China Boy [Hardcover]

Gus Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1991

A young, American-born child of an aristocratic Mandarin family that has fled China struggles to assimilate in 1950s San Francisco in a novel from "an incredibly rich and new voice." (Amy Tan).

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When we first meet Kai Ting, the seven-year-old hero of this compelling, autobiographical first novel, he has just been ground into the pavement by the neighborhood bully--the most recent incident in a long series of calamities. Kai Ting is the youngest child but the only son of high-born Chinese parents who, before his birth, fled China's Communist revolution, leaving their wealth behind. Kai Ting was born in the San Francisco ghetto where his family had relocated in the mid-1940s. Survival in this urban jungle is made all the more difficult for him by severely impaired eyesight and "a body that made Tinker Bell look ruthless." His mother, once his sole refuge from the ruffians on the street, has died of cancer, and his father has married a WASP who cannot abide anything Chinese--especially her husband's children. Their father turns a blind eye as his wife locks the children out of the house during the day; Kai Ting's return at night with bruises and torn clothes becomes an excuse for a second beating, this time at home. Redemption does come, after a fashion, but it is hard-fought and painfully won. This is the Chinese-American experience as Dickens might have described it, peopled by many rogues and a few saints. Lee's characters--blacks, Hispanics, whites and Asians--tend to extremes of good and evil, but, vividly drawn and intensely human, they are never stereotypes. His story is a primer on how to keep body and soul together in a world that is as gritty as the streets of his hero's neighborhood and seems often dangerously out of control. 50,000 first printing; Literary Guild selection; author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-- A warm, engaging story of seven-year-old Kai Ting, set in the tough Panhandle District of San Francisco in the 1950s. Lee includes all of the classic fairy-tale conventions: a wicked stepmother; a totally obnoxious bully, Big Willie Mack, who lives to beat Kai into pulp; Toussaint La Rue, a street-wise paladin who befriends him; and the YMCA "Knights" who teach this David to stand up to his street Goliath. Kai's Merlin is his Uncle Shim, a Mandarin scholar who longs to pass on his classical learning to Most Able Student Kai, the only living son of his father's Shanghai family. Readers will weep with Kai when he's locked out of the house and left as prey to the McAllister street bullies. They'll laugh with him when he confuses English idioms and ethnic street slang. They'll root heartily for him during his survival training at the Y where he transforms his body into a disciplined fighting machine, and cheer loudly when he learns to deal with the ghosts who haunt him. This timeless, magically told tale of growing up and coming of age is a perfect companion to Tan's Joy Luck Club (Putnam, 1989) or Kingston's Woman Warrior (Knopf, 1976). --Dolores M. Steinhauer, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; First Edition edition (May 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052524994X
• ISBN-13: 978-0525249948
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,115,474 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An insightful autobiographical look, May 14, 2005

By 

Dr Data "Duke" (Tacoma, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: China Boy (Paperback)

Most of the reviews here are critical and misinformed. They appear to be written by disgruntled hisgh school students who have probably been assigned to read Lee's book as an effort to heighten their multi-cultural sensitivities. The kids miss the point. This is an excellent, sensitive novel about growing up in many worlds at once. Where ever Kai Ting is, is the wrong place, even home. His way of finding himself, finding a place, is through an unlikely venue, the local Y. There is a gritty truth thst comes off of every page here. Lee is exposing a great deal of his soul and, at the end, I felt part of his life. This was the first work of Lee's I read. My satisfaction with China Boy led me to the rest. He has much talent, a powerful voice and a sharp sense of humor... even when it hurts.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exerpt from my American Studies assignment, November 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: China Boy (Paperback)

Kai, is the main protagonist of an inspiring novel called China Boy, which is written by Gus Lee. The novel is actually a "semi-autobiography", the author states, " `China Boy' is a story about my family in China before immigrating to the United States during the war and then (after we settled in the U.S.) my own attempts become a successful African-American male youth in the Panhandle of San Francisco." Even though Gus Lee has Chinese blood (in his childhood) he tries to adapt or assimilate into the American culture by learning the street fighting of blacks in the Panhandle. The book depicts the author's own struggle to defend himself during his childhood in the Panhandle. Fabricated with characters of different races, the story captures the vision of America as a "melting pot." Through the keen entangling-details of Ting's family fleeing to America, the boxing lessons that Kai takes at YMCA, and Kai's fighting with his stepmother and the bullies on the street one extricates the lesson that life always has trials and tribulations, some things can't be changed, but others can.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fast-paced funny story about a young Chinese American boy, December 7, 1999

By 

Noel (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: China Boy (Paperback)

This novel is funny because the author uses slangs throughout the story to make the reader feel how people really talk and trying to use chinese words that is translated to how the word sounds. He uses descriptive words and a lot of metaphors in his writing which flows from one sentence to another and would not stop till the end of the book. The story is from a young chinese boy's perspective who is unaware what American culture is about, living in San Francisco in the early fifties and dealing with a new American stepmom who tries to erase the family's chinese culture. This book inspires me how this young boy reminds me of how fun a child can be, growing up, adopting new styles from the streets and where everything is always changing. I would recommend to anyone because it's easy to read, funny, and have a unique ending that you to find out for yourself.