Asian fiction to read

5/1/14 EDIT: Sooo I stopped checking comments for months, and I come back to either rage or agreement with regard to my review. All I have to say is THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD. Also, if you're on the fence about whether or not to continue reading this book, don't read this review unless you're set on quitting. Okay? Okay. Onwards to the actual review!*************I just couldn't finish it. And I tried. Really, really tried. Even after studying Chinese history extensively in college, I'm usually not very picky about the books that I read. I don't really care about the accuracy or the sequence of events, as long as it's a good story. But maybe it's the cheesy title. Or maybe it's just too girly. Or maybe, just maybe, the fact that this foolish girl starved herself to death because of lovesickness was the last kick in the butt my usually sleepy (yet very existent) inner feminist could endure before waking and wanting to punch someone. I have enough idiots in my life to deal with. Please don't make me deal with more in my head. Granted, the book does somewhat cleverly depict the Chinese afterlife, but the rest was so blah and a little insulting to my intelligence and femininity. If I rolled my eyes any harder while reading this book, I would have fallen out of my chair. I may return to skim through the pages again to finish but probably not anytime soon.

Molokai--one of the beautiful Hawaiian islands, but in the late nineteenth century, a name synonymous with a desolate leper colony. Kalaupapa, accessible only from the sea, was "The Given Grave," where victims of the dreaded disease were sent to die, exiled in a desperate attempt to halt the spread of this horror newly come to the islands. For the stricken there was no return, no treatment, no cure but the blessed release of death, no hope--until the coming of Father Damien, who fought to bring a measure of human dignity to the suffering. The story of the exiles in Molokai will tell you about Dr. Newman, the scientist who burned with ambition to cure the sick, but did not love them; Keanu, convicted murderer who had loved too well, and who, in a desperate gamble for life, offered himself for a dangerous and terrible medical experiment; Maile, who was afraid to love in the glittering court of King Kalakaua but found the courage to open her heart in the face of death; Caleb, who scoffed at love until the boy Eleu took him by the hand; and the priest who prayed to be made one with the lepers he served.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It started out pretty good, and for most part, I really enjoyed it, but there were parts that bothered me.Snow in August is about an eleven year old boy, Michael and his friends who live in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1947 just after WWII had ended. They go into a candy store one day and see a crime that is being committed; the Jewish shopkeeper is being beat up. The gang leader sees the boys in the store and threatens them to keep quiet. Michael and his friends have false beliefs about the Jewish people, for examples, they believe they eat babies and hide their gold and jewels in the synagogues. These beliefs play a big part in this book, causing a rift between Michael and his friends.On Michael’s way to Mass one day, he passed the synagogue, and the rabbi was standing in the door calling out to him. Michael went over, and the rabbi asked if he could come inside and turn on the light for him. Due to Michael’s fear of Jews, he was reluctant to go inside, but he did as asked, and he was glad that he had, for after this, Michael returns often to the synagogue and teaches Rabbi Hirsch English, and in turn the rabbi teaches him Yiddish and tells him stories about Prague before the war, as well as during the war when the Jews had to flee the country. Michael quickly learns that the rabbi is a good person, and that what he had heard about the Jews was untrue. His friends, well…You will have to read the story.I was carried away by the beautiful descriptions of Prague, a place that I would love to see. Twenty Years ago a friend sent me a postcard from Prague that was given to her. I have kept it all these years and use it for a bookmark that gets lost in one of my books for long periods of time, just as it has now. It is of a photo taken in the corridor of a very ancient building in Prague. Someday, I will find the postcard again and tell you more about the photo, which actually isn’t very much.I found the postcard in a box. It is of the Arcade of the Old Town: So this book is full of history, Jewish and U.S. In regards to U.S. history, you learn about the first black baseball player, Jackie Robinson, and about racism in America. You also learn about the books that Michael reads and movies that he goes to see. The movies bring back memories for me, the books don’t, for you see, even in the 1950s movies made in the 40s were still playing at the theaters in our home town. I spent my weekends there, spending my allowance on them, popcorn, Flicks, Milk Duds and coke-a-cola. I even collected coke bottles and sold them to our small grocery store, Ken’s Market, and I would use that money for movies, and if not movies, then candy bars and soda pop. My mother spent her money taking me to the dentist due to all the cavities that I was getting from eating so much sugary stuff. And then I learned some Jewish mysticism that was in the book, and about Golem, the clay figure that becomes a powerful man when certain rituals bring the clay to life. This was actually an interesting piece of Jewish folklore, and while I loved learning about it, how the only mention of it is in the book of Psalms, it is also one the reasons why I didn’t enjoy the some of the book. But I also felt that this story got carried away as it became too violent, and this all because Michael and his friends wouldn’t snitch on the gang members who beat up the Jewish shopkeeper. Still, it was a lesson on what happens when you see a crime being committed and don’t report it out of fear. Note: If you go to google and type in “golem in the bible,” Wikipedia will give you some great information. The word golem occurs once in the in the bible, in Psalms 139:16, which uses the word גלמי (galmi; my golem) that means "my light form", "raw" material, connoting the unfinished human being before God's eyes.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GolemGolem could also be the Gollum in Tolkien’s books. I thought it might be and began researching. Gollum becomes a fallen Hobbit in need of pity and mercy, just as Adam had fallen, and Adam, to the Jews, was a golem. The PDF article, “The Riddle of Gollum: Was Tolkien Inspired by Old Norse Gold, the Jewish Golem, and the Christian Gospel?” explores this issue and tells about golem. https://library.taylor.edu/dotAsset/6...Note: Today as I began reading another story by Isaac Singer, I thought of this rabbi and the boy who came to his door to help him turn on a light. What story was that? I thought. Was it one of Singers? Then I came on here to look and found it. It was this book. For a book that I was uncertain about, this story of Michael and the rabbi stayed with me. I find that I love common stories about Jewish life, and by common I mean, the common man.

The Living Reed follows four generations of one family, the Kims, beginning with Il-han and his father, both advisors to the royal family in Korea. When Japan invades and the queen is killed, Il-han takes his family into hiding. In the ensuing years, he and his family take part in the secret war against the Japanese occupation. Pearl S. Buck's epic tells the history of Korea through the lives of one family. She paints an amazing portrait of the country, and makes us empathize with their struggle for sovereignty through her beautifully drawn characters.

The Concubine’s Children is the story of a family cleaved in two for the sake of a father’s dream. There’s Chan Sam, who left an "at home" wife in China to earn a living in "Gold Mountain"—North America. There’s May-ying, the wilful, seventeen-year-old concubine he bought, sight unseen, who labored in tea houses of west coast Chinatowns to support the family he would have in Canada, and the one he had in China. It was the concubine’s third daughter, the author’s mother, who unlocked the past for her daughter, whose curiosity about some old photographs ultimately reunited a family divided for most of the last century.

A sweeping, evocative epic of two women's intertwined fates and their search for identity, that moves from the lavish parlors of Shanghai courtesans to the fog-shrouded mountains of a remote Chinese village.Spanning more than forty years and two continents, The Valley of Amazement resurrects pivotal episodes in history: from the collapse of China's last imperial dynasty, to the rise of the Republic, the explosive growth of lucrative foreign trade and anti-foreign sentiment, to the inner workings of courtesan houses and the lives of the foreign "Shanghailanders" living in the International Settlement, both erased by World War II. A deeply evocative narrative about the profound connections between mothers and daughters, The Valley of Amazement returns readers to the compelling territory of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. With her characteristic insight and humor, she conjures a story of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and stubbornness of love.

"A House Divided," the third volume of the trilogy that began with "The Good Earth" and "Sons," is a powerful portrayal of China in the midst of revolution. Wang Yuan is caught between the opposing ideas of different generations. After 6 years abroad, Yuan returns to China in the middle of a peasant uprising. His cousin is a captain in the revolutionary army, his sister has scandalized the family by her premarital pregnancy, and his warlord father continues to cling to his traditional ideals. It is through Yuan's efforts that a kind of peace is restored to the family.

Sent by her family to work in a silk factory just prior to World War II, young Pei grows to womanhood, working fifteen-hour days and sending her pay to the family who abandoned her.In "Women of the Silk" Gail Tsukiyama takes her readers back to rural China in 1926, where a group of women forge a sisterhood amidst the reeling machines that reverberate and clamor in a vast silk factory from dawn to dusk. Leading the first strike the village has ever seen, the young women use the strength of their ambition, dreams, and friendship to achieve the freedom they could never have hoped for on their own. Tsukiyama's graceful prose weaves the details of "the silk work" and Chinese village life into a story of courage and strength.

Handsome anesthesiologist Neel prides himself on his decisiveness, both in and out of the operating room. So when he agrees to return to India to visit his ailing grand­father, he is sure he’ll be able to resist his family’s pleas that he marry a “good” Indian girl. With a girlfriend and a promising career back in San Francisco, the last thing Neel needs is an arranged marriage.Leila is a thirty-year-old teacher in Neel’s family’s village who has watched too many prospective husbands come and go to think her newest suitor will be any different. She is well past prime marrying age; her family has no money for a dowry; and then there’s the matter of an old friendship with a Muslim boy named Janni.Neel and Leila struggle to reconcile their own desires with the expectations of others in this riveting story of two people, two countries, and two ways of life that may be more compatible than they seem.

Pearl S. Buck's The Hidden Flower centers on the relationship between a Japanese student and an American soldier stationed in post-war Japan. The Japanese student's father worked in the United States as a doctor, but had to flee to Kyoto to avoid imprisonment in an internment camp. The American soldier has inherited his family's estate in Virginia, where interracial marriage is forbidden. Against such forces, and without the help of their families, how can the love between the young pair — and the future of their child — flourish? The Hidden Flower is an emotionally astute and moving exploration of a taboo love across cultures.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Helen Mirren and Om Puri, directed by Lasse Hallstrom, and produced by Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Juliet Blake, DreamWorks Studios, and Participant Media."That skinny Indian teenager has that mysterious something that comes along once a generation. He is one of those rare chefs who is simply born. He is an artist."And so begins the rise of Hassan Haji, the unlikely gourmand who recounts his life’s journey in Richard Morais’s charming novel, The Hundred-Foot Journey. Lively and brimming with the colors, flavors, and scents of the kitchen, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a succulent treat about family, nationality, and the mysteries of good taste.Born above his grandfather’s modest restaurant in Mumbai, Hassan first experienced life through intoxicating whiffs of spicy fish curry, trips to the local markets, and gourmet outings with his mother. But when tragedy pushes the family out of India, they console themselves by eating their way around the world, eventually settling in Lumière, a small village in the French Alps.The boisterous Haji family takes Lumière by storm. They open an inexpensive Indian restaurant opposite an esteemed French relais—that of the famous chef Madame Mallory—and infuse the sleepy town with the spices of India, transforming the lives of its eccentric villagers and infuriating their celebrated neighbor. Only after Madame Mallory wages culinary war with the immigrant family, does she finally agree to mentor young Hassan, leading him to Paris, the launch of his own restaurant, and a slew of new adventures.The Hundred-Foot Journey is about how the hundred-foot distance between a new Indian kitchen and a traditional French one can represent the gulf between different cultures and desires. A testament to the inevitability of destiny, this is a fable for the ages—charming, endearing, and compulsively readable.

Ruth Young and her widowed mother, LuLing, have always had a tumultuous relationship. Now, before she succumbs to forgetfulness, LuLing gives Ruth some of her writings, which reveal a side of LuLing that Ruth has never known. . . .In a remote mountain village where ghosts and tradition rule, LuLing grows up in the care of her mute Precious Auntie as the family endures a curse laid upon a relative known as the bonesetter. When headstrong LuLing rejects the marriage proposal of the coffinmaker, a shocking series of events are set in motion–all of which lead back to Ruth and LuLing in modern San Francisco. The truth that Ruth learns from her mother’s past will forever change her perception of family, love, and forgiveness.

To rescue her family from poverty and avoid marrying her slope-shouldered cousin, seventeen-year-old Orchid competes to be one of the Emperor's wives. When she is chosen as a lower-ranking concubine she enters the erotically charged and ritualised Forbidden City. But beneath its immaculate façade lie whispers of murders and ghosts, and the thousands of concubines will stoop to any lengths to bear the Emperor's son.Orchid trains herself in the art of pleasuring a man, bribes her way into the royal bed, and seduces the monarch, drawing the attention of dangerous foes. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and that she will be its last Empress.

In the bestselling tradition of Memoirs of a Geisha, a riveting saga of early twentieth-century China, where a mother and a daughter fight to realize their destinies in a world where women could still be bought and sold. Lotus Feet. He would give his daughter the dainty feet of a courtesan. This would enhance her beauty and her price, making her future shine like a new coin. He smiled to himself, pouring fresh tea. And it would stop her from running away…When the young concubine of an old farmer in rural China gives birth to a daughter called Li-Xia, or “Beautiful One,” the child seems destined to become a concubine herself. Li refuses to submit to her fate, outwitting her father’s orders to bind her feet and escaping the silk farm with an English sea captain. Li takes her first steps toward fulfilling her mother’s dreams of becoming a scholar — but her final triumph must be left to her daughter, Su Sing, “Little Star,” in a journey that will take her from remote mountain refuges to the perils of Hong Kong on the eve of World War II.

A reissue of the classic biographical novel that has sold more than 200,000 copiesLalu Nathoy’s father calls his thirteen-year-old daughter his treasure, his “thousand pieces of gold,” yet when famine strikes northern China in 1871, he is forced to sell her. She is sold first to a brothel, then to a slave merchant bound for America. In a new country, she is given the name Polly and eventually auctioned to a saloonkeeper. When admirer Charlie Bemis wins her in a poker game, he frees her from her enslavement and eventually proposes marriage. The two live out their days on a bountiful farm, a homestead called Polly’s Place in Salmon Canyon, Idaho.This masterfully told biographical novel is the true story of an extraordinary woman’s successful fight for independence and respect in the early American West.“Lalu comes to life and transfixes the reader with her story of struggle and survival . . . Lalu/Polly was a remarkable pioneer woman—a new heroine of the American West—and we can thank McCunn for bringing her to life in such a moving and inspirational way.” —Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, San Francisco Chronicle“A valuable book that gives Chinese Americans another true heroine.” —Maxine Hong Kingston“Lalu Nathoy’s courageous journey is an important contribution to the history of pioneer women.” —Ms. Magazine

As World War II threatens their comfortable life in Hong Kong, young Joan and Emma Lew escape with their family to spend the war years in Macao. When they return home, Emma develops a deep interest in travel and sets her sights on an artistic life in San Francisco, while Joan turns to movies and thoughts of romance to escape the pressures of her real life. As the girls become women, each follows a path different from what her family expects. But through periods of great happiness and sorrow, the sisters learn that their complicated ties to each other--and to the other members of their close-knit family--are a source of strength as they pursue their separate dreams.

On her fortieth birthday, Madame Wu carries out a decision she has been planning for a long time: she tells her husband that after twenty-four years their physical life together is now over and she wishes him to take a second wife. The House of Wu, one of the oldest and most revered in China, is thrown into an uproar by her decision, but Madame Wu will not be dissuaded and arranges for a young country girl to come take her place in bed. Elegant and detached, Madame Wu orchestrates this change as she manages everything in the extended household of more than sixty relatives and servants. Alone in her own quarters, she relishes her freedom and reads books she has never been allowed to touch. When her son begins English lessons, she listens, and is soon learning from the foreigner, a free-thinking priest named Brother Andre, who will change her life. Few books raise so many questions about the nature and roles of men and women, about self-discipline and happiness.

The Courtesan was inspired by the real life of a woman who lived and loved in the extraordinary twilight decades of the Qing dynasty. To this day, Sai Jinhua is a legend in her native land of China, and this is her story, told the way it might have been.The year is 1881. Seven-year-old Jinhua is left an orphan, alone and unprotected after her mandarin father’s summary execution for the crime of speaking the truth. She is sold to a brothel-keeper and subjected to the worst of human nature. Will the private ritual that is her father’s legacy and the wise friendship of the crippled brothel maid be enough to sustain her? When an elegant but troubled scholar takes Jinhua as his concubine, she enters the close world of his jealous first wife. Yet it is Jinhua who accompanies him--as Emissary to the foreign devil nations of Prussia, Austro-Hungary, and Russia--on an exotic journey to Vienna. As he struggles to play his part in China's early, blundering diplomatic engagement with the western world, Jinhua’s eyes and heart are opened to the irresistible possibilities of a place that is mesmerizing and strange, where she will struggle against the constraints of tradition and her husband’s authority and seek to find “Great Love.”Sai Jinhua is an altered woman when she returns to a changed and changing China, where a dangerous clash of cultures pits East against West.