Book Review: Petals from the Sky by Mingmei Yip

Title: Petals From The Sky
Author: Mingmei Yip
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Kensington; 1 edition (March 1, 2010)
Genre: Fiction, Multi-Cultural
Source: Library

Summary: Twenty-year old Meng Ning decides to be come a Buddhist nun, against the wishes of her mother. She travels abroad to study Buddhism and meets a young American doctor at a Buddhist retreat in Hong Kong. They become close and as they say, the rest is history. Or maybe not...Meng Ning must choose between the young doctor and her wish to emulate the life of a Buddhist nun who had influenced her during her childhood. The book takes place in Mainland China, Manhattan, Paris and Hong Kong.

Comments: I learned more about Buddhism from this novel.The story of the Buddhist nun, Yi Kong, Meng Ning's mentor who inspired her to study Buddhism, showed how women fit into the religion. I thought Meng Ning's story could have wrapped up sooner, however. The tension in her relationship between the American doctor Michael Fuller versus Yi Kong her mentor dragged on a little too long, though I enjoyed it as a love story and a story of a young Chinese woman's contact with the life and ideas of the West.

Author biography: Mingmei Yip grew up in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States in 1992. Her debut novel, Peach Blossom Pavilion, which tells the story of the last in the Chinese tradition of poet-musician-courtesans, was published by Kensington in 2008.

Her new novel, Petals from the Sky, was inspired by Mingmei's life since she befriended powerful Buddhist nuns in her youth and was once groomed to be one.(Amazon)

My rating:  3 1/2 to 4 stars.

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, China Challenge, Support your Local Library Challenge

Book Review: Kitchen Chinese: A Novel about Food, Family, and Finding Yourself by Ann Mah

Kitchen Chinese: A Novel About Food, Family, and Finding Yourself by Ann Mah (Feb. 1, 2010)

Summary: Isabelle Lee is forced to leave her job as an editorial assistant at a swank New York magazine and decides to try her luck in Beijing, where her older sister Claire is practicing law. The two sisters were never very close but Claire invites Isabelle to stay in her spacious modern apartment in Beijing, and helps her get a job as a food writer for an English language magazine, Beijing NOW.

Claire gives her advice on how to interview a famous Chinese film director:Isabelle feels like a fish out of water as she doesn't speak Mandarin well, has no friends in the city, and still feels intimidated by her older sister, the successful Ivy League graduate and lawyer who has fulfilled all their parents' expectations, except one, that is. The sisters feel the pressure of their parents, even in far away Beijing, to marry a Han Chinese and provide grandchildren as soon as possible.

You don't know how I appreciate this, " I say in a rush.
In the car, Claire issues advice while simultaneously checking her BlackBerry, scanning the newspaper, and smoothing on another coat of lipstick. "Just be casual," she says, her voice as instructive as Dear Abby. "Men don't like it when women are too aggressive. Especially Chinese guys."

How the sisters deal with their parents, how Isabelle handles Beijing, her job writing on regional Chinese food,  and the attentions of Jeff, a Chinese rock singer, as well as the interest of a mysterious young American neighbor, Charlie, are the meat of the novel.

Comments: I loved traveling with Isabelle to places in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang to try out different styles of Chinese food. Her descriptions of the different kinds of "hot" in spicy Sechuan food made me want to try mapo tofu, bean curd cooked in hot chili oil. (The recipe is included in the back of the book, along with a few other dishes.)Here Isabelle takes her American friend Julia to breakfast in Hong Kong:

The conversation falters as we nibble dainty dumplings filled with shrimp peeping pale and pink through their translucent wrappers. We dive into plates of soy-sauce-scented rice noodles, unwrap bamboo leaves to reveal triangles of sticky rice....
"The food here is amazing. So fresh!" says Julia, her voice soft with awe. This is the best dimsum I've ever had. Ooh!" she exclaims, flagging down a passing cart. "Chicken feet!"

 I enjoyed Ann Mah's writing and the way she combined setting and regional cuisine in her story of the two Chinese-American sisters. I could relate to demands or expectations of parents, and the sometimes testy relationship between a younger and older sibling - these seem to be universal.

About the author: Ann Mah was born in California and lived in Beijing for four years, working as a dining manager for an English-language magazine. She was awarded a James Beard Culinary Scholarship in 2005 and now lives in Paris.

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, China Challenge, Support your Local Library Challenge
Cym Lowell: Book Review Party Wednesday

Book Review: Pearl of China by Anchee Min

Pearl of China: A Novel by Anchee Min (Hardcover - March 30, 2010)

Very moving; excellent writing. I learned a lot about the China that author Pearl Buck grew up in and left, its history from the 1880s to after Nixon's visit and China's admission to the U.N. in the early 1980s. About 100 years of history, plus a fictional account of Buck's friendships in her former home in China, where she lived with her missionary parents, Absalom and Carie Sydenstricker.

The author weaves Pearl Buck's life into the historical novel, which is about the friendship between a young girl, Willow, whom Pearl meets in the small town of Chin-Kiang. This friendship continues into adulthood, through Pearl's marriage to Lossing Buck,  and even after the writer left China for good. The friendship lasts through the Boxer Revolution and anti-foreign sentiment, through the war with Japan, the Communist Revolution, and even to the time of Pearl's death in the U.S. in the 1980s. Anchee Kim has changed the dates of some of the historical events for the sake of her fiction, but she has kept the flavor of China, and certainly brought me to tears with her accounts of the kinds of atrocities that happened during  the Cultural Revolution.

Most moving of all was that Pearl was not granted a visa to accompany President Nixon on his historic visit to China in 1972. She was not allowed to return there after almost 40 years' absence, in spite of her sympathetic and moving depictions of the ordinary Chinese peasants in books such as The Good Earth.  Madame Mao, the instigator and leader of the Cultural Revolution, blocked her visit saying the country had declared Pearl, who openly opposed Mao, an "American imperialist." Pearl Buck died in Pennsylania in 1973 at age 81, not long after Nixon's visit to China.

Beautifully written and heart rending in parts, Pearl in China is a deserving homage to the Nobel Prize-winning author, Pearl S. Buck.

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, China Challenge, Support your Local Library Challenge

 

Teaser Tuesday: Pearl of China by Anchee Min

Teaser Tuesdays, hosted by MizB, asks you to choose two sentences at random from your current read. Include the author and title for readers.

Pearl of China: A Novel by Anchee Min (Hardcover - March 30, 2010)

"You stole my father's wallet!" Pearl yelled.
No, I didn't." I imagined the food the money in the wallet could buy. (ch. 2) .

 Publisher's description: "In the small southern China town of Chin-kiang, in the last days of the nineteenth century, two young girls bump heads and become thick as thieves. Willow is the only child of a destitute family. Pearl is the headstrong daugher of zealous Christian missionaries. She will grow up to become Pearl S. Buck, the Nobel Prize-winning writer and activist, but  for now she is just a girl embarrassed by her blond hair and enchanted by her new Chinese friend....Pearl of China celebrates an incredible friendship and brings new color to the life of Pearl S. Buck, a woman whose unwavering love for the country of her youth eventually led her to be hailed as a national heroine in China."

About the author: Anchee Min was born in China in 1957 and endured the Cultural Revolution. She was sent to a labor camp, was recruited there by Madame Mao's talent scouts to be come an actress in propaganda films. She moved to the U.S. in 1984.

Her first book is the memoir, Red Azalea, which became an international bestseller.  

I've read Pearl Buck's The Good Earth and am really interested in the novel about her childhood in China, especially the history of the turbulent period of the time. The cover, the title, and the information on the book jacket caught my attention at the library. Author Anchee Min's memoir, Red Azalea, is also on my TBR list.

 

Book Review: I Ching, A New Interpretation for Modern Times, review

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I Ching: A New Interpretation for Modern Times by Sam Reifler

I'm not superstitious, but using the ancient Chinese classic, I Ching, as a form of divination or fortune telling can be just plain fun. It's general enough so that you can interpret the results in different ways. And it's often uncannily accurate!

In the I Ching, there are 64 hexagrams made of six lines each. Each hexagram represents a human situation, and all 64 together are said to "encompass the whole of human experience." You ask a question of the I Ching and throw coins to determine which hexagram will answer your question.

From Goodreads: What is the I Ching?

For centuries the Chinese have consulted the I Ching both as an oracle and as a means of self-understanding. The moral and psychological depth of its wisdom has been celebrated by its scholars, psychologists, poets, and scientists.

In this clear, immensely readable interpretation, Sam Reifler eliminates the obscure and dated references of previous translations to provide an accurate and accessible version of the ancient Chinese classic for the contemporary seeker. With easy-to-follow instructions for using both the yarrow stick and the coin toss method, this new interpretation of the I Ching reveals the hidden forces at work in our relationships, our careers, and our emotional lives - and suggests new directions and choices for the future.

For everyone who seeks to better understand themselves and the world around them, this new translation of the I Ching is... "practical and remarkably effective...."

My personal experience using the I Ching: This week I was expecting to have eye surgery in a few days and wanted to see what the I Ching would say about my situation, which I was a little nervous about.

I pulled out my copy of the book, threw three coins six times and formed the hexagram 5 - Zhuy, translated as "Waiting."

Oracle: Great success. Auspicious
If you keep to your course,
You may cross the great water.

So everything was going to be okay - auspicious.

But wait! Hexagram 5 had a moving line, according to how I threw the coins! Line 6 changed Hexagram 5 into Hexagram 9! Here's what line 6 said:

Waiting no longer,
Three rescuers arrive at the cave.
Auspicious if you treat your rescuers well.

Here's what line 6 of the new Hexagram 9 changed to -Zhiao-Khuh or "Minor Restraint".

Rain has fallen; Progress is delayed

The next day I got a call saying my eye surgery was postponed as my eye doc was in the hospital. Not too serious, but a minor restraint. What could I do but gloat about my rescue/respite, and hope my doc would be okay.

Did the I Ching foretell this change of events?
They say not to use the oracle as a parlor game ,even though some people do. It could get confusing, especially if you ask more serious questions than mine.

Well, that Q & A was a bit of fun!

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, China Challenge
 

Review: Tao Te Ching

Countless words
count less
than the silent balance
between yin and yang

For this reading challenge, I went to the translation by Ralph Alan Dale, Tao Te Ching: A New Translation and Commentary illustrated with photographs by John Cleare, published 2002, Barnes and Noble.

I thought book bloggers would appreciate the above lines from verse 5. From the Commentaries, page 172,

"Ying and yang, like heaven and earth, is a metaphor for all that exists.... Thus - Countless words (our exhortations) count less than the silent (existential) balance between yin and yang."

Amazon product description:

The Tao Te Ching is a great treasure house of wisdom. Written by Lao Tzu as early as the sixth century B.C. and composed of only 5,000 characters, it has become one of the classic works of spiritual enlightenment.

This is a wonderful book, though not the most recent edition, nicely illustrated and the translation is easier to understand than I thought it would be. The commentaries are also helpful to divine the meaning.

Here is another quote:

The wise
teach without telling,
allow without commanding,
have without possessing,
care without claiming.

(from Verse 2, Relativity)

My first read for the China Challenge.