Thousand Pieces of Gold

Rating:
Summary: A Symbol of Hope
Review: "From China to San Francisco Lalu is a constant source of hope and inspiration."

A biography of a young girl growing up during the Chinese famine of the 1870's who is sold into slavery by her father (even though she was his "thousand pieces of gold"), for a mere two bags of grain, becomes a ping pong being pushed on one owner after another until she is transported on a slave trading ship to the Americas. When she finally gets to the United States Polly is auctioned off to a saloonkeeper, and eventually traded because of a gambling loss. All along the way however, Polly describes her strife to be independent and make her mark on this new land.
"Black man came to saloon tonight. He tell me his people come from Africa. Like me, stolen from village and bring here, but man named Lincoln make war and they free. He free, I free," she said her English deteriorating under the strain. "The civil war was fought to free Negroes." "You mean law for China people not the same?"(pg.139) This is a direct quote from the novel through the characters Polly and Charlie involving the topic of civil rights. Polly does not understand why everyone just cannot be free; she even relates her situation to that of the African Americans, but she cannot achieve freedom when the law is already in her favor and individuals like Hong King (saloonkeeper) still take advantage of loopholes in the system. She continues to have hope for the future however, because if one group of people can be freed she can be freed someday too. It is this hope and determination that she has for her and her people's freedom that make this character a source strength, and belief throughout the piece even when times are so oppressive, and there seems to be "no light at the end of the tunnel".
This piece of literature was lacking at times, but it made up for it through the story of the main character; resulting in one of the best historical, inspirational, adventure novels I have read in a long time. Taking the reader back in time through a non-fictitious individual is a tough obstacle to succumb and it is my belief that Ruthann Lum McCunn did a fabulous job of it. I would recommend this work to anyone who has an interest in novels with romance, drama, suspense, or the survival and struggle of women throughout history.


Rating:
Summary: Review of a Thousand Pieces of Gold
Review: I just recently read the book A Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn. It was a biographical novel about a chinese girl named Lalu whose father had to sell her to the bandits that came to their village. From the bandits, she got sold to a woman who sold her to a man in America. She then became a slave and prostitute to Hong King when she reached America. She was trying to save up enough money to buy her own freedom until she found out that the only way to get freedom was to wait until Hong King was dead. While she was still a slave, she met a man named Jim who told her, "The moon is not always round, flowers do not always bloom, and men do not always have a happy reunion." A couple days later, Jim died. Then she fell in love with the saloon owner next door named Charlie. Charlie and Hong King were gambling and Hong King placed her as bet. If Charlie won, he would get to have Lalu. He won and they moved in with each other even though they weren't married. She spends a couple more years in the mountains before she decides that she wants to live on a ranch, so she and Charlie move into a ranch. Charlie then dies from old age. Lalu dies a couple of years after him from heartache and old age. My personal opinion of this book is that it's really boring and changes subjects really fast.

Rating:
Summary: touching
Review: I prefer saying that this book is a fair fiction. For the information and the imagination she drew up and pinned down among the passages, she has made a peasant's life worthwhile. It becomes as much large as it is small. And there's no way for me to tell it from the others. It owns a unique fashion that no other can resemble. It is a one time story, therefore it is history; all time fiction, because it is illuminating.

Rating:
Summary: Thousand Pieces of Gold
Review: In the beginning of the book, I thought it was slow until I learned that what I was reading in the beginning I needed to know as I went through the book. Most books don't really give a person a personality or describe them as fully as the characters that were portrayed in this book. I really liked how people were described and given faces. In addition, the land was fully described; it was as if I was there with her. In the book, the author used all the five senses making it easier to draw in the reader. It showed a lot of drama and adventure that is what I was drawn to the most. The book really affected me by the stages that Lalu had to go through and her years growing into a woman. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of time
Review: Oh my goodness me where do I start? This book is one of the most poorly written books I have ever read. The writing level is comperable to that of a 7th grader. The story is very poorly told as well. The writer tries to make herself sound talented by using similies and metaphors at the most awful points in the story. The story could've been interesting if I was written nicely, and was more in depth of events. This book gets too much publicity than it's worth, and this is probobly only because of the subject matter. The book starts off with Lalu, poor Chinese immigrant who was sold multiple times in China, and was starving. Once she came to America she was fed plenty of food, but unfortunetly, she was a sex slave for an evil Chinese Saloon owner. This is where the story gets uninteresting and stupid. She's then sold off the Charlie, a good friend of the man who brought her to the town she resides in. Then it just tells us what happens to her life after all of this. Maybe I didn't like this book because of the subject (Immigrant books never really were my favorite), but the poor writing style sealed the deal for me. Your money is better spent on something else.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of time
Review: Reading this book was a total waste of time. I met the author recently. She asked if we thought any of the book was irrelevant...personally I thought the whole book was irrelevant.

Rating:
Summary: Great story, badly written
Review: This book is so badly written, it is comparable to junior high school English essays. Terrible!

But the story of this strong and smart Chinese woman carries the book despite the terrible writing.

Polly, a name thrust on her by her owner in California, is a Chinese peasant girl who is sold into slavery by her impoverished family. Eventually, in California's "wild west," and with her consent, a white friend bought her out of her concubinage and they ran a boarding house together. Later, their relationship blossomed into something more serious. Since an interracial relationship in those days was intolerable, they bought a farm far from the rest of the world on a creek named Polly Creek after her. There, they both lived happily ever after until their deaths.

The story of Polly's survival skills, inventiveness, hard work and great love is what this book is all about. I learned alot about self-reliance and creative thinking.

Rating:
Summary: Thousand pieces of gold
Review: This book shows a woman's journey in chronological order, leaving the readers in anticipation, wondering what will happen next, and although the plot was good, I must say it was poorly written. Sort of ironic how the dad sold her own daughter to bandits, yet she was his "thousand pieces of gold". Besides that, the rest of the book was okay. I actually learned about a lot of the history in San Francisco with this book.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves drama, suspense, or romance. People who love these types of books will definitely like this book, and appreciate it for it's fine intent and messages. It gives history with a plot, dramatic characters, and specifically a heroine being Polly: the thousand pieces of gold. Despite some of the poorly written contraditions in this book, this book is okay in my opinion.


Rating:
Summary: fighting for freedom
Review: Thousand pieces of gold is an exciting story of struggle of a young Chinese daughter, fighting for her freedom.I really liked this book because there is a lot of cultural and historical issues about the old times in China and how people had different ways of seeing things and there are also examples of American slavery and America during the time of Gold Rush. What I found most interesting about this book was the way Polly,the main character, was faced with so many different problems such as: being sold to the bandits by her own parents, being auctioned of naked when she was sold again in America, being sold to an old man and having to sleep with him,and just how badley she was treated by some men in her life, and the way she dealt with it by fighting to get her freedom back and being able to go on with her life and trying to be happy. It was just amazing how brave she was! Also as an immigrant in America, I could really relate to her. The story was so exciting that I just wanted to read more and more until I got to the end. I think anybody could enjoy this book and learn something from it, since it's full of themes and talks about many real issues like American slavery, the old China country, and what kind of problems immigrants that come to America have to go through that a lot of people don't even know about. I also recommend this book to Asian immigrants who I think can relate to this book the most!