Product description

The Concubine's Children

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Average customer rating: 4.5

Author : Denise Chong
Binding : Paperback
EAN : 9780140254273
ISBN : 0140254277
Label : Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer : Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number of pages : 304
Publication date : 1996-01-01
Publisher : Penguin (Non-Classics)
Title : The Concubine's Children
Languages : Array
Number of items : 1
Studio : Penguin (Non-Classics)

Editorial reviews

Product Description
Chong tells the story of her grandmother, brought from China as a young concubine by a sojourner to the New World, of the man's wife and children left behind, and of the author's incredible discovery of those children six decades later. "Beautiful, haunting, and wise."--New York Times Book Review. Photos.

Customer reviews

review by: Budda Kat date: 2008-07-01 rating:

Great Book, good condition
Received my order quickly, the book was is the advertised condition and I loved the book.

review by: date: 2007-12-15 rating:

Very dry reading
I couldn't wait to read this book after it arrived. But 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.

review by: date: 2007-01-24 rating:

GOOD BUY

THE BOOK WAS A VERY GOOD BUY....SERVICE WAS OUTSTANDING I RECD
THE BOOK IN A HURRY. BOOK WAS IN GREAT CONDITION AND EVEN MY
WIFE PICKED IT UP AND READ IT. THIS IS THE SECOND BOOK I
PURCHASED FROM AMAZON. I WILL BUY AGAIN VERY SOON. KEEP UP
THE GOOD WORK.

review by: date: 2006-08-22 rating:

A family on two soils.
In this fascinating tale, Denise Chong deftly writes the story of her migrant Chinese family on two soils - 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 almost constantly from Nanaimo to Vancouver (the two Chinatowns) 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 don't think that this book is an exploitation of Chinese culture as one reviewer 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.

review by: bibliophile date: 2006-01-15 rating:

A history of a polygamous family
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 first 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 supporting two households, 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 first 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 having two wives and two families.

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.

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