Customer Reviews

Beyond the Narrow Gate

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Leslie Chang as elegantly put into print the experience of my parents' generation. I, too, am a second generation American Born Chinese. I don't believe my parents intentionally hid their past from us, but with the language and cultural differences, the picture wasn't always so clear. But it all seems so much clearer now, having read Leslie's book ... and I consider myself nearly fluent in spoken Mandarin. The book has been instrumental in helping my parents and I to talk about our experiences even more. Her meticulous description of her mother in the booth trying on all those shoes ... was so graphic, so clear and so real ... I could hear the crowd whispering. It was little scenes like that, which really brought the reality of it all home ... that this happened to real people. This book talks more about the China, the Chinese and the life that I and many of the other American Born Chinese (ABC) friends that I'd grown up with are familiar with. I've been waiting for a book that shared my feelings, experience and thoughts and I feel that I have found it here. Thank you, Leslie, for all your research and your magic pen!

I read this narrative in a matter of hours because I could not put it down. Sometimes poignant, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes funny, but always riveting, Beyond the Narrow Gate is a brave exploration of the Chinese immigrant experience based mainly on the art of survival and forgetting.

It is hard to imagine today that ancien regime Nationalist China was about as opposite as modern day America in the 50s could get. These women simply did not come thousands of miles from another continent, they practically came from a another planet with the great differences in cultural attitudes, values and expectations yet not only survived, but endured and even prospered with a unique blend of stoic pragmatism. The down side of this pragmatism was a complete divorce between their previous life in China and subsequent life in America that mirrored the issues of their children.

The narrative underscores the impact of the first generation upon the second, the options "jook sing" must make between the China that exists through the influence of their parents and their subjective experience as Americans. Leslie Chang's courageous journey from rejection to acceptance of her natal culture is often painful, revealing human weaknesses and unimaginable responses in the face of impending tragedy. Memory and survival are strange bedfellows. I doubt that few of us would have her integrity in seeking out the darkest recesses of their parents' closet without flinching.

Despite the recent spate of pop psychoanalytical memoirs, Leslie's narrative is all the more powerful for the revelation of sealed off rooms of painful memory for Nationalist Chinese immigrants, most, if not all are unwilling to revisit. Their stoic Confucian attitudes do not allow them to bemoan what fate gave them, but to constantly look forward to the future. Looking backwards at closed chapters of life is not only considered uninstructive, but destructive. They passed on a patrimony was often the good life in America for their children but not of their own past.

Incisively written with a wealth of anecdotal detail, all of the stories converge into a final poignant scene - Leslie and Wei making dumplings for Chinese New Years like their parents before them and the generations before that. The spare prose handles the disjointed lives sensitively with a ring of unmistakable truth. The references to poet Wallace Stevens, a man who had a less than fulfilling life himself, are a nice touch. Bravo!

Leslie Chang's book moved me and echoed so many of my own sentiments as an adult child of immigrants. I bought this book as a 65th birthday present for my mother. I ended up inhaling it in three late night "peeking at the book you bought for someone else" sessions. Her observations, thorough research, honest prose, and intuitive insights reveal her as both a scalpel sharp journalist and an imperfect, caring human being who struggles with the ongoing process of figuring out how to relate to parents who speak a different language, literally and psychically.

Chang speaks of resentment and annoyance at her mother but admits that she loves and appreciates her often-overbearing mother. Did Chang secretly listen in on my private psychotherapy sessions? I've wrestled my whole life with the loneliness that I so often feel as the child of parents who will never understand that much of me or see me for who I think I really am. I feel a little less alone because writers like Leslie Chang are able to engage in candid and fair examinations of our parents who so often feel like aliens. At an author's reading night that I attended in Berkeley, Leslie Chang showed up with her mother. She shared with the audience that her mother had not read the book yet, but had bought a thousand copies. That is so Chinese! Chang took risks here. One of the women profiled in the book is angry with Leslie for the way she is portrayed. One brother has read only twenty pages. The other said, "what's the point?" Chang confessed that she never wants to write a book involving family members again. I'm glad she wrote this book. I highly recommend this book not just to adult children of immigrants, but to anyone who wrestles with issues of loneliness, conditional love, personal disappointment, irreconcilable differences, survival, and belonging.

This book was awesome to read, a real tour de force on the human emotion. Anyone who wants to get a good and accurate picture of the Asian-American experience, especially those of the early Chinese immigrants who came to this country should read this book. Leslie Chang does a phenomenal job in evoking the triumphs and tribulations of these Chinese women who fought to find their place in America, to succeed despite all obstacles and the struggle to raise their children with both the Chinese and American tradition, constantly wondering what the best combination should be. Leslie mentions "bamboo generation," this description is very appropriate, and to find out what she means by this, read this book, b/c by its end, you will know what the term means.

First, let me say that Beyond the Narrow Gate is a good read. The characters drew me in, I cared what happened to them. When I put it down, I realized that I noted similarities between the characters and a few people who I'd known over the years. Ms. Chang's treatment of her own journey to understand her parents and the world they came from helped me understand some of these folks (or at least think I might have a clue as to what their experiences might have been and how they chose to deal with them). Very fresh perspective.

I can relate to this story. The places that she mentioned were familiar to me, I had the same experience and background. I read the book over and over because I was afraid to miss the details.

I can understand the differences between east and west coast Chinese women. Their roles are very different and the family/communities are very different.

Certain parts in the beginning were confusing, and it may be difficult for Americans to understand how Chinese people feel about education and the responsiblity to themselves, as well as their families. There were many examples of pride, and family culture that I could relate to.

I am waiting for her to write another story about her generation and their contributions to US and their own Chinese background - their "Chinese-ness"

A fascinating story of 3 generations of Chinese/Taiwanese women. Chen beautifully paints a contrast between the older generation and her young self on a personal journey to discover her roots. What makes this book so wonderful is that Chen not only tells of the difficult journey from Taiwan to America but also the battle of thoughts and emotions that take place in their hearts.

Chang is a first-rate author, nailing down the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, generational relationships and the immigrant experience with ease. Entertaining and enlightening.

Journalist Leslie Chang writes with mature grace, careful humor and a clear-eyed insight about the modern immigrant experience in America. She intricately weaves together the stories of her mother and 3 of her mother's former classmates from a Taiwanese school for the brightest of that country's young women. Before being accepted at the school, all four had fled from mainland China during the Communist takeover, escaping a destructive force and chaos few of us can imagine. At an early age, they proved themselves to be quiet and savvy survivors, and they continued to be amazing women in this country, where they were all sent after finishing their Taiwanese schooling. When they attended American colleges in the 1950's, there were only a handful of Chinese allowed into this country each year, and yet they survived, married and thrived -- all, by sheer intelligence and singleminded determination. Ms. Chang begins to untangle their sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes bittersweet stories at her mother's school renuions. She discovers, for the first time, who her mother is and where she came from. In the process, Ms. Chang finds herself and comes to understand the different things it means to be The Other in this land of ours.

I enjoyed the book immensely and would recommend it, especially to members of reading groups.There is much here to disucss -- mothers and daughters; the immigrant experience; East vs. West; infidelity in marriage and whether marriage can survive it; each woman's story. I have already passed on my copy to a girlfriend who reads as avidly as I do, and she plans to suggest it to her reading group.

With the controlled finesse of a lifelong writer, Leslie Chang has written a wonderful book about Chinese-American life and history. Like the brush strokes of a delicate Chinese painting, Chang's portraits of her four subjects are subtle, artful, yet full of insight. She is open and honest about portraying the dilemmas of the immigrant experience and how she straddled multiple worlds while growing up. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in getting a glimpse of a complex, ancient culture and its current day keepers.