Customer Reviews

Daughter of the River

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is true that this autobiography is bleak. It is dark, but it is a reflection of the poverty and oppression experienced by the peasant class in China, now and all during the rule of the Communist regime. How Hong Ying is able to evoke absolute beauty from this seemingly unending ugliness is beyond me. But she expertly does just that. Without thought or pretense, Hong Ying's writing sings immaculately from the page. Amazing prose. This book's importance lies in that it is the story of someone from the peasant class, and since it is always good to hear all different perspectives of the same or similar events in order to get a good all around picture of the times, Hong Ying's book is a must read. In commenting on the book to a friend, I said that perhaps Hong Ying and her family's saving grace was that they were already at the bottom of the totem pole. Because of this they didn't have to experience the worst of what the Cultural Revolution had to offer eventhough it touched their lives daily. The peasant class of China is what Mao Zedong strived to make all the people of China in the name of proletarianism. The fact that Hong Ying and her family were already of this class meant that many of the dynamics of the time that were sweeping through all classes above them settled into their class as normalcy somewhat. It's like a line from Joan Chen's movie "Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl;" at one point when Xiu Xiu is questioning where she is being sent, she is told that it doesn't matter because it's the same everywhere; a simple statement but poignant in just how dead on right it is. Therefore, you must appreciate even moreso when we are allowed to read of these events by all those who were a part of them be it peasant or merchant. If it's done well, it is the most captivating of things to read because it means they made it out and are able to share it with us now. Before, any scraps of paper containing this type of writing would have been confiscated and burned, a black mark put in your file, or perhaps you'd be arrested. Hong Ying has done a brilliant job telling of her coming into womanhood in those times and of the exuberant curiosity she had about her family and herself, always having been treated as the outsider.

Dear Hong Ying

Thank you so much for sending me your book. I was totally gripped by your narrative and when I finished it I found myself weeping uncontrollably. There is so much in your story which strikes my raw emotion and which touches my heart deeply.This is not just because I feel instinctively tuned into the underworld you depicted so vividly due to similar experiences in my life in Chongqing. More importantly, it embodies almost exactly the literary project which has long been fermenting in my mind. I have always longed to read something or even write something which could show that big words such as freedom, democracy and human rights are not just some high-sounding principles; that they affect millions of ordinary people's lives in many concrete ways.

In my discipline of political science, the rise of East Asia in the 1980s spawned a huge industry of academic research on the relathionship between political system and economic development. For quite a while, Western scholars who were critical of their own democratic system joined the chorus of East Asian dictators such as Suharto, Lee Kuan Yew and Dr Mahathir (of Malaysia) to defend the "necessity" of authoritarianism for the sake of economic development and political stability. I think your book would be an ideal antidote to this typical "arm-chair" scholarship devoid of any sense of reality. To me, your book serves as a powerful warning that development without democracy simply

creates another privileged class standing above the law and everyone else. I am often angered and depressed by the world I live in. It seems to me so many human injustices stem ultimately from the fact that too many human beings are greedy and cruel.

The Western bookmarket has been inundated with 'memoirs books' by the Chinese, everyone of whom, it has been said, has a highly interesting book in their mind. This is possibly true, as the Chinese people have gone through extraordinarily hardship. The problem now is that how those books are written. If there is not much unique in his or her experience, it is by no means easy not to repeat what have already been said.

That is where this book has made its unique contribution: this is the only book written by a girl who grew up from a working class family in a city slum. All the rest of the 'memoir books' are by authors from cadres' or intellectuals' family.

It's by no means easy, since China has an elitist tradition.

What is more, this book stands out in its attitude towards the ordeal that every Chinese had to suffer: the author shows us that poverty corrupts too. No one could hope to be perefect, even the victims, not even the author herself.

Which is very different from the attitude shown in books like Wild Swans etc, where the author and her family members are almost like saints who suffered all the wrongs without making mistakes themselves.

This attitude of self-inspection and self-criticism certainly marks the book out of the multitude. Anyone who wants to see the hitherto unseen side of China definitely should read the book.

A page-turner that left me feeling hollow with the numbing emotional emptiness that gripped the tender young life that was exposed in the book.

The only solace during the read is the knowledge that the author had somehow transcended her apparent fate to be able to create the well-written biography.

In the end, satisfied that the author has found her own place of peace (she has become a successful author, after all), I was left wondering the fate of her impossibly burdened family.

Hong Ying, wherever you are, I hope you have found all of the emotional fulfillment you deserve. You have demonstrated a remarkable capacity not only for surviving, but for understanding and sharing feelings that are more painful and profound than most of us will ever have to experience.

In a way, I feel reading this allowed me to grow emotionally.

Whats annoying is that the author passes this all off as autobigraphical and historically true, when it is NOT. YH was/is from a very elite background, and like other expats making bucks off of US readers in search of melodramas of oppressed Chinese, this works poorly as history or politics. MOreover, the prose is labored and purple, though this might be the translation's fault.

This book is a shock revealing the poverty that exists for this young woman and many others in China yet her desires and inner thoughts are so vivid and powerful that she was able to somehow escape her fate and break away to become an individual global being which I think is a rare thing where she comes from. I want to read her other books right away.

This book held me every step of the way. I borrowed it from the library, but felt it must be a definite addition to my home library. What a wonderful testimony to the human spirit: for one to rise above such adverse circumstances, and then to be able to put it on paper in such beautiful prose. This is a China every informed person should know about.

I cannot say that I enjoyed reading this book ... it was too raw to bring pleasure. But it did keep me captivated until the end. I felt that I wanted to reach out to Hong Ying and comfort her in some way as she lived through such excruciating poverty and endured the even greater agony of not feeling loved. I hope that she has found love and is at peace now. I also wonder about the fate of her family. Did they ever find release from such grinding poverty?

Hong Ying obviously has a great talent and I look forward to reading more of her writings.

The Western bookmarket has been inundated with 'memoirs books' by the Chinese, everyone of whom, it has been said, has a highly interesting book in their mind. This is possibly true, as the Chinese people have gone through extraordinarily hardship. The problem now is that how those books are written. If there is not much unique in his or her experience, it is by no means easy not to repeat what have already been said.

That is where this book has made its unique contribution: this is the only book written by a girl who grew up from a working class family in a city slum. All the rest of the 'memoir books' are by authors from cadres' or intellectuals' family.

It's by no means easy, since China has an elitist tradition.

What is more, this book stands out in its attitude towards the ordeal that every Chinese had to suffer: the author shows us that poverty corrupts too. No one could hope to be perefect, even the victims, not even the author herself.

Which is very different from the attitude shown in books like Wild Swans etc, where the author and her family members are almost like saints who suffered all the wrongs without making mistakes themselves.

This attitude of self-inspection and self-criticism certainly marks the book out of the multitude. Anyone who wants to see the hitherto unseen side of China definitely should read the book.

The non linar approach kept me thinking there would be some big supprizing reward at the end of the book. To my disappointment there was no such revolation. Not an awfully written story but certinally no prize winner in my book!