Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet: On a Slow Boat from Shanghai to Texas [Paperback]

Gillian Kendall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 29, 2006

After accepting a job teaching English on a small engineering vessel traveling from Shanghai to Texas, Gillian Kendall embarks on a strange journey with no ports of call but exotic emotional landscapes. She is the only female aboard, surrounded by Chinese men. The cosmopolitan graduate student suddenly has to adjust to an alien world, thick with cigarette smoke, unusual sea creatures, and male sexuality. Kendall invites readers to travel with her across cultural divides as deep and mysterious as the Pacific while she explores her own culture, orientation, and heart.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

There's a lot of potential in the story of a young American woman hired onto a Chinese vessel to teach the sailors English as they cross the Pacific, and Kendall, a freelance writer who lives in Australia, hits it from time to time in this swift and eventful memoir of her weeks at sea as "Teach-ah." The setting is ripe for misunderstandings, loneliness, bonding and self-reflection. As her students' English improves and Kendall's Chinese and "Chinglish" develops, she befriends some of the men on board, attempts to sort out a series of cultural faux pas and thinks about her doomed relationship with her boyfriend back home. She hints at the deeper issues that influence her, most especially her nascent homosexuality, but only with glancing strokes that leave much unexplored and the relationship between the reader and writer stymied. The fun, however, is in the stories of the daily navigation of tight quarters, cultural collisions and storms—and the cigarettes, sweets and chicken feet that get them all through the long days and nights of sea and sky. (Oct. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Hold on to your seat as you travel with cosmopolitan English graduate student Kendall, the sole woman aboard a Chinese ship. Kendall's adventure begins with a flier and a help-wanted ad: "English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher Needed." Intrigued, she answers the ad and soon finds herself accompanying a cruise from Shanghai to Galveston, Texas, teaching ESL en route to Chinese seamen, ship's officers, and mechanical engineers. And that's just the beginning! English lessons, of course, are only part of the story. The fundamentals of intercultural communication are at the heart of this fast-paced journey. Self-discovery is also central. Readers will learn about the Chinese system of manners, dietary customs, ships' rolls, seasickness, student-teacher relations, and hunger for knowledge. Time zones will be crossed, and the ocean will not always look the same. This is enjoyable through and through. Sarah Watstein
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; 1 edition (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0299219445
• ISBN-13: 978-0299219444
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,605,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Travel > Asia > China > Shanghai
  • #85 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Wisconsin

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An expat ESL teacher loves this book but, doesn't care for chicken feet either!, May 2, 2007

By 

D. Goodpasture (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet: On a Slow Boat from Shanghai to Texas (Paperback)

I spent the academic year of 1999/2000 teaching English in Shenzhen. I spoke no Chinese, at the time, and had no formal teaching experience. So I could definitely relate to Gillian's frustrations, culture shock, and malentendus. It's 1991 and Gillian is a grad student in Galveston, TX. The semester is coming to a close and she spies an ad on the bulletin board for an ESL teacher aboard a ship sailing from Shanghai to Galveston. After a hard sell Gillian manages to land the job aboard the all male ship. The company flies her to Shanghai where she boards the ship. The reader witnesses her feelings about being the only woman on the ship; loneliness and some sexual harassment egged on by the only other American on board. She experiences a Sapphic awakening as she realizes in her state of isolation that she doesn't have any romantic feelings for her boyfriend. She manages to break through the cultural, gender, and language barriers to form some attachments to her students and especially Mr. Ding, the cook. The book is riddled with faux pas but the funniest part, I would say, is when she saves Mr. Ding by hurling the violent Panamanian vendor into the Canal.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Risk Taker's Journey Vindicated, January 13, 2007

By 

John Whiter (Victoria, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet: On a Slow Boat from Shanghai to Texas (Paperback)

In Mr Ding's Chicken Feet, the author, Gillian Kendall, comes across at first as maybe a little naive and unwary. She is a risk-taker. Her apparent lack of serious doubt about the whole enterprise, her trust in her fellow human beings not to harm her and her faith that it would all work out made me a little nervous on her behalf. But she is vindicated by the experience and it is her empathy and geniality that are the keys to her success. Observing Kendall's openness to life and her willingness to reach out across cultures became one of the pleasures of reading the book. A cynical reader such as I am found it instructive to watch her interest in humanity unfold and be repaid.

Her story really takes off once the ship leaves shore. Then it leaves behind any experience I and probably most readers have had. Shipboard life with a completely male crew who mostly speak very fractured English seems so weird and challenging that you half expect the book to be a story of failure -- perhaps noble failure but depressing nonetheless. So it's very satisfying that she actually makes a difference to the sailors' English and lives. She is inventive in her methods and determined to give her employers their money's worth and thereby wins the crew's respect and affection.

Kendall can write -- just see her description of the terrible storm at sea. It had me rigid with tension. Shades of Conrad in Typhoon. She has a distinctive and likable tone of voice. The book tells an optimistic story in an unpretentious way and gives you faith in the power of empathic teachers (and English!).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing entertainment!, January 2, 2007

By 

V. Stern (Sussex, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mr. Ding's Chicken Feet: On a Slow Boat from Shanghai to Texas (Paperback)

Only a woman confident in her own sense of humor and adventure would have taken a job as the lone female and one of only two English-speakers on a boat far from shore. Gillian jumps on board with both feet, well-equipped with teaching materials and ideas. In short order some of her ideas are altered, replaced, or simply scrapped and thrown overboard. As she describes her daily struggles to accommodate vast cultural differences while at the same time trying to actually teach useful language, she offers sensitive analysis of the characters that make up the crew. Touching but funny interactions with the sometimes reverential sailors and vibrant descriptions of the nautical environment make this book a delight to read and a struggle to stop reading.