Customer Reviews

Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora (Kodansha Globe)

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First of all, let me say that this is not light reading. Lynn Pan was on a mission when she began researching this book and she left no stone unturned. The immeasureable hours that she must have put into the preliminary parts of the actual writing shine through brightly. Miss Pan obviously was or became well traveled in preparation for this book seeing as how it covers the Chinese diaspora all across the globe. Her personal experiences in England and some in the U.S. no doubt were the cornerstones of the inspiration for this monumental work but the immense scope of the finished product is a true gift to the Chinese community. Tracing the immigration patterns of the Chinese focusing mainly on the last two centuries, Sons of the Yellow Emperor is an in depth look at the hot spots across the world where the Chinese have taken up residence. From Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the U.S., England, Canada, Australia and so on, Miss Pan has outlined the defining characteristics of the places and people dwelling therein down to the very mainland roots of the different Chinese sects, Hokien, Fukien, etc., and their influences in the regions they spread into as well as how they were influenced by those regions. To top it all off, Miss Pan breaks each section down into short biographies of certain influential historical figures, showing their relevence to their time and place and what bearing they had within the history of the Chinese diaspora. I won't pretend to be educated on this topic at all, but I can tell you that Lynn Pan has eked out a summation of a new branch of history, and done so in such a manner as to be exhaustively informative and delightfully entertaining. Recently, I was in a bookstore and saw her newest work. I suppose it is an addendum to Sons of the Yellow Emperor. It is an Encyclopedia of the Chinese Diaspora huge and filled to the brim with captioned photographs and more insight into this branch of historical writing. Well done; and both works certainly fill a void and bring something of great interest to light for anyone curious.

A very well researched, well written book. The author has apparently done a lot of legwork. This book surpasses all others I have read so far in this category. It's a history book. It is sure to become a standard reference text for anyone researching in the area of Chinese emigration.

It is well balanced, too. It doesn't treat any one particular region of the world where Chinese emigrated to. It has dealt with the whole idea of diaspora of the Chinese people worldwide -- from Southeast Asia, to Central America, and of-course, North America. It traces the origin, and subsequent ordeals, of the early Chinese sojourners. It also dealt with the reasons for their departure from home-- all the historical, political, social, economics, and personal reasons that any Chinese would want to leave their home.

A good book and an easy read. It has plenty of references so it is scholarly. But it is written in an easy-to-read narrative format so it is also easy to digest.

The only complaint I have is that I wish she had put down (printed) the original Chinese text (in Chinese characters) that she had used throughout the book. This way a reader can refer back to the original Chinese words to know how it may have been translated into English. This would also give an idea of how a Chinese phrases / words / ideas have been transliterated into a foreign language.

This book makes an ideal anthropological study of Chinese that immigrated overseas, particularly to the South East Asian countries. My Western friends had this discussions with me before that he's fascinated by the fact that no matter where he travelled to in all corners of the world, even at far reaching places such as a town bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, there stood Chinese restaurant! Therefore, I always posed this question, why do Chinese end up where they end up? Don't they want to go back to China (home) or that they are already home? The author endeavoured to analyse what motivated the Chinese to leave their homeland at the first place. It was new to me to discover that at earlier stages of Chinese vovage to present day, we were at the short end of the slave trade. There were indepth discussions of "Yellow Peril", of obstacles that had been implemented to obstruct the flow of Chinese immigrants to the host countries including USA. Poignantly, it brought to the fore about the double standards of America then where it had the Statue of Liberty to welcome immigrants from Italy and Ireland and yet, the President of the time signed the creed to prevent Chinese from getting through. There were discussions about love and hate relationships between the natives and the Chinese, and colonists and the Chinese. Whilst they despised Chinese, they couldn't and wouldn't live without them either. Once in a while, violences would be inflicted to the latter and then, they would go away as quickly as they appeared. There were lively discussions of the well-to-do overseas Chinese such as Madame Wellington Koo, Tan Kah Kee, Aw Boon Haw & Par (who brought us the famous Tiger Balm), Lee Kuan Yew, Bruce Lee, Liem Sioe Liang, Li Ka Tsing, et cetera to give us different perspectives of how those people saw themselves fitting into the social contexts of the time. There was also mentioning of fictitious characters created by Westerners such as Fu Manchu that stereotyped Chinese to have those Chineseness traits. As the saying goes, people eat to live whilst Chinese lives to eat. How true. A chapter is dedicated to that and the author even managed to demyth about the origin of fortune cookie and Chop Suey! A session was dedicated to the formation of the Triads, their hierarchies, different organisations, and their motivations. The part that I found close to my heart would be the differences between the first, second, and third generations of immigrants. All of them have had different way of seeing themselves, seeing China, having different kind of mentality and values. The book continued to describe about the immigrants to South East Asia who would subsequently immigrate to Western countries. By then, the kind of immigrants have changed from the previous that needed to start from scratch to the present that are already well-to-do. The book questioned if there's anything to present China that would attract the overseas Chinese to finally returning home. Please be mindful that the book was written in 1990 and she wouldn't have anticipated dramatic transformation in China that would make Napoleon's prophecy coming true: the dragon has and is finally awakened, and thus, the whole world shudders by its sheer might. Thumbs up to Lynn Pann for covering thoroughly the local politics in various countries, and thumbs up to her for writing such an insightful book that's definitely not piece-meal but thorougly researched. It's impressive that she could tackle such complex subjects & condense them into a constructive & cohesive book that's so much enjoyable to read. Her epilogue is succinct but true, that is, we yearn to be Chinese only when we are far away from China. Highly recommended.

The book gives a well researched and important explanation of the Migration of Chinese people in the 19th Century. It explains many issues that we see every day as we recognize the strength of the Chinese communities in many parts of the world. It may be an important history to tell Chinese youth today about the struggles of their ancestors.

Excellent and well researched book of the "Chinese Diaspora", however the subject of the diaspora to Indonesia was rather skimpy.

As someone who majored in Ethnic Studies and minored in Asian American Studies, I found this book to be an excellent complement to Asian American history books. In fact I would say I enjoyed this book much more than Ron Takaki's Strangers from a Different Shore or Sucheng Chan's Asian Americans: An Interpretive History.

Sons of the Yellow Emperor is more focused in that it concentrates solely on the Chinese, but at the same time it is far more global in it's scope than any of the Asian American Studies books I've read. Because Asian American history books focus solely on America, the historical, political and social context of the overseas Chinese is very limited.

Sons of the Yellow Emperor, however, puts Chinese immigration in a larger perspective. Why are Chinese communities all over the world?

A lot of it has to do with the European colonization of Asia, Africa and the Americas. When slavery was abolished, the European and American powers still needed labor to exact a colony's natural resources and to build its infrastructure. The Europeans also needed merchants to purchase goods and services. So the Chinese filled in the gap, which caused a lot of resentment on the part of the natives. As a result the Chinese were the victims of pogroms in a lot of these countries.

What I like about this book (as opposed to some of the Asian American history books) is that despite the overwhelming racism the Chinese experienced worldwide, the author presents plenty of stories about individuals who overcame the odds and resisted or circumvented the racist establishments of these various countries.

The only negative about the book is that it focuses primarily on the overseas Chinese of Southeast Asia and the Philippines. But this is a minor quibble, because the author covers a lot of topics, a lot of historical ground (1600-1980) and a lot of countries in addition to Southeast Asia, such as the Americas, Africa, Europe and Australia.

It's a fascinating and entertaining read. I highly recommend it.

This book is a great introduction to the Chinese diaspora. I found it very well written and insightful.

Anyone visiting the Far East should read this book which will explain to them how, when and why various ethnic groupings now exist in places you would not expect to find them. This well researched publication shows the determination of the Chinese race against slavery, corruption and manipulation caused by the greed of powerful rulers from both East and West. Nobody who reads this will ever underestimate the Chinese again. A powerful and imformative book based on historical truth.

Why did Chinese people, to whom the motherland meant so much, emigrated in such numbers? And where did they ended up? Who are their descendants?

Inspite of the often hostile reception of the host countries, they thrived economically, as is usually the case with emigrants of all races. The author also traces some of the more prominent descendants of these emigrants, like the former president of Philippines, Corazon Aquino.

The book is a very compelling read and Lynn Pan make you wished your high school history lessons were as entertaining.

A well informed book about the subject. The author gave a very interesting and in depth view of the history of the Chinese and how they strived to survived and survived overseas.

Reading the book has insipred me to want to read further about events that has shaped the history of the Chinese ie the Opium War.

Definitely a book every Chinese and everyone else should read.