Product Description

Lin Jun has everything a modern woman in China could hope for: a good teaching job; a handsome, intellectual husband; a mother-in-law with connections; a darling son; a TV set; and a "good fortune" face-she is beautiful. But neither the television nor her marriage is working, and Lin Jun is determined to find happiness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1360821 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Library Journal
Call it a "second-coming-of-age" story, in which a settled married woman reassesses and then restructures a previously unexamined life, finding liberty and then self-fulfillment as she leaves behind her familiar constraints. It's popular enough to be a subgenre, and this first novel by Chinese American author Chai is an interesting addition. Possessed of a good-fortune face, according to her imposing Auntie Gao, Lin Jun feels anything but fortunate despite her work, husband, and beloved son. A middle-school teacher in China, she befriends Cynthia, an American woman who has arrived to teach English at her school. Influenced by her formative years in the Cultural Revolution, by her new American friend, and by an awakening sense of self, Lin Jun feels awkward, stupid, and incapable yet dreams of leaving behind her unfulfilling marriage and creating a new life for herself. This novel reflects attitudes and experiences foreign to most Western readers in the context of a familiar, popular story. For substantial fiction collections.?Janet Ingraham, Worthington P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
This is a novel about the new China, trying to go down its own capitalist road while continuing to avoid "pollution from Western bourgeois influences." The narrator, Lin Jun, spent most of her childhood living with relatives in the countryside after her parents were sent to a labor camp. Now she is a middle-school English teacher with a husband and a son, a mother-in-law with good connections, and a "lucky face." Despite her advantages, Lin Jun feels lonely and trapped. She's put in charge of the foreign teacher, Cynthia, who has come to the school to teach English for a year. It's Cynthia who helps direct Lin Jun's vision outward, beyond the restrictive norms she's learned to accept, so that she has the courage to make a change. The most fascinating thing about this compelling, deftly written story is the picture of Chinese society in transition and the widening gap between the martyrs of the Cultural Revolution and the younger generation, with its new freedoms and expectations. Mary Ellen Quinn

From Kirkus Reviews
A richly detailed but emotionally tepid first novel about a Chinese woman who decides to leave her bright, unhappy husband and cycle off alone in search of happiness. By current Chinese standards, Lin-Jun has everything: a job teaching English in a Nanjing middle school; a husband, Shao Hong, with a white-collar job; an adorable young son, Bao-bao; and an apartment of their own. Life should be bliss, then, especially for a 31-year-old woman whose parents were victims of the Cultural Revolution. (Lin-Jun spent her childhood in the countryside with Auntie Gao, a gruff but loving friend of her mother's, who insisted that Lin-Jun learn to read and study.) While she enjoys her work, however, some colleagues are jealous of her; although her marriage began as a love match, Shao Hong, dissatisfied in his job, has lately been avoiding his wife and working late; and Bao-bao is healthy and loving but, though only five, spends the week at a boarding school. Lin-Jun's only source of pleasure now is riding her bicycle, her Flying Pigeon--an ``ally when the silence of [her] apartment becomes too much to bear.'' The arrival of Cynthia, an American exchange teacher for whom Lin-Jun is appointed interpreter, crystallizes these discontents. Cynthia urges Lin-Jun to change her life, move to another city, and leave Shao-Hong. A humiliating job interview in nearby Shanghai and her in-laws' revelations about the painful childhood of Shao-Jong weaken her resolve. Then, however, despite the disapproval of her family and colleagues, she decides after all that she no longer loves her husband and asks for a divorce. If she stays married, she says, she ``would not be happy. . . would never feel free.'' A timely setting and elegant writing don't help a protagonist who looks good, talks persuasively, but somehow never comes alive. A disappointing debut. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Modern dilemmas amidst a problematic past
This book portrays one personal story of loneliness and turmoil in the "modern" China. This is a story of the after revolution China and some of the dilemmas of the modern generation. The narrator is an English teacher trying to make sense of her life, past and present. From the outside she is the source of envy, but in reality her life is falling apart. Her husband shuts her down and isolates her from his life and she is forced to separate from her beloved son who is put in a nursery school for six days a week. The strongest feeling I had was of great alienation amidst millions and millions of other people... People seem to be somewhat "afraid" of each other and there is no real true friend. Many people, but they cannot bring an end to your misery. The narrator, a woman with a "lucky face", rides her "flying pigeon" - the bicycle that gives her the freedom to wander around the streets of the crowded city at night, in an effort to postpone her return home. The book begins with the bitter comparison of other bicycle rides, in earlier marriage days, when one hand was holding her husband's hand.
There is no escaping the fact that although the dilemmas and conflicts of this book can be called "modern" (myself and my husband/our relationship, who am I, career decisions), this is indeed a very Chinese story. The problematic present life of the heroine, and hence any Chinaman of her generation, is much rooted in the Chinese past and the impact it has and will have for a few more generations on the young people of China.
The part of Cynthia, the foreign American teacher, and her Western "voice" pushing the heroine to gain independence reminded me of another Chinese story ("Katherine" by Anchee Min) where the role of the English teacher is much more central and the impact she has on the lives of her students is irreversible. Here too the "foreign" teacher symbolizes another world and other options.
For me this book has been another stage in my efforts to understand the very complicated, both enchanting and revolting Chinese world, from a woman's voice...

Educational, interesting
I enjoyed this book very much. I even learned something about China. The only thing I feel is not correct is when Lin-Jun is saying that Christmas is an American Holiday. I am American and Jewish and do not celebrate the day. Christmas is a Christian holiday. Besides that, I loved the book!