I usually comment on books I've just read, but this seems a precarious situation. After all these people have lived, with faults and with virtues, how can I comment on their story? I can't offer judgments because this isn't an imaginative creation but a piece of raw history.
Still, I have my feelings towards this piece of work. It was sparked by Winberg's mother's mysterious burial plans, in a plot completely surrounded by other graves where her husband could not be buried with her. They went through their ancestors' history and focused on the story of Winberg's mum, or May-Lee's grandmother.
It's a turbulent story, spanning the most tumultous years of Chinese history. From a cultural point of view, it's fascinating, a little square of China in its warlord, civil war and then communist era, to their immigration to America. My knowledge of Chinese history is hazy at best, but I could tell they had suffered.
The grandmother, Ruth, was something of a pioneer in her time. Her mother refused to have bound feet, saved by Christian missionaries. Ruth was one of the first ladies to go to university, one of the eight chinese female prodigies, who memorised the entire Bible. For someone like me, who struggles over single verses, this is nothing short of phenomenal. Ruth is quick-sighted, she has survival instincts. She chooses her own husband because he had "an honest face", in a split second decision that carries her through the rest of her life. So she must be a good judge of character. She escapes with her family to America soon after the Communists came into power, and missed the whole Cultural Revolution. There's foresight for you. She and her husband had studied overseas previously anyways. I stick to bald facts because I cannot hazzard a response to this interwoven web of character.
If Ruth is a strict mother, did she not also save her family? If she has survived whilst others died, was it not for her family? Chinese biographies, memoirs (China is my hobby from an intellectual perspective) show one thing strongly - the Chinese mentality. The rat-pack existence. Because as a Chinese, who make up about a fifth of the worlds population, you are more insignificant than a drop in the bucket. Ruth was extroadinary, and you have to be extroadinary to survive. You cannot care about everyone. These are not God's ways, but even as a Christian, I cannot see any viable alternative.
Ruth was decisive, snappy, sharp, brilliant, intelligent, dominant. She is easily a more powerful person than her husband, Charles, who is less clear-sighted but has a softer heart. He would be welcome in some shelter, early 20th C rural existence, but hopeless in his own. It's all a matter of context. Winberg and May-lee have done well to piece this story together. It is truth, and I can't interfere with that.
In the end, they recognise her surprise burial plans as her way of making sure her story was never forgotten. After all the family had been through, she did not want her sacrifices to be lost. She wanted her descendents to understand, and to do this, she had to shock them into remembering the past. Who can say if this is wise or not? My parents immigrated from China also so we could escape from that oppressive atmosphere. They have suffered as immigrants, not nearly to the extent of this memoir, but more than I will ever know. Do I want to forget this? No, I want to realise and recognise what they experienced. Only recently have I started hearing stories, true stories of our past, and I can hardly recognise that time where everything was so precious. There is something behind the Chinese mindset, shaped by their history. Cheap, even stingy, but for a reason. Success-driven, family-motivated, endurers, workers. I have a root in all this.
LITERARY MERIT: ****
ENJOYMENT: ****
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