Customer Reviews

Grace in China: An American Woman Beyond the Great Wall, 1934-1974

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

 

 

GRACE IN CHINA reveals both a fascinating true love story of a Chinese-American marriage and a unique personal insight into Chinese-American history during the tumultuous years of 1934-1974. These years of violent change still influence the future of China and the United States and indeed the world. If you've watched the presidential debates, you know that China policy is one of the top issues, an issue which demands better understanding by leaders and citizens alike. This book can help, and what's more, it's a great read!

Grace meets FuChi Liu--her beloved "F.C."--in New York City where she is training to become an opera singer and he is working as a hydraulic engineer. Their heart-tugging courtship and marriage is followed by Grace's exciting journey to China with her baby daughter to make a new life with her husband. For 40 eventful years she is an eyewitness to history in China.

The early years are full of vivid scenes of the social life and corruption of the "old ways," mixed with her husband's struggle to bring change. Then come harsh stories of the Japanese invasion and occupation, the joyful arrival of U.S.Marines, and finally disenchantment with Chna's post-war leaders. As the Communists approach her city of Tientsin, Grace resolves to stay with F.C. instead of fleeing with other "foreigners." With a sense of history in the making, she watches hordes of "apple-cheeked" young soldiers of the Red Army march down her street.

For the Liu family, life goes on surprisingly well under the new regime as Grace and F.C. work hard "for the Chinese people." Unfortunately, F.C. dies from lung cancer at the height of his national career of bringing modern water systems to many regions of China. How Grace manages to survive with the help of her three children and warm-hearted neighbors makes an inspiring story. With "gumption," this southern girl undertakes a fulfilling career of her own by developing new methods of teaching English at Nankai University. But what happens to her and her family during the Cultural Revolution provides hair-raising reading. Finally in 1974, after Nixon's visit to China, she comes back to the United States to reunite with her American relatives. But China is her true home now. Her ironic return to Tientsin (now Tianjin) gives a moving conclusion to this unusual and significant biography of a woman who possessed a special kind of "grace under pressure" in time of war,social upheaval and personal challenge.

The authors of GRACE IN CHINA, who are her cousin and son, have skillfully created a vivid document that reads like a novel, using well-preserved letters, memoirs, interviews, articles, photographs and other primary resources blended seamlessly with excellent background narration. The editing is a triumph of weaving many voices into strong, intimate storytelling. Many scenes are so humorous, passionate, or dramatic that the reader can almost see the action on a movie screen compelling as one's own imagination. But it's all true--and it's a story that begs to be heard.

The small press editor of GRACE IN CHINA, Randall Williams of Black Belt Press in Montgomery, Ala., deserves praise for recognizing an important, memorable book that deserves both critical and popular acclaim. Since a small independent press doesn't have the resources for extensive publicity, "word of mouth" will have to spread the news.

Grace Devine Liu was already wary of questions when I happened to meet her in Los Angeles in 1978. My questions were naïve and how could she answer? Where would she start? Now there is this magnificent, surprising book, "Grace in China," that swept me up and carried me through four decades of her life. Brought up in Chattanooga, Grace studied opera in New York and met and married a young Chinese engineer who had studied at Cornell. She followed him to China not knowing what to expect, but who could have anticipated what would happen in China during the next forty years? Her life there, living in the British area of Tientsin, was comfortable and fun. Lots of parties and socializing and isolation from the realities of China's problems. She didn't even notice the Japanese advancing toward Tientsin until they marched in and occupied the city. From that point on, Grace became part of the history of China. She was in it for the whole ride, occupation, floods, government corruption, civil war, communism, Red Guards and the lifting of the "Bamboo Curtain." She lived the story on the inside, an American alien, trying to learn, trying to help, and most of all, trying to survive. Grace had taught English at Nankai University in Tientsin. She passed her enthusiastic interest in linguistics on to her son, Willie Liu, which brought them to Los Angeles for his work at UCLA in 1978. It was during this visit that Grace and my mother, Katie, 1st cousins, were reunited after 64 years. Katie, the family historian, was able to give her the only surviving letter from her husband written in 1931. Grace's own letters tell a fascinating story. "Grace In China" is a beautifully written book that grabs you from the first page and holds on through the unexpected twist at the end. You will go on thinking about this book long after you have layed it down.

I felt like I was right beside Grace when she stepped aboard the boat to China alone with her small child! The opportunity to view life in China during such a crucial period is rare....the opportunity to view it through eyes that seem so familiar is almost unimaginable.

The authors create such a complete picture of what life was like for this American woman who had left everything she knew to begin a new life in a foreign culture, that you feel like the experience is yours. You get a glimpse of daily common life in China like going to the market, the education of children, housing, vacationing, and being part of the workforce. Blend this with the amazing political front row seat Grace had,....entertaining and boldly sharing ideas with military and cultural leaders....and you truly get an uncommon perspective. This is a story that is a true treasure that could easily had been left to deteriorate in a cardboard box in a family attic somewhere. Instead it's here for us to enjoy. I highly recommend it.

I came to USA from China. The true stories told in the book Grace in China are so believable and moving. I was so taken by the book that I finished it in one night. I recommend it highly to anyone who want to know something about China and Chinese people.

Grace's life was not an easy one. However, she always had the love in her heart, for her husband, children, family and friends, her neighbors and her work. She dealt with hardship of life with such courage and humor. Her modest attitude toward her own appearance and ability, in contrast to the terrific literature she was able to create, makes me love this lady who is older than my grandmother.

The observation and descriptions to things and people of China in this book are quite accurate. So many books about China published in USA are rather misleading in that they select only the materials that fit their agenda, no matter how untypical their examples are.

Graces son William Liu and cousin Eleanor Cooper have done a marvelous job in organizing the original materials in such a readable manner. The scattered photos and old newspaper articles are remarkable pieces.

I am ordering this book at the moment, although I have already read it. It was actually lent to me only three days ago by a person who is an expert on Chinese history and culture. She and I now both live in China, accompanying our Japanese husbands whose work is based in Beijing. I had just visited Tianjin on Chinese New Year's, and when I told her so, she immediately handed me the book. It got me firmly anchored on my sofa for 15 hours straight. I've never read a more intriguing book. Grace endured countless hardships not only as a foreigner but as a precious witness to one of the most important years of this great land. This excellently compiled collection of her letters and recollections also serves as a superb textbook of Chinese modern history. My husband, seeing how absorbed I was with this book, took it in his hands after I finished and now he can't put it down. So we decided to order it because we suspected our friend intends to get it back very soon. I recommend it to everyone, whether interested or not in China.

Grace, a woman from a fairly ordinary southern family, goes to New Yort City in the 1920's to study voice. There she falls in love with a Chinese engineer, goes to Tiensin in North China and has three children. At first she lives a luxurious life in a foreign "concession." She has a wide variety of friends: American service men and officers, Chinese, British, French and other nationalities. But her life slowly changes as the Japanese occupy China, as the Americans win the war, as the Nationalists take control and then the Communists. While her lifestyle descends into cold, hunger and illness, Grace reads and writes. She is astonished at the distortions of the American press and says so in letters she sends home and to officials. Grace's story is told through her letters, autobiographical fragments, the reports of her children and the narration of Eleanor Cooper and her son. I expected the book to be disjointed. It isn't. On the contrary, Grace's voice, her intelligence and her strength provide a unity that is beautifully upheld by her editors. Along with "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson, this book gives us a view of "the East" that we are not often allowed.

What a wonderful opportunity we've been given here. We may never get to see our very own lives as we experience 'life' written in newspapers or in history books yet in this book we read not 'fiction' although the book is equally captivating as many novels often hope to be because along with Grace, an American, and her children we, too, can almost participate in their own experiences living deep inside China between 1934 and 1974. It's all here. And, yes, I agree with another reviewer: "The small press editor of GRACE IN CHINA, Randall Williams of Black Belt Press in Montgomery, Ala., deserves praise for recognizing an important, memorable book that deserves both critical and popular acclaim. Since a small independent press doesn't have the resources for extensive publicity, "word of mouth" will have to spread the news." It is a rare glimpse into what few Americans saw for themselves after 1949, especially during China's Cultural Revolution.