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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too much fiction, too little fact, January 25, 2008
This review is from: Miss Chopsticks (Hardcover)
I am definitely a fan of Xinran's writing. I was hooked with The Good Women of China and also found Sky Burial to be beautifully written. I was so excited for this book as I live in China and have worked with migrant workers in the past. I was very disappointed with Miss Chopsticks as I feel that the author could have done a bit more research into the lives of her subjects.
Having worked with migrant workers in China for 2 years, the stories portrayed by sisters Three, Five and Six are hardly the reality for migrant worker women in today's China. The reality that I see are harsh living conditions, 12-15 hour work days with no career ladder, very limited days off, and owners and managers who treat there pets and fancy cars better than their workers. The three sisters in the book seem to be living and working in their dream jobs in a dream world. It was very difficult to swallow when what I see in everyday life is completely opposite.
I wish Xinran would have included more fact into her work of fiction and depicted the persecution and discrimination that today's migrant woman faces. It's those life experiences that really makes these chopsticks, roof beams.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'A handful of chopsticks and no roofbeam', November 28, 2007
This review is from: Miss Chopsticks (Hardcover)
I read this novel in one sitting last night: I could not put it down. Xinran has written a delightful novel about three sisters from rural China who make their own lives in Nanjing.
Sisters Three, Five and Six may not have much formal education, but they know that their mother is a failure because she has produced only six daughters (chopsticks) and no son (roofbeam). Chopsticks (girls) are seen as less valued than roofbeams (sons) for a number of different traditional cultural reasons, and a family without sons has far less face (standing).
Sisters Three, Five and Six have different skills and aptitudes and each is able to find a valuable niche in the city, acquire new knowledge and to bring face to their family. Each sister makes a new and different life in Nanjing, and each is valued. They each learn as well that not all learning is without some pain or grief.
But the ultimate message is one of hope for a different future. In the words of their father:'Is it possible that our chopstick girls will be able to hold up the roof'?
This novel has been translated beautifully into English by Esther Tyldesley.
Highly recommended.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An eye-opener for a bignose, July 8, 2010
Xinran's charming story of three sisters is peppered with folk sayings and maternal cautions. Even though "the first pig to get fat is the first one to find itself on the table," the third-born daughter of the Li family (called Three) decides to leave the village and try her fortune in the big city. Anything rather than marry the unappealing husband her parents have chosen for her.
Three's father is so unhappy about having six daughters and no sons that they are named simply after their birth order. Girls, after all, are mere chopsticks, whereas boys are roofbeams. Without a son Li Zhongguo has no one to hold up his house.
Through the kindness of city people (like the Tofu Lady), Three finds a job quickly. She does so well working at The Happy Fool restaurant that two of her sisters (Five and Six) follow her to Nanjing.
Five is illiterate and considered the ugliest and stupidest girl in the village. Six is a bookworm, the only girl in the village to have finished middle school. The experiences of Three, Five and Six in their rather unusual jobs make lively reading. The sisters are beautifully portrayed, and there are lots of other delightful characters besides.
This novel gives a fascinating picture of the new entrepreneurial China, as seen through the eyes of naive country girls who have never used porcelain toilets, ridden in a car or encountered a bignose (Caucasian) in person.
Even though the plot goes a bit flat at the end, all in all I found the book as fresh and piquant as the vegetables in The Happy Fool restaurant.
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