recently started a diary for my daughter who is 4.5 years old now, handwritten in a notebook. I will share some of it on my blog here. You are welcome to tell me your thoughts if it rings anything in you.
Yesterday I started to read "From the Soil" by the distinguished Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong (《乡土中国》,费孝通), and I am marveled at how accurate his observations and explanations are about the essence of the Chinese society, in comparison to the western one. It has answered many lingering questions about my own paternal family as well as the disturbing differences that I have observed and experienced between Chinese and western society, during my 7 years living outside of China. I have just read 10% of the book and have already felt immensely enlightened. I am ashamed that I didn't get to read this book earlier. In fact, I haven't been reading books at all since I was pregnant with the second baby. It's so drastically different between the two societies, in terms of culture, tradition, political structure, social relationship, family structure, etc. I'm wondering if I should make you learn about the Chinese culture as much as possible just because you have a Chinese mom. Unlike many Chinese moms that I know here and in other countries, I'm not as earnest to sign you up for Chinese language classes or to recite Chinese classics such as the Four Books and Five Classics (The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Confucian Analects, and The Works of Mencius, he Book of Songs, The Book of History, The Book of Changes, The book of Rites, and The Spring and Autumn annals). For one thing, I'm never invested in these myself. I have never learned these myself (this sounds very arbitrary in deciding whether you should learn or not); but for the other, I cannot agree with the teachings of Confucius or other Chinese wise men. As Fei Xiaotong wrote in "From the Soil", the fundamentals of Confucius are quite the opposite to the ones of western ideas. This doesn't mean that I think the western ideas are superior, but there's lots of room to reflect in the teachings of the ancient Chinese men. I also wonder whether it's reasonable to make you learn about my culture whereas there are so many other cultures in the world. Chinese people would talk me about continuity and heritage of my culture, not only because it's one of (if not "the") most amazing cultures in the world, but also because China is a rising superpower in the world now. I just cannot bring myself to this conclusion. True that sometimes I feel rootless as a Chinese living in a foreign country with a foreign husband, as a Chinese who's very divided about my own identity and dubious about the Chinese culture. This doesn't mean that I don't like China or its people. I love the land and most of its people. But there are also complex reasons that I choose to live outside. So, I let you take private Japanese lessons instead of sending you to a Chinese preschool. I signed you up for a Spanish coop instead of Chinese classic lessons. I'd choose to travel with you to all parts of the world instead of just going back to China during the summer and winter breaks. One thing that I would keep doing is to speak Chinese to you as much as possible. I am glad that you often remind me that I should only speak Chinese to you. You haven't expressed any interest in learning how to read or write Chinese yet, and it's fine with me. As much as I wish to teach you how to read Chinese, I don't have the energy or method to do that yet. And I prefer to do that when you have the interest. You are not like some other kids who can take whatever the adults throw to you no matter you like it or not. You have your own strong preferences, and I'll respect that. I hope that with the spoken Chinese, if one day you get interested in your mom, or your mom's country, you have somewhere to start, something that can facilitate your entry into a vast and complex unknown world. And if that day never comes, it's fine with me too. I think I won't solicit or expect your complete understanding of me or my culture when you grow up. You have your own culture, your own identity and your own world. I hope that as a mixed person, you would never have to struggle with where you should be, who you are or how to behave. You are just you, a unique and ordinary human being in a multicultural country. I read several pregnancy books when I was expecting my first baby. But for the first two years of my motherhood, I didn’t read any parenting books. I was too busy feeding my baby and myself, cleaning up her toys, clothes and our house, struggling with naps and night sleeps, meeting up with other parents and their babies, checking about all the baby/toddler play spaces and taking her to try all kinds of baby/toddler classes near me. Sure I was exhausted, but I thought that was also full-filling, the way a mother was supposed to be or feel. I spent all my days and nights with her and I believed that I knew her inside out.
Until a couple of months ago when my baby turned two, I suddenly realized that I didn’t really know what was going on in her little head. |
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