Customer Reviews

The Jade Peony

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
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I was initially drawn to read The Jade Peony by a review in the National Post about Watson Choy's new novel, All That Matters. I have always been fascinated with literature about Asia and Asian culture (such as Life and Death in Shanghai and Wild Swans ) and novels about Asian-Canadian life, such as Denise Chong's Concubine's Children have held a particular appeal to me. Hence my interest in this book.

I found The Jade Peony enjoyable for two reasons. First, it is a tale of Vancouver's Chinatown during the Second World War. It gave me a glimpse into what life would have been like in this city and in Canada during that time. In particular, the forbidden relationship between a teenage Chinese girl and a Japanese boy really demonstrates the cultural struggle faced by Canadians during the war. The lines between friend and foe are confused by fear of dreadful events far away.

Second, it carefully and successfully expresses the delicate dance that immigrants and their children go through when they move to Canada: how to retain the old way and still embrace the new life. In The Jade Peony, we see these first-generation Chinese-Canadians want to run from the old culture and the older generation vainly grasping to keep them aware. It is hard to decide who should win out, because to change is required for survival but so much is dying out. (I suppose it is what every parent and grandparent goes through as they see their children grow up and away.)

If you have ever lived in or near Vancouver, read this book. If you have ever experienced the duality felt by anyone who immigrates to a new country or who is born of immigrant parents, read this book. If you have experienced or seen neither of these things, read this book to get a good sense of what you have missed.

THis is an amazing book! MY father grew up in Chinatown (Vancouver) at appox. the same time, it's nice to read and try to understand his early life.

I read the first part in a matter of days. It was so powerful that I cried, in the middle of the waiting room at my doctors office. I still have not read the entire book as I'm scared to experence such powerful emotions, in public. I will finish it though.

The Jade Peony is a poignant tale about three Chinese children growing up in Vancouver's Chinatown during world war 2.
Wayson Choy's writing is beautiful, searing, and eloquent. This book will keep you hooked. No wonder it won the Trillium Award.

I had the honor of meeting Wayson Choy. He is a delightful person, and his talent definitely shines through in his works.

Highly recommended to anyone!

Like a few other pieces of great literature of the 20th century, this book followed the adventurous trend in that century to dish out more than one first-person narrative sections. As a result, the read is so-so (at least for me) in the beginning and rapidly and immensely grew on me towards the end. THIS BOOK IS A TRILLIUM AWARD WINNER; one can say it is almost an equivalent to the Pulitzer in the United States as in Canada. I wondered "how the heck did this book win such a prestigious award?" when I was reading through the first section of the book; however, the second and the third section honestly kept going at the reader. More information more perspective more everything. Each of the three sections is in a first person narrative of three respective sibling (one sister, two brothers) in one Chinese Canadian family in the early 20th century. Racism, poverty, discrimination linger in the novel, but so do compassion, serenity and persistence.

The reason why I said it grew on me is because as the reader gets to the third section, a conversation between the narrator in the third section and the previous narrators become very interesting. The narrator speaks and hears on the surface, but since the reader has previously gone into the minds of the narrators in the first and second section, the reader can strategically read between the lines. One can almost "get smart" on the narrator narrating, be glad and secretly proud that he knows something the narrator doesn't know. "No no thats not what he means!" "No she realy does not like this despite how she has made you believe" are my responses to the narrator's prose sometimes. The contrast betweeen the different narrators' opinions on the family and humanity in general are also very mesmerizing.

I do not want to give the plot away, but this is a very very good read. It is not a must read for everybody I wouldnt say. For those who are interested in Asian America culture should 100% grab this title, however. I loved it.

I enjoyed this book immensely. It is a wonderful account of the lives of three young Chinese-Canadians in the 30's and 40's. The descriptive work enthralled me for hours, I just couldn't put it down. The characters were absolutely enchanting. I especially enjoyed the character of "Sekky", the "weak" one. The way that Choy tells a story is absolutely fantastic. I am definetly going to find some more of his work!

This better-tahn-average work of literary fiction is quite enjoyable to read - well-written and richly evocative of the 1940s. The characters are children of Chinese descent growing up in Vancouver's Chinatown, and the first-person sections are written in the voices of three of them, all of whom are having some trouble finding their way in a world where the old certainties of centuries of Chinese life seem not always to apply. I enjoyed the book, but was left wanting something more - the chapters of each section seemed more like short stories, sketches of individual moments in which someone's life changed, rather than a novel. They are excellent stories, and they are interconnected, but rather loosely.

Wayson Choy's beautifully written debut novel, The Jade Peony, is a poignant examination of the Chinese immigrant experience in Vancouver's Chinatown before and during the Second World War, and its consequence on collective ideals, as well as the immigrants' personal identities. It is a representation of a proud, dignified people struggling to regain autonomy from the constraints of history, intolerance, destitution, and cultural heritage.

True to memoir-like fashion, The Jade Peony consists of three individual manuscripts, written from different perspectives. Three siblings in the same household of Chinese immigrants, eking out a meager living in Vancouver's Chinatown, combine their accounts in one volume, to compile a narrative of different acculturation effects within the family and the Chinese community itself. These three very different life experiences and vantage points, bestow an accurate sampling of a new generation desperate to adjust and assimilate the new world culture, often at the sacrifice of the "old ways"...much to their elders' dismay.

Little sister Jook-Liang, who longs to be a performer like Shirley Temple, befriends family friend Wong Bak, a deformed elderly man from the old country. As the two of them form an unlikely friendship, Jook-Liang ambitiously dreams of escaping the unyielding old ways, while grappling with the old Chinese convention of elevating the life of a boy above that of a girl.

Second brother Jung-Sum, taken from a neglectful family in China, is sent to live with his new adoptive family in Vancouver's Chinatown. Besieged by childhood trauma of what he had to endure at the hands of his biological parents, he ultimately feels a sense of belonging amongst his new family, and finds his niche in boxing.

Third Brother Sekky, often plagued with illness (and as a result, coddled by Poh-Poh), never quite comes to terms with the plethora of complex Chinese dialects he is forced to study. Overwhelmed, he often retreats into himself, inducing visions of Poh-Poh after she is gone, and filling the void with an obsession for war games. When a forbidden relationship flourishes between Sekky's Chinese babysitter and a Japanese boy, the lines between friend and foe are blurred by fear of frightful events happening a world away, with devastating consequences.

At the heart of each account is Poh-Poh (respectfully known as the "Old One", or Grandmother). the mainstay and matriarch of the family, who passes down vivid reminiscences of her life experiences to the children. Not unlike the jade peony, which she bestows to them as an inheritance, Poh-Poh also confers them a more valuable inheritance -- their cultural heritage as a people, and the necessity and importance of holding on to a measure of "old way" attitude.

Though discrimination and poverty predominated the early immigrants' experience, Choy tempers his story with a caustic wit and a gritty humor that brings a certain hope to the often-heartrending chronicle. Given its candor and lucid voice on an important topic, it is no surprise that The Jade Peony has gained many accolades and awards, and has won its way to many readers' hearts.

If you ever visit Vancouver, read this book while you are there. You can picture the family going to the docks, looking at the north shore mountains. And while many of the old homes are gone, a vibrant Chinatown and the streets he mentions are still there. He makes the book come alive. Perhaps you will even see Grandmama's shadow!

An avid reader of Asian and Asian American interest books, I found this short novel to be a pleasant treat. Choy explores issues and personalities that are distinct from the more average and classic types you might find in other books that try only to bring attention to Asian identity. I was especially touched by the stories of a young boxing boy and the vague, poetic discovery of his sexuality and an observer's account of love under the pressure of World War II. This is an easy book to read, but no less accomplished for it. Choy's talent is evident in the fact that he manages to teach without preaching and move without being overly sentimental. A subtle work.

This novel which reads like three mini-memoirs is entrancing. It tells the story of three Chinese children who have to deal with barriers, both real and perceived, resulting from their alien-ness in Canada in the years leading up to WWII. The stories also expertly describe the desire of the Chinese aliens to remain true to their roots in an era of largescale technological and scientific advances.


Imagined barriers like Liang's fear of the Monkey King are crushed and good things arise. Internal barriers are erected by Jung to protect himself from his own homosexual feelings. Sekky, the youngest child, was protected from birth by his grandmother because of his frailty and loses his senses temporarily when she is no longer around to protect him. His babysitter suffers terribly for her cross-barrier love for a Japanese boy. Not all barriers are right and not all are wrong and not all should be torn down.


Wayson Choy writes beautifully and is thorough in his research of the time period. This is one book that would be a welcome addition to anyone's bookcase.