Crazy Rich Asians

Author: Kevin Kwan
First Published: May 2014
Publisher: Anchor
Series: Crazy Rich Asians #1
527 pages (paperback)

Rachel Chu is an ordinary Chinese-American 30-something woman, a professor of economics at a New York University. For the past two years, she has been dating Nicholas Young, a fellow professor at her university. Their relationship has been fantastic. Now, Nick has invited her to attend the wedding of his best friend Colin in Singapore. Rachel is a tad hesitant at first, because traveling to Singapore certainly means meeting all of Nick's family as well -- but hey, maybe it's about time she did. And anyway, what could possibly happen, really?

Instead of an ordinary vacation, Rachel is wholly unprepared for the world of crazy rich Asian people. Turns out Nick comes from an extremely wealthy, multi-billionaire family. They are very old money and can trace their family tree back generations. Nick doesn't think it's a big deal, but Rachel is stunned. The wedding they're going to? The biggest, fanciest wedding in the Asian world, covered by magazines and newspapers! To make matters difficult, Nick's entire family, excluding a select few, are incredibly snobby towards Rachel. Rachel isn't rich and "doesn't come from a good family". The family plots to break up Nick and Rachel, while at the same time, Nick falls deeper in love with his girlfriend and plans to propose soon.

As an Asian person myself, it was so fun reading this book. I did not think any of it was offensive. Actually, it's clear the author really understands what very traditional Asian elders are like! This is not a book about "regular" rich Asian people. This is a book about the extremely, extremely wealthy, the kind who are just bordering on royalty; the old money types who look down on the nouveau riche. It's a crazy, humorous take on the super elite of the Asian world, with a culture that prizes sons and family names. If you've ever watched an Asian TV drama, this is sort of like that, with a lot of stinking rich people and brand names thrown around.

Though I found the story very entertaining, I did have a few qualms with the book. Now, I didn't expect any deep and profound characters or anything like that, especially since this book is classified as humor (?), but I really didn't feel much between Rachel and Nick. They're happy and in love, I am told, but I didn't feel like they were. Everybody else, I don't care, but since they are the main characters this story was revolving around, I did expect their love to feel more ... genuine? This may have something to do with the fact that for a lot of the story, the characters are not actually with one another (physically, not emotionally).

The thing I disliked the most was the ending. What kind of ending was that?! Absolutely nothing was resolved; in fact, there were several cliffhanger-type endings. It was all rather abrupt and left me very unsatisfied.

Regardless, I quite enjoyed this book and am glad that there is a sequel. Actually, that's probably why the ending was so sudden -- it'll all be continued in the next book, I bet.

My Rating: 4/5

How to Be an American Housewife

This post first published December 24, 2013.

Author: Margaret Dilloway
First Published: July 2010
Publisher: Berkley
352 pages (paperback)
 
This is the story of a Japanese woman who married an American naval officer after World War II, and traveled to the United States with her new husband in hopes of a better life. Some elements of the story are based on the author’s mother’s own life, but for the most part, this is largely a fictional piece of work. I remember reading a positive review of it a long time ago, I can’t remember where though, which is why I picked it up during a bookstore sale. It’s a pretty quick read, and I found I enjoyed it, especially since I like cultural/history kind of novels.

Shoko is the main character of this novel, a Japanese woman, who, in the present timeline of the novel, is middle aged, married to her Caucasian husband Charlie and mother of two adult children, Mike and Sue. She is also grandmother to Sue’s daughter, Helena. Shoko has been experiencing cardiac problems for a while now, which she believes stems from the radiation of the atomic bombs that hit Japan in World War II. She elects to have surgery.  However, the surgery carries with it certain risks and Shoko is aware of the very real possibility she may die, even with the surgery.

Facing the possibility of death, Shoko regrets not visiting Japan even once since she left her home country. She reminisces about her childhood, her first love, and how she met her husband Charlie during World War II. Most of all, she thinks about her family. She was always close to her brother, but after Shoko’s marriage to an American, her brother shunned Shoko and refused to speak to her. Shoko wishes for nothing more than to go to Japan and see her brother once more, but due to her health she cannot. So, she begs her daughter to go in her place, find her brother and talk to him.
Sue, a single mom, grew up somewhat detached from Japanese culture, as her mother tried so hard to be American. She reminisces about her own childhood, feeling different from her classmates and remembers her mother’s own isolation. A single mother, Sue is hesitant to go to Japan so suddenly to talk to relatives she has never met before, but reluctantly agrees, hoping the trip may help her find a missing part of her.

This is a cultural story whose center, I believe, is the mother and daughter relationship between Shoko and Sue. Shoko leaves Japan behind and tries to be American as possible. Sue grew up American but when she goes to Japan for the first time, it feels like she has returned home. Both reflect on one another and the struggles each one must have had, each thinking the other will never understand the hardships she had to go through. The book is kind of predictable in that both of their re-connections with Japanese culture eventually leads to them having a stronger mother-daughter bond. It’s not particularly a novel idea, but it’s sweet.

I wish the story expanded more on the character of Charlie, Shoko’s husband. Shoko’s marriage to Charlie did not get very much of the spotlight, even though her marriage to him is the entire reason she is in America in the first place. The book is written in first person from Shoko (and Sue’s) perspectives, so I never got inside Charlie’s head, which made me a little disappointed as I would have loved to have his perspective on marrying a Japanese wife. After all, I have Shoko’s perspective on marrying an American man. I really think more on Shoko and Charlie would have been really interesting and enhanced the book, but as I said earlier, this book did seem to be much more about Shoko and her daughter than Shoko and her husband. The only other thing that kind of bugged me was how convenient that when Sue visited her “long lost” relatives in Japan, they all knew English. Well, that’s handy isn’t it?!

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. It was really easy to read, the pages seemed to fly by and I was done before I knew it!

My Rating: 4/5

Empress Orchid

This post first published July 27, 2012.

Author: Anchee Min
First Published: 2003
Publisher: Mariner Books (Houghton Mifflin)
Series: Empress Orchid #1
368 pages (paperback)
 
It took me way longer than it should have to finish this book — not because I found it uninteresting (quite the contrary actually) but because I have been distracted by computer games. Ahhh. Anyway, if you keep up with my reviews, you probably noticed I’ve become quite enamoured by historical fiction. Mostly European, but I’m trying to read some about China/Asia too.

This book, Empress Orchid, takes place in the 1800’s in China, when it is under a Manchu dynasty. It is about the last empress of China, Orchid (or Cixi/Tzu Hsi), and how she went from a lowly country girl to becoming an empress of China: her life story. Orchid starts out as the daughter of a low ranking official who had been fired from his job and died. Struggling to survive, Orchid, her mother and siblings are in the care of an uncle, but the uncle wants to marry Orchid to his mentally challenged son. To put off the marriage, Orchid decides to try out for the “auditions” to become a concubine of the Emperor. Anybody trying out for the “audition” cannot marry during that time period.

Unlike European royalty who marry other royalty from other countries, in China, the emperor would marry a wife (or rather, wives) of some rank who is also of the same background. The Emperor at the time was Manchu Chinese and so was Orchid. Though Orchid’s father had fallen on hard time and eventually died, she still had some ranking to her. The auditions are mentally fatiguing and Orchid is scrutinized in every possible way. But somehow, she makes it past the rounds and becomes a concubine of the emperor. However, to survive in the royal court, Orchid knows she needs to win the Emperor’s favor. But some wives and concubines can be married to the Emperor forever and never even meet their husband. There are 3000 of them, after all.

I thought this book was great! I don’t really know anything about Orchid and though I have some very basic understanding of Chinese history, the 1800s was a mystery to me. Orchid is traditionally presented as a power hungry, “evil” concubine who brought the fall of the entire dynasty, but this book portrays her as a smart woman who cared for her husband and her son, who wanted the best for China and was unfortunately surrounded by other schemers. I can definitely see how she can be portrayed “evilly” too, but I do quite like this portrayal of her: she isn’t perfect, not some saint like the other empress, Nuharoo, and I can see how the other characters would have seen her as a meddling woman. At the same time, she is strong of will and has strong family values. She was a woman trying to speak her voice in a culture dominated by men, and these men viewed her as a threat.

Though I enjoyed the entire book thoroughly, I thought the beginning half of the novel was a lot more interesting than the latter half. The first half was about her as a young teenager, living in near poverty with her family, and then working to become a concubine of the Emperor. The latter half was about her as an Empress and trying to fight against the manipulative Chief Eunach who wants power for himself and firmly believes that women should just stick to domestic issues and leave the politics to the men. I’ve never been a person who was that interested in political-ish stuff so I was a little less interested, relatively speaking. With that said, that Chief Eunach really annoyed me — what a wonderfully written villain, haha.

This book isn’t a part of a series, per se. There is a sequel, The Last Empress, which I imagine is about Orchid’s reign as an empress (I believe she eventually becomes the sole ruler). I’ve heard it isn’t as good as this first one, but I do still want to give it a try! I really enjoyed this book and I feel like I learned lots, not just historically but also culturally. Definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in reading historicals or books about different cultures.

My Rating: 4/5

Shanghai Girls

This post first published July 12, 2012.

Author: Lisa See
First Published: 2009
Publisher: Random House
Series: Shanghai Girls #1
400 pages (mass market paperback)
 
Another fantastic book by Lisa See. As with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, I could not put down Shanghai Girls once I started reading!
Shanghai Girls is about two sisters — Pearl and May — who are living in Shanghai during its height in 1937. Shanghai is the “Paris of Asia” and the sisters enjoy being “beautiful girls”, being painted for calendars, going to night clubs and dressing in the most fashionable clothes available. Suddenly their whole world is turned upside down when their father has gambled away their fortunes and is forced to sell the girls as wives to a wealthy Chinese family living in Los Angelos, to pay his debts. The girls stubbornly hold onto their modern ideals of love and marriage and refuse to go until the Japanese invade and bomb the city. With absolutely nothing left to lose, the girls make the incredible journey across the ocean to the United States, hoping their husbands and in-laws will take them in. Once there, the two girls must cope with becoming American, as well as racism and the wars.

I kind of like these riches to rags stories Lisa See comes up with, set against the backdrop of China. I was really hopeful for this to be a great book since I loved Snow Flower and the Secret Fan so much, and I’m happy to say I am not disappointed in the least. Again, Lisa See has created a powerful story of sisterhood and female friendship across the lifespan. Things change in life, people experience good and bad luck, but the two protagonists in this book make it through with incredible resilience. Although … at times, they did sort of annoy me with how spoiled they seem! But then again, they were rich, lovely girls to begin with, it’s probably very surreal falling from such a height.

I particularly enjoyed this book because the theme of children thinking they are so modern while their parents are too traditional and backwards is one of my favourite themes to read about. I think all kids of all backgrounds, growing up, want to break free from their parents’ strict rules and traditions as much as possible, believing they are part of a newer, more modern generation. You can see that clearly in this novel, especially when Pearl and May are told their father has arranged marriages for them. They are truly horrified, thinking, “Who has arranged marriages anymore?!” and continue to dream of marrying their one true love instead. When Pearl’s daughter, Joy, grows up, she also tries to break away from Pearl, claiming that Pearl is too backwards and overly Chinese. Pearl realizes that this is exactly how she felt about her own parents. It’s like a vicious, continuous cycle — kids are always going to think they’re “better” in some way to their parents.

The book also provides insight to the hardships the first immigrants to the United States experienced. While this book focused on the Chinese, I think the difficulties they faced are similar to what any group faces. Outside of Chinatown, the girls are faced with hostility and discrimination. Just finding a house to live in is a great ordeal. The only place they can live peacefully in is Chinatown, but they are forced to wear “costumes” — their traditional Chinese clothes — instead of Americanizing themselves with Western clothing. Even worse is when the States is fighting against Japan, and later, China, and the Chinese in Chinatown are regarded with suspicion — never mind the fact that they’ve lived in America for over ten years now without any problems; everyone thinks every Chinese is a spy.

This book is full of emotions and like with See’s other book, I was completely drawn into the characters. There were a few parts of the book that lagged a bit, but they were far and few, in my opinion. I did think the ending was rather abrupt, and I would have been totally disappointed in it had I not already known that there is a sequel to this book, Dreams of Joy (which I have sitting on my bookshelf, hopefully to be read soon!)

My Rating: 5/5

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

This post first published July 10, 2012.

Author: Lisa See
First Published: January 2005
Publisher: Bloomsbury
333 pages (mass market paperback)
 
My very first Lisa See book — and certainly won’t be my last! I am loving historical fiction lately, though I’ve mostly stayed around Europe, so I’m glad to be venturing out into Asian territory. Specifically, in this book, it is China.  I am Chinese (in appearance, though culturally, I’m very North American), so I immediately felt a bit of a connection with the story and slid into the culture presented in this novel easily. I thought this was a great way to learn more about the country my parents’ families are from, and it really was a fantastic read. I was absolutely captivated by the beautiful story that had my heart aching for its characters by the end.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is about a girl named Lily, who, at the beginning of the novel, is 80 years old and is reflecting on her life and her past, knowing she will probably die soon. Lily started off as the second daughter of a farmer. One day, the local diviner and matchmaker tell her family that if Lily’s feet are properly bound, she will have perfect little feet and be eligible for marriage into a higher-status family in the future. In 19th century China, foot-binding is a common practice. Little girls’ feet are bound with cloth in such a way that the toes are bent under the foot until eventually the bones break and stay that way. The smaller the feet, the more fashionable, beautiful and desirable a woman is.

Foot binding is agonizingly painful, but Lily has her laotong, her “old same”, Snow Flower, to share her experience with. A laotong is essentially someone you are friends with for life, but deeper than a friendship, even deeper than a marriage, and it is ‘official’ with a contract and everything. It is only because Lily has such perfect feet that Snow Flower is able to become laotong with a lowly farmer’s daughter, for Snow Flower is actually from a much higher status family. The two girls form a deep relationship as they experience foot binding together, as well as learning nu shu, the secret women’s writing. Together, they share their life in nu shu written on a fan. However, when the two girls’ fortunes reverse, their relationship changes. Suddenly, it is very difficult to stay laotong with one another, even though they try their hardest.

I really enjoyed this book. I read it nearly non-stop, only putting it down when I had to go to work. I finished it pretty fast, since it is not very long, but wow, it was such a journey. You follow Lily and Snow Flower through their whole lives, from when they are little girls to old women, and it is really a very touching story about the love and deep friendship between women in that time period in China. Back in those days, especially in the more rural parts of China, girls were considered useless and only sons are desired. I suppose a bit of that sentiment still exists today in China, from what I know, but it has definitely improved a lot compared to the 19th century. As a 21st century reader, reading about two “useless” girls coming together and both trying to find their place in their families and in a community that simply doesn’t value women, was heart breaking. But even though this book takes place in a time when women are not considered important at all, from this novel, I could see that women are proud of themselves and what they are able to do to serve their families. Lily, in particular, reached almost cold-hearted levels of pride in herself. She always talked about doing her duties as a wife, mother and daughter-in-law and pushed it on Snow Flower too, who tried her best to follow Lily’s example. It was difficult though, because the two girls’ positions have reversed completely and in extreme degrees. Sometimes I felt Lily was too harsh, but then I have to remember that this was the way it was back then.

This book is also very rich in cultural details. Even though I am Chinese, I really don’t know that much about China’s past and older traditions and customs. It might have been a little easier for me to slip into the world in this book since I am not completely unfamiliar with it, but at the same time, there were many things I didn’t know and was astonished to discover.

As a random side note: I find it kind of ironic how in one of my recent book reviews, I briefly mentioned not liking movie poster book covers. Then I read my copy of this book, not knowing that I had a movie poster book cover! (My copy doesn’t have that “Now a major motion picture!” circle on the right, as in this picture; it has it written in smaller letters at the bottom of the cover). I really like this cover too, so I feel almost a bit conflicted … haha! I guess movie poster book covers can work out occasionally.

A powerful and beautiful story, I recommend this book to everyone!

My Rating: 5/5

The Invention Of The World

This post originally published April 7, 2010.

Author: Jack Hodgins
Published: 1977
Publisher: Ronsdale Press
354 pages (paperback)
 
Summary: Donal Keneally is a man with a legendary origin. They say he was fathered by a bull-god, killed his mother after she gave birth to him and was taken to a small Irish village by an old woman (who he later killed) to be raised. Donal Keneally grows up and dreams of doing something great — he decides to start a utopian village and so, rounds up his entire village and together, they travel by ship to Vancouver Island, where they found the Revelations Colony of Truth. One century later, old Becker is researching and trying to piece together story of Donal Keneally and the many mysteries and scandals he was involved in, while living in the remains of the old Colony …

My Thoughts: This is the last novel I had to read for Canadian Literature class, and though it’s only 300-ish pages, the book is larger than your average paperback so it’s probably really a 400 or 500 page book if you think about it in standard paperback novel size. Anyway, I was surprised by this book! I thought it’d be boring because frankly, the back cover gives a really unappealing summary of what I should expect from it, but actually, I quite liked it. I wasn’t blown away by it, but it was an enjoyable read.

The first 2/3 of the book I found quite interesting, I was actually quite hooked onto it, but the last third (or maybe less than that, the last quarter or so) kind of went downhill for me. Most of the book deals with Donal Keneally in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s being some sort of ruler in his Colony that he founded and the scandals he created. The book also has a separate but related plotline in the present time (present, as in the 70’s, based on when this book was first published!) where the character Becker is trying to research about the Colony and Keneally. There are also other main characters, such as Maggie, who actually lives in the main Colony house and has a “collection” of strange boarders living with her, Wade, who built a fake Native fort to attract tourists to go to, and Lily Hayworth, an old lady who is actually Keneally’s third and last wife. Now, Becker and Lily’s stories I can relate to Keneally’s plot easily, but I was never quite sure how Maggie and Wade’s stories fit into the whole thing. Regardless, it was all very interesting until near the end, which just seemed to drag out way further than it needed to. The final scene was most confusing of all. Of course, this book is not real, it’s a work of fiction, but everything that happened was logical based on the rules of the story world. Well, the ending went totally weird — it was of a wedding scene where EVERYBODY attended (it was described that people all over the country attended, even people who didn’t know the couple, Queen Elizabeth got an invitation, the Prime Minister of the country sent a representative … what?!) and it ended with some guy chainsaw-ing his saw through a wall into a bathroom which started a massive fight with people chucking chairs and food and dishes at everyone else … If that sounded weird, it’s because it is!

Overall, enjoyable book. Will I read it again? Probably not. But if you ever see this in a library or something, it’s worth a read.

My Rating: 3/5