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Product Reviews:
The Concubine's Children |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Great Book, great condition
Comments: Received my order quickly, the book was is the advertised condition and I loved the book. |
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Summary: dry reading
Comments: I couldn't wait to read this book after it arrived. however I was disappointed. Althought the topic was fascinating, the writing was not. I became bored and at times found it hard to follow which person was doing what. I had to re-read some paragraphs to make sure I knew which person I was reading about. If the writing had been better, it would have been a far more captivating book. Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter was much better. |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: great purchase
Comments:
THE BOOK WAS A great purchase....SERVICE WAS OUTSTANDING I RECD
THE BOOK IN A HURRY. BOOK WAS IN GREAT CONDITION AND EVEN MY
WIFE purchased IT UP AND READ IT. THIS IS THE SECOND BOOK I
PURCHASED FROM AMAZON. I WILL purchase AGAIN SOON. KEEP UP
THE great WORK. |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: A family on2soils.
Comments: In this fascinating tale, Denise Chong deftly writes the story of her migrant Chinese family on2soils - Canadian soil, and Chinese soil. Her grandmother ("concubine" May-ying) moves to Canada following Chan Sam, her assigned husband. Times prove not to be so easy for the Chinese in "Gold Mountain". Their isolation and institutionalized exclusion from mainstream Canadian society stifled any progress. May-ying moves alalmost all constantly from Nanaimo to Vancouver (the2Chinatowns) waitressing to support her husband, Hing (the third daughter and author's mother), and also the family left in China. Following relations in this book is key to understanding how the story unfolds.
Denise Chong tells the story of May-ying's taut life in trying to fulfill the obligations of a Chinese wife in a polygamous setting. She also gives historical accounts (political and cultural) both at home and in China. When family and history are intertwined, both become inseperably tangible. I do not think that this book is an exploitation of Chinese culture as1reviewer pointed out. I think this book will be enlightening to many a reader with sparse knowledge and misconceptions about early Chinese migration to the New World. |
Rating: 4 (out of 5)
Summary: A history of a polygamous family
Comments: For those of you who think polygamy works when it is culturally supported, this is the book that will give you a new viewpoint to consider.
This book was written by the granddaugther of a concubine, a second wife taken while the 1st wife was still in the picture. Culture and practicality allowed and supported concubinage in China of the 1920s, yet this family suffered greatly for generations under the practice. It is the history of her grandparents' marriage, a second marriage. The grandfather took a concubine to be his wife in the New World while he worked to make a better living from his At Home family and to elevate his social status in his home community.
The story tells of the struggles of being a "second family," of the depravation that had to go hand-in-hand with supporting2households, with the shame of having parents who were together for the convenience of sex and income, of the pain of being separated from siblings who were being raised by the 1st wife. It's about the descent from being a merely disfunctional family unit to being essentially an out-of-control single-parent household when the bonds of dependency and culture were broken by the stress of having2wives and2families.
I couldn't put this book down once I started because it's like watching a train-wreck. I could anticpate the troubles and sorrows, as could the family involved, yet they were just as powerless as I to change things. |
