Saints and Boxers by Gene Luen Yang

Boxers

Saints

As you can probably tell from the covers, these two books are companions. They take place at the same time and place and even overlap briefly. However, they are about very different people. They take place around 1900 in China at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, a very violent and tumultuous time.

If one should be read first, I think it should be Saints. It is about Four-Girl, the fourth and only surviving daughter of a family in a small, poor village. Girls have traditionally held little value in Chinese families and it is not a surprise that she is attracted to the words of a priest who offers her a more worthwhile existence. Four-Girl has visions of Joan of Arc which give her courage to strike out on her own and leave her family.

Boxers is about Little Bao, the third son of a family in another poor village. A stranger named Red Lantern comes to their village and trains the young men in kung fu. Many of them leave to defend China against the foreigners and Bao follows. A huge fan of Chinese opera, he and his friends transform into gods and dead emperors when they go into battle. They go all the way to Peking (now called Bejing) before meeting their violent deaths.

I highly recommend these books to fans of graphic novels and historical fiction.

The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester

The Man Who Loved China

Joseph Needham was a modern Renaissance man who made his life work to chronicle the history of Chinese scientific inventions and posed what was known as the "Needham question" which was the reason why these advances came to a halt around AD 1500. Winchester must have waded through thousands of pages of chronicles, letters, books, etc. to whittle Needham's life and travels down to this book.

Being interested in things scientific and things Asian, this book was a natural for me. I loved reading about his travels and inquiries along his way as he trekked around China in his search for information for what would become the premier source of information on his topics. 

This book was well worth the time to read it. Fun for adventurers, sinophiles, and those with scientific curiosity.

My rating for this book:

Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale (2010)

An autobiographical graphic novel by Belle Yang, this book reminded me of the books by Pearl S. Buck which also took place in China.

Xuan (translated to Forget Sorrow) is the only daughter of Chinese immigrants. As a typical teenager she was embarrassed by their old world ways and accented English. She had the bad fortune of falling in with an abusive man and went to China to study traditional art, travel, and meet her grandparents. She returned to the U.S. right after the massacre at Tiananmen Square. In order to fix her relationship with her father, she listens to stories of his family.

I love Baba's stories. I want to be able to give voice to people who were forgotten.
Rotten Egg silenced me with his fist when I disagreed. The Chinese government silenced its citizens with tanks. I have a voice in America. I won't waste it.
Rotten Egg has reduced my world to these four walls, but I won't let him waste my life.
I'm going to work with Baba until I put in the last period...and send it out into the world.

Xuan's great-grandfather, his four sons, and the rest of the extended family lived in an enclosure in Manchuria off of the rent of tenant farmers. The story follows them through invasions, famines, revolutions, and intense family politics.

I highly recommend this book to readers who are interested in life in 20th century China.

My rating for this book: ++++