China Men: National Book Award Winner

by Maxine Hong Kingston

Book Overview

The author chronicles the lives of three generations of Chinese men in America, woven from memory, myth and fact. Here's a storyteller's tale of what they endured in a strange new land.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679723285
• ISBN13: 9780679723288
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

An Experience To Remember...........

The China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston was a very interesting book. It contains stories of Chinese men traveling to America in the 1800's and working on the transcontinental railroads, in Sierra Nevada. The author shares a lot of details in the stories about her family traveling to America. She retold the story from a male's perspective of what hardships they've been through to get to America, in search for the Golden Mountains. A rich country that they about which is full of riches. As they reach to America what they thought was the Golden Mountains was just a land of hard labor and low paying jobs. Some of them regretted coming to America, but they couldn't go back to their country because they had no money. Some part of the story made me feel like I could relate my family to the characters that Kingston has written about. My family immigrated to the United States in 1984. Like the characters in Kingston's book they heard about the Golden Mountains that's why they came to America. All they found was low paying jobs which are similar to the characters in Kingston's book. Is this really what they thought of as the Golden Mountains? It was for sure not what they had thought of. Like many Chinese family my parents thought that the Golden Mountain was really a place to find gold, but all they found was their own blood, sweat, and tears that they shed of all the hard work that they did. This book is also very educating because in one of the chapters, Kingston listed a list of laws that were set against Chinese in the 1800's. It gives the reader more information of what the Chinese immigrants had went through to come to America and to work for the country. Overall, this book is very good and very detailed. I strongly recommended this book, if you're interested in learning more about the experiences of Chinese men traveling to America and their stories. This is also one of the best book that I've read.

Must Read for all serious readers

This is an amazing book, wrought with heartwrenching love and pain over the wiping out of Chinese Americans in American history. I disagree with people who say it can be confusing for a non-Chinese reader, because it is certainly accessible. The plot is made up of several stories from different eras of history, along with beautifully narrated myths that are symbolic of America's inhospitability. It made me reaccess my understanding of an America that is not covered in textbooks and really to see how it feels to not feel at home in one's own country.

One of my favorite books ever

I fell in love with this book, with the men in this book, and with the author. Most of all, with the simple, profound images that penetrated to my core. Such as: a children's song depicting joy with a mockingbird's "tails in the air, tails in the air." An old man pounding the table with his ineffective penis that will not give him a girl child. And on and on. I love what this author does with language. I love this book! The author cares about these men in a way that is very real to me...

A Great Compliment to Kingston's "The Woman Warrior"

After reading Kingston's "The Woman Warrior," I thought I'd read "China Men." I am not disapointed at all. "China Men" is an excellent biographical work that recounts the lives of Chinese men in America from the 1840s to the Vietnam War. Although Kingston uses as much Chinese myth in this book as she does in "The Woman Warrior," she apparently decided to keep the mythology and biography more separated. Even so, Kingston's stories and the way in which she recounts them is absolutely splendid.

Words of Chinese Wisdom...You don't want to miss this one!

If you want to learn about a great, five-thousand-years-old culture of the east meeting the west, China Men is definitely the right book for you. Maxine Hong Kingston has skillfully woven an epic of Chinese history in America in the most creative way. From the early Chinese immigration to the present day, the Chinese's dream, experience, suffering, and success in America is wonderfully told through many generations. Unlike many historical novels, this book is told from the Chinese perspective right down to the details from character to character. This book is written so impressively eloquent and truth to the bones that I dare say a native Chinese might not even know as much about his/her own culture. From Alaska to Hawaii, Kingston has covered every corner of the U.S. that Chinese immigrants have gone. The characters also added a little Chinese wisdom now and then in a day when working on the railroad or fighting in the Vietnam War. Aside from extremely in-depth in history and Chinese culture, the stories are especially fun to read. I can only describe them as totally fantastic, bizarre, and unbelievable.Do you know the Chinese had found a place called"Land of Women" ? There was also communist Uncle Bun who suspected the U.S. government was plotting to poison him by collecting garbage from every door and hiding them in his food. Yes, these interesting stories have significant meaning related to the actual history. Not all of them are funny though; there are also stories that are terrifyingly shocking such as the inhuman tortures the Japanese did to Chinese and the bias laws America had toward Chinese. There are also side stories and fairy tales of all kinds from Chinese ghost stories to a lesson by Li Fu-yen which added a savor to the book. Anyone who read China Men would view life different than before.I recommend China Men to people who have a desire to understand Chinese culture and learn how America culture affected them. However,the book is so abstract and arbitrary that it is hard to understand. Warning, it is not an easy book to read. If you feel you are confused, read several times more. There are many amazing truths of life in China Men, which are subtle but such a waste to miss.