Category Archives: Taiwanese
Lucky Girl: A Memoir by Mei-Ling Hopgood
The first reaction to finishing Lucky Girl is ‘lucky readers.’ Definitely of the ‘you can’t make this stuff up’-genre, journalist Mei-Ling Hopgood‘s debut memoir is one lucky surprise after another. Paced just right to keep you reading, the Taiwanese-born Hopgood reveals a remarkable story of her Midwest adoption to a loving, nurturing family and her reunion more than two decades later with her sprawling birthfamily on the other side of the world.
To share Hopgood’s emotional adventure in her own words should not be denied lucky readers … so feel free stop reading here. If you want a few more enticing tidbits, read on …
Adopted at just seven months from Taiwan, Hopgood grew up the oldest child in a close-knit family of five, including two younger adopted brothers originally from Korea (one of her brothers becomes a local politician in adulthood!). While she always knew she was adopted, she spent most of her ‘lucky’ life without too much curiosity about her Asian heritage.
In early 1997, Hopgood was a St. Louis-based reporter, in her early 20s, in the midst of preparing for a party she was hosting in her new apartment. It was the Year of the Ox again, two cycles from her own Ox birth. A phone call from Sister Maureen, the nun who facilitated Hopgood’s adoption, brings shocking news: Sister Maureen reveals not only birthparents who are longing to see her, but six sisters and a brother in Taiwan, and yet another sister in Switzerland who had also been given up for adoption.
The Chinese New Year celebration was fast approaching … and Hopgood’s birthfamily was hoping , longing , begging for a family reunion: “I felt elated and strange, with only a vague sense that much of what I knew about who I was and what I believed about my past and future was about to change.” Understatement indeed.
Go get the book – it just came out in paperback last month to make it more accessible … and portable! Good thing because you’re going to want to take it with you wherever you go to find out what happens next … Lucky you!
Readers: Adult
Published: 2009 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Taiwanese, Taiwanese American
I Can Be Anything! by Jerry Spinelli, illustrated by Jimmy Liao
Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli is one of those favorite authors I share with my children, Maniac Magee and Stargirl probably being our all-time favorite Spinelli titles. I think this might be his very first picture book (Spinelli’s back flap bio mentions his 28 novels and 17 grandkids, but not another young kiddie title) – although kids of every age will definitely enjoy this one. The bright orange sticker on the cover, “Perfect for Graduation,” shows the marketing department has things figured out … many a BIG kid is going to be getting this along with their diplomas come spring …
Told in adorable, gigantic-print rhymes, an exuberant little boy (although he bears quite a resemblance to our daughter with her very short hair, energized blue overalls, blue suede shoes, and matching blue bunny to boot!) dreams big dreams of “what shall I be?” From paper-plane folder to puppy-dog holder, from barefooted hopper to bubble gum popper, from cheek-to-cheek grinner to dizzy-dance spinner, the child is so enthused at all the possibilities that he decides to choose them all! Why not … he’s young, he’s got time to try anything and everything!
As fun as Spinelli’s story is, what makes the book ideal is Jimmy Liao‘s playful drawings. Another kiddie favorite, Liao has over 30 book titles to his credit (and apparently no grandchildren as yet …). His jaunty, bright signature style perfectly captures the child’s energy, infusing him with indescribable FUN. In Liao’s whimsical world, the child stomps through puddles with two merry ducks leading the way, is unaware of a surprised caterpillar atop an oversized apple he’s about to crunch into, watches with bug-eyed wonder at a screen filled with make-believe creatures (one of whom might be himself), and naughtily sneaks off with the very best piece of birthday cake. Liao’s gleeful fun is downright contagious.
Readers: Children
Published: 2010 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Taiwanese
My South Seas Sleeping Beauty: A Tale of Memory and Longing by Zhang Guixing, translated by Valerie Jaffee
Su Qi, a sensitive Chinese Malaysian youth, comes of age in the magical jungles of Borneo, shaped by the cruelty he witnesses at the hands of his abusive father and his loving but withdrawn mother. He is bewitched by the elusive daughter of his father’s best friend, but when she falls into a hopeless coma (yes, another sleeping beauty!) after a near fatal fall, Su Qi escapes to Taiwan, where he enters college and meets a vibrant fellow student singer with secrets of her own.
Zhang Guixing, a Chinese-Malaysian writer living in Taiwan, manages to create a novel as dense as the labyrinthine garden of Su Qi’s enigmatic mother, filled with ghosts and detached voices that refuse to be silenced.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2007 (United States) Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, .Translation, Chinese, Malaysian, Taiwanese
The Old Capital: A Novel of Taipei by Chu T’ien-hsin, translated by Howard Goldblatt
Four short stories and a longer novella are linked together to create a mosaic of disparate voices that share a visceral longing for a time – and place – forever past. Chu adroitly leads readers through a contemporary Taiwan displaced by Japanese colonial overtones mixed with inescapable Western cultural influences.
Chu’s book is an exercise in chaotic cultural survival, from “Death in Venice,” about a young writer who finds himself more involved with his characters than his own life, to “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” in which a young office worker decides she will spend her bonus on the perfect Tiffany diamond ring, to the book’s titled story, “The Old Capital,” about a young woman who travels to Kyoto to meet an old friend, which causes her to reconsider her life since she and the friend were young students together.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2007 (United States) Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, .Short Stories, .Translation, Taiwanese
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature edited by Joseph S. M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt
Here’s the updated second edition of what was already considered the definitive overview of modern Chinese literature in English translation, with representative writing from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. With China poised to become a dominant world player in the 21st century, this anthology is a great introduction to some of the very best in Chinese language fiction, poetry, and essays.
Review: “In Celebration of Asian Pacific American Month: New & Notable Books,” The Bloomsbury Review, May/June 2007
Readers: Adult
Published: 2006 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, .Nonfiction, .Poetry, .Translation, Chinese, Taiwanese
China on Screen: Cinema and Nation by Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar
Two notable Asian film scholars offer an admirable overview of more than a century’s worth of Chinese film history – including the diaspora represented by films from Taiwan, Hong Kong and even the United States – starring internationally recognized actors and filmmakers such as Gong Li, Maggie Cheung, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Ang Lee.
Review: “In Celebration of Asian Pacific American Month: A Literary Survey,” The Bloomsbury Review, May/June 2006
Readers: Adult
Published: 2006 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Nonfiction, Chinese, Chinese American, Taiwanese
Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island by Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Darrell William Davis
With the relaxing of government controls in the 1980s, Taiwanese filmmakers quickly established themselves internationally. Four directors, Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ang Lee (whom we claim as one of our APA own), and Tsai Ming-liang get closely examined here.
Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, September 8, 2005
Readers: Adult
Published: 2005 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Nonfiction, Taiwanese
Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary by June Yip
Through close readings of “nativist” Taiwanese literature of the 1960s and 1970s and of the Taiwanese New Cinema of the 1980s and 1990s, Yip offers a distinct national Taiwanese identity independent of historical Chinese control and the further influx of Japanese and Western influences.
Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, January 6, 2005
Readers: Adult
Published: 2004 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Nonfiction, Taiwanese
The Last of the Whampoa Breed: Stories of the Chinese Diaspora edited by Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-Wei Wang
A compilation of 14 essays that highlight the experiences of a group of elite Chinese soldiers who were trained at China’s first modern military institution, Whampoa Military Academy, who were exiled … in numbers exceeding over a million … to Taiwan after fighting the Japanese in World War II. Seen through the eyes of the exiles’ descendants, many of whom are prominent writers in Taiwan, the essays capture the historically tense relationship that still exists between mainland China and neighboring Taiwan.
Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, February 27, 2004
Readers: Adult
Published: 2004 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Nonfiction, .Translation, Chinese, Taiwanese
Multiple Modernities: Cinemas and Popular Media in Transcultural East Asia edited by Jenny Kwok Wah Lau
The concept of “Western modernity” traveling east throughout Asia, as it is reflected in the contemporary cinemas of Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, February 28, 2003
Readers: Adult
Published: 2002 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Nonfiction, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese
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