Colors of the Mountain

Rating:
Summary: Critics have more agenda than author
Review: Expertise in China is a favorite club used by intellectual wannabes to demonstrate their superiority over the rest of us mortals. Only THEY understand China's cryptic culture and history, and splitting hairs over a book's details is a favorite exercize in self-gratification.

Colors of the Mountain is consistent with what we know, and because every detail does not perfectly match the experience of certain whiners does not invalidate it.

More importantly, it shows how the lunatic social engineering of the CCP affected the lives of average citizens. The book is at once informative and extremely moving, and I finished it in one reading. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment...
Review: I have read many memoirs of the Cultural Revolution and was rather disappointed in this one. The author is certainly intelligent and well-educated; however, he is also arrogant and self-centered. Reading this book is not a useful way to learn about this troubled period in Chinese history. It seemed to me that the author's main goal was to entertain a Western audience. If so, he was successful. I question the veracity of much of his story. For a well-written, educational and accurate portrayal of this period, I recommend Liang Heng's "Son of the Revolution."

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful & Charming Story
Review: When I went to the library I came across this book and I looked at it and it looked very interesting. When I went home and read it I learned so much about things that we has american citizens were not even aware that existed. Da Chen and his family were put down because the were landlords. Da Chen was hated by everyone and barely was given the education he deserved. Da Chen
in this story shows us that no matter how tough things are you can strive to do the impossible. I recomend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about how things were in Da Chens life in China. I can't wait until Da Chen writes more about his life.

Rating:
Summary: This is a moving memoir.
Review: I have no way of knowing whether this story is true or not. It certainly feels authentic to me. It is strange to me how the cultural revolution is remembered differently among several of the chinese I know. Everyone admits it was a tough time, but some are willing to let Mao off the hook in the name of order. Others see Mao as a killer. Hey, they aren't mutually exclusive views! Mao was a killer and he provided order for China. Which do you prefer, life or order?

Like a recession, it is serious when you are unemployed and mild when others are out of work. If you and your family survived without being damaged by the cultural revolution you may think it wasn't all that bad. However, Da Chen's family was almost destroyed by it. It seems that all sides would consider this huge historical event a bit more deeply than it appears they do.

It seems kind of silly that in a country as large as the US or the even larger China one would categorically say what one family could or could not experience based upon some generalized study of the culture. Life is full of oddities and exceptions. The facts are that under Communism there are totalitarian powers given to the party and those are excersized all the way down to individuals and often in petty, vicious and horrible ways.

And to say that because it was Da Chen's grandfather that was the landlord and therefore it wouldn't have affected the author is a very odd criticism given that families, even in the west, carry stigma from outcast ancestors for generations.

It would be great to see verification one way or the other, but in any case it is a powerful story of life as an outcast. It is an easy read that you won't want to put down until you finish it.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as I had expected
Review: Colors of the Mountain was not as well-written as I would have liked it to be. Though it appeared to be a good book, it definitely was not a really memorable one or a great literary work. The author's words weren't very eloquent, as he often repeated the same adjectives, etc. Save your money. Somewhat educational about China during this time period, but other than that, I was disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Ignore the critics.
Review: Da Chen is still being attacked by his enemies as they try to pick holes in this very fine memoir. They insist some things could not be true because his description of them doesn't match their own perceptions, prejudices, partial knowledge or whatever. For example: he must have been the grandson and not the son of a landlord...landlords could not own pigs so his family would not have had any...education was free so he would not have had to pay a fee to go to school...he could have joined the Little Red Guards if he'd really wanted to... and on and on ad nauseam. Who cares? If your experience or knowledge of that shameful part of China's history was different, write your own book but don't try to smear someone else's highly commendable effort.

Rating:
Summary: What we have in common
Review: It is with humour and humanity that Da Chen paints a picture of life in post cultural revolutionary China. Da Chen shows more of what chinese and western societies have in common with class distinctions, common humour and what pereverence can accomplish. Although occasionally tedious this is a good read.

Rating:
Summary: Very disappointed -- It's not a memoir!
Review: I was really looking forward to reading this book, particularly because the author and I had many things in common: We belonged to the same generation. We both came from "black" families where our parents or grandparents were labeled as landlords, capitalists or other politically derogative terms. We both majored in English in college in China, and we both came to the U.S. on scholarships. However, after I finished reading this book, I became deeply disappointed.

If you are looking for a beautifully written tear jerker with some interesting background, this will be a great book for you. But if you are interested in learning about China in late sixties and the early seventies, this book grossly misrepresent history. Some of the political events occured conveniently out of historical sequence, but allowed the author to sugar coat his personal experience. For example, while his family have been on the edge of starvation for years, he was having feasts frequently together with his gang . (For a more detailed analysis, please see Lin Chen's review below.)

People of my generation in China have gone through a lot and have some interesting materials to write about. However, it would be a crime if we do NOT write about the truth! I sincerely hope that the author will be more honest with his own feelings in his next book, (at least the categorization of the book -- it's not a memoir!) which I will not rush into buying as I did with The Colors of Mountain.

Rating:
Summary: Touching Memories
Review: Da describes his life before college, how he and his family struggled through the Cultural Revolution, how did he become the head of class to fool around with gangs on the street then committeed himself to study in order to pass the college entrance examination.

Since he was born in a landload family, he was labeled as a failer for the rest of his life. Fortunately, The Chinese government opened the college after Chairman Mao's death without considering the students' background.

It is a touching memories. Through his humor, I smile and cry with the family. I recommend it to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad atoll
Review: I bought this book on a whim, and then read it in one 8-hour stretch. Da is just a couple years older than me, and it was amazing to compare my middle class life in America in the 70's to his life in China at the same time. This comparison was invited because Da and I were very much alike as kids, even though he was half a world away. The best autobiographies remind you that individuals can have many different kinds of experience, but People are much the same everywhere.

I wouldn't worry too much about the negative reviews I've read here. They're just jealous. I bet that person is Han, still trying to stick it to Da after all these years.

"Facts" are more than irrelevant in a book like this. The only important thing is how Da saw his own life at the time. The book succeeds remarkably in this respect. And Da's command of colloquial English is shockingly good. It's quite a feat that he wrote this book in English. If I didn't know he was a born Chinese-speaker, I probably never would've guessed.

Bravo.