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Summary: Reader response
Review: As a Filipino American, I think that MHK does a superb job describing the immigrant/emigrant experience...its struggles and its pain. She so poignantly recalls the story of Moon Orchid, offering the story through different points of view. The reader can become the weak old woman, afraid, scared and disoriented in a new land. The reader can be Brave Orchid, proud, hard, refusing to compromise or part with tradition or beliefs. Finally, the reader can be the children, who roll their eyes and find the Chinese ways embarrasing. Yes, life in America may have been hard for MHK, but, as she reveals in the Western Palace, it was hard for her mother and aunt too.
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Summary: The worst of the worst
Review: This is simply a terrible book. Including myself, my poor Ashley had to read it and suffer the horrible stories contained in this book. To put it simply, all Kingston does is continuously insult non-Chinese people and spread ideals that should have been lost in the void of time. She also continuously complains about America, without any ideas for fixing her "problems." The story has no sense of organization, purpose or time. It continuously jumps around a terribly written story that noone could make heads or tails with. This book is not worth the $8.80 or even a blue light special at K-Mart, with mail-in rebates for the entire prce. Infact, people should be paid to read this book. Nonetheless, even with ANY knowledge of the Chinese culture, all this book paints is propaganda for barbarians. Frankly, I'd rather stuff wild weasles down my pants.
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Summary: (untitled)
Review: I enjoyed this book a lot. I read it in my MultiCultural Literature class in High school, and it was one of the books I enjoyed most in the course. I'll admit it was a little hard to understand at times (a lot of people in our class had trouble), but it helps when you have someone who's familliar with Chinese culture and customs to explain things to you. People who are easily confused by stories that switch back and forth between past, present, and sometimes point of view may not get much out of it, and might not enjoy it. But if that won't throw you off, do read the book. It is an interesting insight into another culture.
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Summary: A warrior's life
Review: Based only on her memory and her mother's "talk stories", Maxine Hong Kingston tells the story of her life adding to it the things she might have been but was not. Portraying women in all the different roles you could imagine, she talks about her mom, her aunt, fiction characters and herself, all strong women who would fight their way through life. Maxine Hong Kingston grew up in two worlds the American world which was her everyday reality, and the Chinese world that was based on what her mom told her, she sees China as somewhere where everything could have been better, yet she doesn't really know. A very interesting and catching story about a woman's childhood and survival.
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Summary: Challenging, rewarding read
Review: This is a remarkably intelligent, personal account of success, failure, frustration, and identity. No, the writing and structure are not straightforward, and yes, some of the plotline may be disturbing. But this is ultimately an intellectually rewarding read, and a personally emotionally moving experience. The anti-feminist backlash this novel seems to elicit (e.g., on this review page) should be testimony to how provocative it is, and how many assumptions it can challenge. As for it being a misrepresentation of Chinese culture, well, it's a subjective account. It's the culture through Maxine's eyes (and her family's eyes); it is not meant to be an objective anthropological study. And I did not find it at all exoticizing. In fact, it's a shame that MHK often gets mentioned in the same sentence as Amy Tan -- beyond the superficial similarity of both being Asian-American women, they have little in common. MHK does none of the silly exoticization that AT does, and at least to me, does not engage in the "Asians must be rescued by Western culture" ideology of AT. This is ultimately a personal, autobiographical account, that is neither judgmental nor self-pitying.
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Summary: A Woman Warrior: Review
Review: "A Woman Warrior", by Maxine Hong Kingston opened our eyes to the traditional Chinese lifestyle and culture. It focuses on the tight family ties and strict values trying to maintain certain traditions in America, and expressing conflict between the races. "A Woman Warrior", demonstrates the horrible conditions that women had to overcome since birth. Not being wanted or desired, babies killed or stoned to death just to name a few. Once they began to grow, their feet were bound,and many other aspects to put them at the bottom of the social triangle. As far as the actual reading of "Woman Warrior", it moved slow, with too many details. The plot seemed to move in circles and be repetitive. However, this book was a cultural lesson and we now feel informed on the chinese values.
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Summary: Struggle of Identity
Review: The Woman Warrior is a compelling and intense narrative, depicting the struggles of a young Chinese-American girl trying to establish her identity in America. Maxine Hong Kingston takes her readers on a twisting journey through her struggles with perception, tradition, and alienation. Maxine fights to define herself in a country that has already "etched words onto her back," while attempting to understand the only thing that binds her immigrant-family together: their tradition preserved through her mother's "Talk Story." As Maxine learns to distinguish the truth from the stories, she becomes empowered to fight the "ghosts" that haunt and alienate her and comes to grips with her identity, heritage, and relationship with her mother.
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Summary: Crossing the Line
Review: The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, captures readers with her own interpretation of what it was like to grow up as a female Chinese American. As a little girl, she came to America with her family. Despite being in a new country, she had to deal with the old traditions from her homeland. Kingston hears different legends which she pieces together to create her woman warrior. It becomes her source of strength in a society that rejected both her sex as well as her race. The book, divided into five interwoven stories, is at times confusing as it jumps around. Nevertheless she does a great job explaining her life while growing up. The first story, called "No Name Woman," tells of her paternal aunt who bears a child out of wedlock and is harried by the villagers and by her family into drowning herself. The family now punishes this taboo-breaker by never speaking about her and by denying her name. However, Kingston breaks the family silence by writing about this rebel whom she calls "my forebear." The next story is called "White Tigers." It is a myth about a heroine named Fa Mu Lan, who fights in place of her father and saves her village. This story became the Disney movie, Mulan. "Sharman" is a story of Kingston's mother. It explores what it was like to study as a woman to become a doctor in China. "At the Western Palace" is about Kingston's aunt who comes to America and discovers that her husband has remarried in America. Finally, the last story, "A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe" is about Kingston's own experience in America when she first arrived. She explains what it was like to be a newcomer in a strange culture. Kingston constantly mentions that her friends and she are ghosts because they are American. All of the people who surround her family are ghosts, except for the Chinese people who live on the Gold Mountain, a section of Chinatown in San Francisco. Kingston feels like a ghost herself, " .... We had been born among ghosts, were taught by ghosts, and were ourselves ghost-like. The Americans call us a kind of ghosts" (p.183). The interpretation of what ghosts mean in this book is difficult to figure out. It could show how some people view a person from a different culture with ignorance as if she doesn't exist. Kingston's The Woman Warrior has some similarities with The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. First of all, both stories are written by Chinese American authors about their cultural heritage. Both novels deal with major concerns faced by Chinese American women. Living with their traditional culture in American society, Chinese-American women suffer problems of cultural conflicts. However, there are differences that make each work distinct. The Joy Luck Club is fiction and is not personal. It is also more likely to be read for pleasure. The Woman Warrior portrays a first hand view of the cultural differences between the United States and China. Also, Kingston succeeds in combining her emotions with her experiences. The Woman Warrior is a fascinating book. One of the most amazing aspects of this book is Kingston's ability to show how silence is a form of communication and how it shaped her being. Her mother tells her to be silent, yet she goes against her cultural standards by talking about her aunt. This act of will on Kingston's part offers the readers her ancestry. The expectation of silence can be simplified into a symbol of oppression. As a Korean-American, I felt the emotions and understood how Kingston felt for being a stranger to a new culture. Her internal struggle to fit into two different societies is difficult. I personally recommend this book to anyone interested in reading about the experience of one Chinese-American woman. It is not the definitive story of Chinese-American women's experience, but it is a very vivid and well-written account of one woman's life. Pg. 209. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York
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Summary: The Woman Warrior
Review: I may be a teenager and a little to young to read this book, but I thougt it was a great portayal of the social & cultural differences between China & the United States.This book opened me up & showed me what all womens goals should be: to make something of yourself.
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Summary: insightful and intriguing
Review: I loved this book, not only for its content, but also for its detail and description. Maxine Hong Kingston did an excellent job of portraying what it was like to grow up as a Chinese-American girl. She made me feel like I was there and I could feel the anger, dissapointment, and frustration she experienced. This book also portrays a first hand view of the cultural differences between the United States and China. It takes you down the roller-coaster ride of a girl trying to fit into the society that she grew up in, yet also trying to relate to and understand her parents culture and viewpoints. It is a beautifully wrought story that contains conflict, emotion and history. I found it to be informative and enthralling.
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