Asian books

I hope to get through all or part of It Happened In Peking by Louise Miln, published in 1926. Setting is during the Boxer Revolution in 1900, when foreigners were not welcome in China. One hundred and eight years later, 2008 in Beijing, foreigners are much sought after and being made more than welcome at the 2008 Olympics. Ah, history!

Also hope to try to read Kinshu, Autumn Brocade by Teru Miyamoto, in translation, and Shame in the Blood by Tetsuo Miura, a literary prizewinner in Japan. Then there is The Strangeness of Beauty by Lydia Minatoya, about an American born woman who returns to the strict samurai family of her mother in Japan. All fascinating novels that may reveal more about Japanese traditional and modern culture.

These books are all at home, borrowed from a library, waiting to be read. I've just started Sujata Massey's novel about the Shimura family's cousins in Hawaii. Found out that some Japanese Hawaiians speak an old fashioned version of Japanese and use words differently, dropping parts of words that made them more formal or polite.