I’m also writing book reviews for various Chinese publications. They are not necessarily in the charts though. The selection is based on what I think are relevant to Chinese readers, as well as my personal interest.

My weekly UK book charts review (in Chinese).

The problem is novel had not been a highly regarded form of art until the turn of twenty century. In the first half of the last century, when the country suffered never ending civil wars and foreign invasion, writers were often urged to come up with patriotic novels instead of romantic ones. Added into this is the less freedom women enjoyed than their counterparts in the west in this period. So it’s no surprise that there was no Jane Austen kind of figure in early Chinese literature.

But if you don’t mind the gender, Lin Yutang’s (林语堂) Moment in Peking (京华烟云), about a big family in early twenty century Peking (Beijing) is a good read, and it was written in English by the author.

For English readers, some of Eileen Chang’s novels have been translated into English, like Lust, Caution (色戒), Love in the Fallen City (倾城之恋), The Rouge of North (怨女), Written on Water (流言). She also wrote in English such as the novel The Rice Sprout Song. I haven’t seen any English translation of Qiong Yao, Yi Shu, and Zhang Xiaoxian’s novels.

Yiyun Li is at her best conveying the strange sense of alienation and liberation. In the two stories I like the most, Extra and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the protagonists were all thrown into an unfamiliar situation. Unable to communicate with or without the language barrier, but still trying to understand, the characters at end all manage to find their way out, reaching some kind of inner peace and freedom while the outside world remains largely indifferent and incomprehensible.

What strikes me most in those stories is the freedom gained by using a new language. Being able to, or being forced to use a new language, looks to have the unexpected effect of making one be freed from the inhibitory restraint of the mother tongue, instead of just providing the possibility of make yourself understandable. The author herself once said that she feels using English to write gives her the freedom to better express herself. In A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, we witness Mr Shi’s daughter’s transformation from a distant, silent figure into a vivid, laughing, animated person once she’s on the phone, speaking English. We, as Mr Shi, are astonished.

However this is not uncommon. Many young Chinese who come to live in the west probably have experienced this change twice, first when they started to learn Putonghua (aka Mandarin) in the primary school, which for those not from the north of China is complete different from their local dialect, and then they had to start it all over again with English in the secondary school. For some, it’s restricting and tedious, but for others, it’s liberating to communicate in a new language, with both the fresh vocabulary offered and new social norms coming with the new language.

The scenes of ordinary people’s life in the stories are heartfelt and moving, the stories are often slow-paced yet gripping. The only fault I found is that when the author is too earnest in expressing a moral or political message, or too keen in employing a less subtle metaphor, the story lines sometimes become forced, the characters flat or even silly.

When I was reading the book, I frequently felt the stories perhaps reflect the author’s own experiences, as a person who has explored a different culture and language, gained a new perspective and felt empowered to read more about her previous life. I expect more good work to come from Yiyun Li. Two of the stories from this book, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Princess of Nebraska, have been adapted into two movies, both directed by the Chinese American director Wayne Wang. One of them, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers won the Golden Shell Best Film Award in Sen Sabastian Film Festival last year. I’m looking forward to watching those two films too.

Rob Gifford is not a normal tourist or explorer either. He’s been living in China for many years as a journalist working for BBC and American public service radio network NPR. This trip, which he did just before leaving China for a new job in London, not only reveals a society of huge diversity which is undergoing rapid social and economic changes, but also summaries the author’s understanding of Chinese people, culture and history. The contrasts in terms of cultural and economic development neatly reflect on the way Gifford travels, by train, car, taxi, imported 4×4 and overloaded truck. In one instance, the car he traveled on was caught by police for speeding, resulted in a strange encounter with the law enforcement and hot discussion of English Premier League.

You would be disappointed if you are looking for tourist attraction in the book. What the author attempts to do, however, is to inject his insight of Chinese society into the travel story, which really distinguishes this book from other similar travel logs. The subtitle gives it away: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power. It’s combination of travel writing and commentary of culture and history. The down side of this approach is that the author could not write about one issue for too long, because the journey has to move on. Unlike another recently published book about present time China, Duncan Hewitt’s Getting Rich First: Life in a Changing China, the social observation in China Road does look scattered sometimes.

This is a funny and insightful book. An enjoyable read.

An often heard complaint among the youngests who came to the UK from China is that this place is just a bit dull. People can cite me many things they used to do in China, eating out at a newly opened restaurant, karaoke at a new KTV, or exchanging some latest American tv series are just the common ones. There seems to be endless supplies of new ways of consuming and entertaining. Things are moving rather fast there.

This fits well what Hewitt said, that it almost like the 60 years of post war development in the West has been compressed into 20 years in China. BBC’s Andrew Marr, in his History of Modern Britain, describes the make over of Birmingham in the 60s – the old Birmingham almost completely disappeared while people can’t wait to see a New Britain. Imagine that in a much bigger scale, repeated every five years. That’s what’s happening in China.

When I went back to China in 2004, I took a shuttle bus (which itself had morphed from an old rugged 20-seater to a shining, air-conditioned 60-seater) through a longer route (because I landed in the new Pudong Airport). When the bus approached my hometown Suzhou, some 50 miles west of Shanghai, I saw lots of brand new-looking factories and warehouses, followed by high and low rise apartment blocks, but I couldn’t make out where I was, until after about half a hour when I finally saw a building I vaguely remembered, which was way outside the city of Suzhou. The city may have doubled its size, only in about three years time.

This most visible change of China is where Hewitt started – the change of urban landscape. But ultimately as the title suggests, this book is about life. As a journalist Hewitt had been able to talk to many people, across the country and generations, from trendy city dwellers to those who are struggling at the bottom of the food chain.
As one who had been in China and Hong Kong for long time and speaks Mandarin, he showed his understooding and empathy of the people he talked to. But at the same time, he maintains a viewpoint from outside, which helps him to see the big picture – as we Chinese like to say ‘the spectator sees it more clearily’.

A question Hewitt raised but was not able to answer is why it happens so fast? To be fair, this is not a question this book could answer. Perhaps we just don’t know the answer. As a Chinese, I always feel that the urgent sense to be modern and competitive, to be ’strong again’ means we embrace anything precieved to be new or advanced without much hesitation. Indeed we have quite often jumped into the arm of the “new” happily. The frantic pace of development means there is little room for the concerning the protection of environment or culture heritage. Perserving and protecting are always much more expensive than demolishing the old and building and new. The economic development brings to the people material wealth in relatively short time, but at the same time causes intense anxiety, insecurity and delusion. But as you will find in this book, when people have ingenious ways to make money, they also have imaginative ways to deal with the emotional stress, to perserve history and cultural heritage.

What is good about Getting Rich First is its vivid recording of how people are coping with the rapid social and economic transition in China. It’s an informative and enjoyable read.

In Chinese in Britain Anna Chen says for most British people “the history of the Chinese in Britain begins with The Takeaway Generation”. Indeed even many Chinese can only associate Chinese in Britain with Chinese restaurants, and perhaps a couple of intellectuals or academic elites who had been in the UK for some time. The VIPs aside, I was suprised to learn that early Chinese settlers were mainly seamen, and they opened laundries instead takeaways when moving ashore. Chinese in Britain has thourough research as well as human interests. The stories of the early migrants were told not only by scholars but also the descents.

Although this program mainly focuses on the early settlers, there is at least one episode about education in the UK that connects the past with the present. I can only hope there will be more to come, and more about the young generation of migrants including Chinese students and young professionals who came here in thousands attracted by the high quality educational system and the training and employment opportunities. The only mistake I can find is the claim that “fifty thousand Chinese students come to the UK every year”. The number “fifty thousand” is more likely the total number of Chinese students currently enrolled in higher education institutes. The number given by Chinese Ambassey is one hundred thousand, but that includes current students, graduates and profesionals, visiting scholars and their families.

While Chinese in Britain discovers the untold stories of the early generation, Duncan Hewitt’s new book Getting Rich First: Life in a Changing China looks to the rapid social and economic transition at present China. Hewitt is a keen and sharp observers. He can explains complex social phenomenons in a clear and simple way with the level of understanding only an “insider” could reach, and at the same time points out the absurdity and inequality an “outsider”, possibly from a country which has been through all those, is at the best position to pick up. I also like the way Hewitt tell the stories – with sympathy and humour, which make them more enjoyable.

One chapter in Hewitt’s book echos my personal experience. My hometown Suzhou (苏州), a city with rich culture and history, famous for its residence architectures and canals, is known in China as “Heaven on Earth”. In the 90s it underwent a huge makeover, during which many typical South-of-Yangtze River (jiangnan 江南) style houses were demolished, giving way to flashy office buildings and shopping malls. An old house with high wall and courtyard where I lived as a child – a house built (in early 20th century or possibly earlier) for a middle class family but was shared by four families at that time – was completely gone. I could only roughly guess the position of the foundation of the house — which became part of a widened road when I visited it in 1998. The same happened to many old buildings – building new is much cheaper and quicker than keeping the old, and we Chinese seem not to mind too much of losing our heritages. It’s true that some famous large residences and gardens (yuanlin 园林) have survived and are well maintained, but they are all surrounded by nondescriptive new buildings now.

Anna Chen didn’t mention whether there will be a second series of Chinese in Britian. Surely there are lots of stories to tell about the new generations of Chinese? The influx of immigrants from Hong Kong during 80s and Chinese students in the last 10 years must have changed the composition and mentality of the UK Chinese community. What about the second and third generation of British Chinese? And what about those illegal immigrants who are truely at the bottom of the society, whose living conditions are painly depicted in Nick Broomfield’s Ghosts (2006)?

As for Hewitt, I’d like to suggest him to go back to China in perhaps five years time and to give us his observation again. I for one would be very interested in hearing what he would say.

The plot is simple. Zhuang Xiaoqiao, a young woman comes to the UK to study English, with little knowledge of the country, and the language. She meets an artist in London. They becomes lovers and she moves into his flat in the rough side of London. She explores the culture, language, and sex through him. She feels increasingly lost when she knows better about the English (in the broad sense) and decides to go back to China. The circle ends. The story is narrated solely from the Zhuang Xiaoqiao’s point of view, using a dictionary-like structure, hence the book title.

I admire the author’s attention to small details and the ability to convey the subtle messages. I quite like the absurdity and surrealness, which could be the results of I only read bits of it though. Zhuang Xiaoqiao is sensitive, fragile and yet quite determined. Probably not so likable but she seduces us with her
vulnerability and curiosity. I won’t be able to say anything about the story-telling and how well the use of a dictionary-like structure, but I was hooked into the story within the short time I had the book.

The problem for me though, is the device Xiaolu Guo used throughout the book, the ‘delibrately bad English’ Zhuang Xiaoqiao supposedly speaks. I can see it is intended to highlight the cultural difference, and to reflect Zhuang Xiaoqiao’s feelings from curiosity, confusion to a cultural limbo state she had experienced. However, that didn’t work for me at all, instead it consistently distracted me from following the story. I can’t help but keep thinking why Zhang Xiaoqiao is making such and such basic gramma mistakes yet at the same time using some sophiscated words and expressions that didn’t match the English level indicated – common for pupils learning English in China. Although it’s perfectly possible there is someone who speaks and writes English that way, and perhaps there is no such distraction for a native English speaker, the ‘delibrately’ part of the device became too obvious to me, which undermines the believability of the character. To manage the ‘bad English’ throughout the book and to change the writing style and volcabulary graduately without looking unnature is very difficult. I feel this book would be more enjoyable without having this device.