Yuza Yuza itibaren Mirpur Kalan, Punjab , India

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11/02/2024

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2018-11-05 02:41

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This was one rare book that I could not put down. I finished the almost 300 pages within 10 days. What carried me through was the feeling Conley gave you as if you were right there in Beijing with the family, her vivid descriptions of the streets and scenery and the personal transformation she went through following cancer. I love stories where the author or characters have unexpected personal transformations. However, the booked was peppered with hints of ethnocentrism and American superiority. As an Indian American, I’ve had to tolerate and swallow the often subtle jabs at my cultural heritage…the “your culture is weird,” attitude. Because of this, it is easy for me to pick up these innuendos in cross-cultural or travel books such as Conley’s book. For example, within the book’s first few sentences, she writes, and “would we live on a road called Yongdingmen?” a statement which was preceded by the distance she feels by hearing those names. Well, although these names mean nothing to me, this tone or comment screams “how weird, unlike ‘Main Street,’ where I live.” Then later in the book, when she goes for a follow-up doctor’s appointment at an international hospital in Beijing, she is shocked to learn that her attending nurse has never heard of Israel. Here, Conley implies that the nurse is ignorant (or more like stupid) for not knowing about the Middle East and its reverberations. She wonders if the Chinese even know about the Holocaust and historical facts. My response was, so what? Maybe it doesn’t affect them. And, I’m sure there are historical incidences that occurred in Asia that we Americans don’t know about. A review on Amazon said her talk about cancer made the story self-centered. I disagree. I think she weaved her cancer story seamlessly and very effectively within the China story. Overall, however, even though the book made me twinge at times, I stuck with the book and had a great adventure of living in China, something which she seemed to open up about as the book went on. Now, I’m not saying the Conley herself is ethnocentric, but it’s just the way Americans are “raised,” and that’s what came out in this book. In the end, she did manage to get past the ethnocentrism and elicit an appreciation for China and the Chinese culture. I only wish she had put some photographs in. I might read some of her other books!

Okuyucu Yuza Yuza itibaren Mirpur Kalan, Punjab , India

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