Book Reviews/A Writing Journey
Category: Other Asian 5 out of 5s
When Sayuri is a child in a poor fishing village, she is sold into slavery to a Kyoto geisha house. As she grows, she is groomed to become a geisha and is soon visiting teahouses dressed in fine kimonos and competing with a jealous rival.
Continue reading “Arthur Golden’s — Memoirs of a Geisha *****”
Two sisters, Pearl and May, lead exciting lives in Shanghai until their father’s once rich lifestyle is gambled away. Their father is forced to sell his daughters as wives to men in California seeking wives. Escaping from invading soldiers, they journey across to U.S.A. to begin new lives with the strangers they’ve married. This is Lisa See at her best.
Another five out of five is her Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. Set in Wuxi in the 1400s, Yunxian is sent to her grandparents after her mother dies and her father leaves to study for an exam. When Grandmother Ru sees the potential in her granddaughter, she begins to share her medical knowledge with Yunxian until it is time for her marriage. Under her mother-in-law, she is forbidden to practise medicine, but Yunxian cannot bear to see other women suffer because male doctors can only question women behind a curtain, thus leading to many unsuccessful diagnoses.
Set within a rich Chinese family’s compound, with customs such as seclusion of women and foot binding, this is a tale of Tan Yunxian’s life against all the richness of the times.
Najin doesn’t want to live a traditional Korean life, but her father tries to force her into a marriage with an aristocratic family. Her mother, defying the traditional obedient wife, arranges a position for her daughter in the king’s court as a companion to a young princess. With Japan’s control over the country and the dying monarchy, Najin’s life becomes oppressive. When she unexpectedly finds love, they are soon separated and she must face Japan’s attack on China and Pearl Harbour while her husband is an ocean away.
With a through line about pu’er—a variety of tea plucked from ancient tea trees, Li-yan is the first Akha girl from her Chinese hill tribe to be educated. Instead of furthering her studies, she drops everything for her childhood sweetheart whom her parents disapprove of. Together they unsuccessfully seek the child Li-yan was forced to abandoned in an orphanage during his absence before they leave for Thailand. While she is away, her poor village prospers from the sudden popularity of pu’er while Li-yan becomes destitute from her opium addicted husband. She has not forgotten the daughter she was forced to abandoned, but soon her life begins to change.
I’ve read all Lisa See’s books and there isn’t one I wouldn’t give a five out of five.
Read and Write 
You must be logged in to post a comment.