Book review: "Pearl Buck in China" by Hilary Spurling

This is not our usual expat/fish out of water story. But it's probably better because you actually get two stories in one!

Pearl Buck grew up in China, the daughter of a long suffering mother and a religious zealot of a missionary father. (When I say zealous I mean crazy. Like he was pretty convinced that women didn't have a soul. And all the other missionaries hates him. And he was named Absalom, which if you're familiar with the Bible, you know that's not someone you'd want to be named after. Not that you can help what your parents name you, but still...)

Early 1900s China was a very isolated place to be, especially the very rural places where Pearl grew up. Her blonde hair and "wild animal" eyes made her the subject of much scorn and finger pointing. However, she didn't keep to herself, she mingled among the Chinese and picked up a very "common" dialect of Chinese.

Pearl's father would be gone for long periods of time, much to the relief of her mother and siblings. She would spend much of her time reading and re-reading the few books in the family library. It was plain to see that Pearl was smart and yearned for more education, so her mother pleaded her father down until she was allowed to go to school back in the United States. Her first two years in college were, unshockingly, awkward and confusing. But by the end she was the class president!

As a side note- there were a lot of opportunities to for the family to go back and forth from wherever they were living in China back to the family roots in West Virginia.  (I felt like they went back and forth between the states and China a LOT considering the time it would take and the transportation options). One time they were even home for a few years because of the extreme violence against foreigners and missionaries because of the Boxer's Rebellion.

Pearl bounced back and forth between China and America her whole life, though after college she thought she'd never go back again, but it wasn't to be.

She was finally driven to write about China out of the desire for financial stability for her daughter, who was born with some kind of developmental delay. (We, nor Pearl, never got a diagnosis). Her first book "The Good Earth" was successful enough that her daughter's needs were taken care of for the rest of her life. Though Pearl continued to write prodigiously. The Chinese were scandalized by all of Pearl's books because they talked unflinchingly about the Chinese people and their struggles. She also wrote a book (thinly veiled fiction) about her mother's life, and another about her father's. The book about her dad was NOT complimentary in anyway.

Real Talk: I've not read any of her books, and frankly this book didn't make me want to pick any of them up. I like that she chose to write about people how they really are and not some weird sanitized version of themselves. (Like some Communist propaganda about how peasants love toiling constantly day and night for Mother Russia or whatever.)

Living Abroad- "How to Be Danish" by Patrick Kingsley (Denmark)

Usually when I do a Living Abroad post, it's about someone who moves to a new country and their floundering around as they adjust to a place much different than their own. Slight change in the formula today! This book centers on what it is exactly to be Danish, or how to be Danish, as the title says. This is a complicated country, I tell you what. But it's also interesting because some of the struggles that they have are the same struggles a lot of European countries are having. So let's get in on it!

To be Danish you have to: ride a bike. And not just for exercise or as a Sunday jaunt through the country. Your bike is your car, especially in Copenhagen. According to the book 1/3 of Copenhagers cycle to work. There's even a blog called Copenhagen Cycle Chic which highlights how good these people can look and STILL  bike to work. (It helps that, square mileage wise, Copenhagen isn't large).

To be Danish you have to: pay a lot of taxes. Like, an incomprehensible amount, to this American. It can be up to 60% of your annual income (we will talk about what that get's you in a minute). "80% of Danes pay 1% to the Church" even if they aren't necessarily religious.There's also a 25% VAT tax, and "high levies on commodities like cars (180%! )". A 25% tax on food makes eating out a rare treat.

To be Danish you have: a government that subsidies a lot of things. Childcare, education, health care are all subsided to some degree. There is also a lot of help for people who need it through programs like welfare. However, there seems to be a cultural shift away from so much welfare support because of incidences of extreme abuse, and the fact there are more people pulling out of it than putting into it so there are questions of sustainability. So you're paying a lot in taxes but you're getting a good chunk of it back in different ways.

To be Danish you: might sometimes be at a loss to deal with your new immigrant population. (I'm sure there are a lot of Danes who personally welcome new diversity with wide open arms, but it seems like as a whole there is some growing pains, perhaps).Integration seems to be a hot topic but what about when people don't want to integrate? This is obviously not an exclusively Danish problem.

(OBVIOUSLY not all people from Denmark ride a bike, or follow any of these other rules. Just a little disclaimer)

So Denmark, it sounds really nice but also really expensive and I'm not a very good bike rider. I'm especially not a good bike rider in a skirt and heels, but I am super impressed by those that are! I wish there was a book like this for every country! Kind of a weirdly specific read, but if you love Denmark or really focused books this could be for you! 3 out of 5 stars!

Also, fun  cover!

Living Abroad - Vietnam

The House on Dream Street by Dana Sachs

Dana was a journalist in San Francisco in 1989 when she and a friend decide to quit their jobs and go backpacking in Asia for 2 months. Right before they leave for this trip Vietnam was offering tourist visas to Americans for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War. Dana finds herself in love with this beautiful and complicated country.

She returns to live (not just visit) in 1992, she had taken a very intense immersion Vietnamese language class for a few months before she returns. But she still finds he language skills pretty lacking. Luckily, she has an ally in Vietnam, her teacher from the US, Tra has moved back to Vietnam and will be there to help her along.

Dana moves into a guesthouse very near Tra. Her landlord is Tung, a savvy smooth talking businessman who always talks about the time he spent in Germany; along with his with Huong (who speaks no English) and their son Viet. They have a bit of an awkward start (the American and Vietnamese versions of privacy and personal space are very different). However this family will become very important in Dana's time in Vietnam.

In Hanoi, different trades would group together and settle different parts of the city (fabric vendors in one area, bronze workers in one area). Dana's place is located in the area of Hanoi where all the bicycle mechanics congregate. (A Dream was a popular type of motorbike, hence the title.)  Many of the mechanics would come into the house and lounge and chat with the family throughout the day. One such mechanic is a thoughtful young man named Phai, he also becomes an important part of Dana's time.

One thing that plagues Dana when she first moves to Vietnam is guilt she has as an American about the war. (Though - if I remember right- she was only 11 when the war ended). She worries about how people will react to have an American in their midst considering the war ended not long previously.She is never faced with open hostility because of this. Most of the Vietnamese that she talks to have strong feelings about fate and destiny and most have feelings that whatever death or unfortunate events that occur to them were just unhappy turns of unavoidable bad luck.

Dana has struggles. Though her language skills are improving everyday she often gets lost in conversations. People stare at her all.the.time. Perfect strangers warn her that at 29 she's getting to the "rotten fruit" stage where no man is going to want to marry her. She finds out that the regular (and secret) police have a keen interest in her and her friends and activities.

I didn't mind this book, I kind of wish I liked it more.  I think that the part of the problem is that I'm sure 1995 Hanoi and 2014 Hanoi are incredibly different places. I'd be interested to see a more updated "version" of this story. I give it a low 3 out of 5.

A very pretty cover though!

Living Abroad - Rwanda

"A Thousand Hills to Heaven: Love, Hope and a Restaurant in Rwanda" by Josh Ruxin

Josh Ruxin is a multi-degreed, fairly wealthy, New Yorker who had put his public health experience all over the world, but more often recently in a consulting capacity. But he wanted to get his hands dirty and get out in the field again. He talks at a party with a wealthy tech guy who wants to know why he isn't in Rwanda. Rwanda seemed to be a great place to come in and help to revitalize after the devastating genocide in the 1990s. So he and his new fiancee (who also had a public health background) get themselves on a plane and go to Rwanda.

Josh works with (sort of? I think? Sometimes I didn't know who was exactly working for and with whom) an already established medical clinic in Kigali, Rwanda's capital. The clinic was already there but it was in a horribly poor area where people were starving but the clinic was run down and wasn't really where someone went for help.

It takes a lot of time, but along with a TON of help, the clinic becomes a shining beacon in the little community. They also feed the starving residents, and then help teach farmers different farming techniques so there's always food. Sometimes there's even enough of the crops leftover to sell for profit. Getting all of this going makes for very long days for Josh and so now wife, Alyssa looks for a way to help in the community.

She volunteers at an orphanage that helps to try to send promising kids to college, which would make a huge difference, not only in their own families, but also in the community. One of the main problems is that there aren't any jobs for the kids and teenagers to work and put money back for tuition. Through a huge and roundabout way, Alyssa opens a restaurant called Heaven. It was a great place for the kids from the orphanage to learn a skill, put money back for tuition and help support their families.

These next 2 stories didn't really fit into the review anywhere but I thought they were worth telling:

Pierantonio, a next door neighbor, told Josh what he witnessed during the massacres. He could see soldiers breaking into their neighbors and good friends home, where they were murdered, and the wife and daughters raped and murdered. He held the title Italian Consul to Kigali, which though it was mostly a symbolic honor, now meant that he had to try to get all 200 Italian ex-pats in Rwanda out. He stuffed his pockets with money that he had withdrawn before the uprising began, knowing that if something happened money would grease a lot of wheels. He (and his son) crept into houses and churches and rescued many many people, often just seconds away from being shot and macheted to death. He and his family were on the last flight out of the country. As soon as he got his family safely into Kenya, he returned to Rwanda to save more people.

I finished reading this book on September 11th. Josh was in Paris at the time and was one the very first flight out of Paris back to America on the 14th. He said the pilot gathered all of the passengers around him and talked about how they would "have to take action as a group if anyone was acting suspicious".  What a horrifying flight to be on, it must have been agonizing.

What I learned about Rwanda
-There's a weirdly large amount of ex-pats from Arkansas living in Rwanda
-The average life expectancy in Rwanda is just under 60
-They are one of the least corrupt governments in Africa

So that's a really long review. But the only thing that I didn't like was that sometimes the stories seemed kind of disjointed or seemed like they could have been organized a little differently to make things a little more clear. 3.5 out of 5 stars!

Living Abroad - France

"A Year in the Merde" by Stephen Clarke

Let's just get this out of the way, merde is "shit" in French. So this book is called "a year in the shit", which is kind of hilarious and fitting considering the book is about an Englishman living in France for 2 years and trying to learn how to be a Parisian. And look, we all learned a cuss word in a foreign language today. What a productive day!

One of the things that he has a hard time with is alllll of the dog poop all around Paris. He has to take extreme precautions (aka buying tons and tons of crappy shoes that then he would just throw away when he actually has to walk around the city). Did you know that 650 people go to the hospital a year for slipping on merde? Yeah. That's unpleasant.

He is in Paris because he has been hired by a company that apparently deals exclusively in butchering cows (?) open a series of English style tea rooms. It's Paul's first experience working in a French corporation and there is are several things to get used too. He gets distracted by one beautiful woman in the office almost immediately. He is angered by the slow pace that everyone takes.

His boss put him up in an "all beige" hotel on the outskirts of Paris. He decides he wants to find his own apartment but can barely read the classified ads, which makes for some interesting visits. (One claims that it has a dining area, but really you just put a plank over the claw foot tub that is in the bathroom/kitchen). He asks for advice from an American that he met at a cafe and he said the best way to get in a decent apartment is to "get and move in with a French girlfriend". That isn't an immediate option, but he does move into his boss's daughter's apartment because she has a spare bedroom. Does this sound like a bad idea? Oui, it is. Not just because they almost immediately start having a casual sexual relationship, also because there are some illegal shenanigans a foot. If the apartment hunting and living turned out poorly, imagine how bad it goes when he decides he wants to buy a little cottage in the country.

The book can basically be summed up thusly. (Thusly, that's a word right?)

-His boss is shady, actual his whole job and work situation is shady

-He tries to learn how to act Parisian which involves looking kind of angry and shrugging a lot

-Sexual conquests (because of course, eye roll)

This book was funny. It was a light, easy read. It got a little repetitive and it kind of ends cliffhangery and I want to know what happens with the thing he was about to pursue. I give it a low 3 out of 5 stars.

I'm also linking up here!!!

Living Abroad (Tuscany and Germany )

"My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes)" by Luisa Weiss

If you asked Luisa where she was from she would probably have to consider her answer before replying. Grown up in Berlin until her parents split, then raised in Boston by her Dad except when she was on summer vacations back in Berlin, then some time in Paris, time in New York City, almost to San Francisco, and then back to Berlin, for good (for now). It's a lot of bouncing around, but it helps to make her who she is (even if sometimes she struggles with the "who she is", like we all do).

You foodie types might now Luisa from her blog The Wednesday Chef where she cooks and bakes her way through huge piles of clipped and stacked recipes.Before she started her blog (and then eventually wrote this book) she was in the publishing business. She even worked in the cookbook department of a publishing company in Paris, how fun is that?

In her book she addresses the things that have happened in her life. Her parents splitting, never really feeling like she was from somewhere, a broken engagement, love lost and love wondrously found again. She's gone through a lot of feels in a lot of different places.

One thing that was always a constant in her life was cooking. She makes her family's tomato sauce for comfort food, she baked German Christmas cookies by the dozens when she struggled to re acclimate to Berlin the second time, her boyfriend makes her a huge pot of German pea soup when he introduces her to his friends.


The book also includes some really delicious sounding recipes. There was about one or two that I could maybe handle, the Christmas goose recipe sounds like something that would take me untold years and untold dollars to get even edible.

I'm not a great cook by any means (I'm passable) and I still enjoyed this book.It even made me very curious about white asparagus and figs.Who wants to cook for me? :) I've been to Berlin and it's an intriguing complicated city and the book made me want to go back and experience the city again. Maybe she'll cook if I visit? I give the book a 3 out of 5 stars!

Reichstag.

"At Least You're in Tuscany: A Somewhat Disastrous Quest for the Sweet Life" by Jennifer Criswell

This was the first book that I had read on my newly acquired Kindle, and my first book from Netgalley! (It's a castoff from my Mom, she reads on her Ipad now). So, that's exciting for no one else but me, but there it is. This is also 1 of 2 books about Tuscany that you're going to get this year, not intentionally,just happened that way.

Jennifer has a dream that a lot of people have, being an expat in some beautiful place where you find success and are instantly brought into your new community with loving arms and open hearts. Her dream is exactly that, a dream. Jennifer is in her late 30s and hating her life as a New York City lawyer. She has saved and saved, and finally pulls the trigger, moving to Tuscany specifically Montepulciano, a small town that she fell in love with on a trip. It's just her, her old weimaraner Cinder, some savings, and a basic grasp of basic Italian.She imagines that she will pick up on the language quickly, do a lot of writing, find a job in the meantime to supplement her nest egg and make lots of new friends. This doesn't quite happen.

She finds a great small apartment, with a lovely view and a place to hang your laundry out of your window like in the movies. (Though her landlord isn't particularly nice or helpful). The town is full of small shops (especially cheese and olive oil) that cater to the tourists who come in summer time. There's a wonderful market in town on Wednesday and one of them is a delightful vendor to whom she takes a liking (rawr) and starts putting out feelers for jobs.

The problem is she needs proper papers to work and she failed to take into account the slowness and red tape that Italy specializes in. It takes months and months. She thinks that she can take on locals who want to learn English. However most of the men who approach her think that English lessons from a single American means something else, mostly lecherous things. And then theres the day that her duvet freezes on the laundry line. There are times where she's pretty sure she will be homeless (though it never actually happens). Uggggh.

I liked this book because it doesn't sugar coat things. Yeah you live in this beautiful place, but that doesn't mean that everything is going to be glorious. It's likely that at some point you're going to be lonely and broke and wondering if you did something REALLY stupid by leaving a comfortable job and all your friends and family. 3 out of 5 stars from me!

This is great and all but I'm still about to be homeless.

Living Abroad (India and Mongolia)

We continue with another installation of Living Abroad! Today we have India and Mongolia!

"Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India" by Miranda Kennedy

Miranda wants to be "super reporter girl" (this caused no end of eye rolling on my part) and so she moves to India, because she doesn't want to be in an "obvious" war torn place like Iraq. She had an older relative (a great aunt?) who was a missionary in India and her parents lived there for awhile for work so that's where she goes. Good enough reason, I guess.

She strikes out with no apartment and no real job prospects. She has a hard time finding an apartment because no landlord wants to rent to a single woman.They assume she's a prostitute. (A majority of Indian women live at home until they are married and then they move into their in-laws home with their husband, so a single lady with no family is up to no good). Eventually she lies and says she has a husband who is a journalist and is away on assignment, and she starts to dress more Indian (less like a "dirty hippie") and then she gets an apartment.

She doesn't talk much about the work that she does, except in passing when she mentions taking trips out into different parts of India. The main focus of her story is the stories of the few Indian women that she gets to know. Geeta is a good symbol for India as a whole. Struggling to keep old traditions (she can't decide if she wants an arranged marriage or not.She ends up with one but it's with a boy she went on 2 dates with) without being too held back from modernity (like being able to work after she is married). All of these things only pertain to the women though. If it was found out that a girl had kissed a boy without being married to him she could be so shunned that she wouldn't be able to find anyone to marry her.

The book gave a really interesting look into the lives of different Indian women, but not as much into the author's own life: besides some of her struggles with Indian culture. It was an interesting book and worth a read but I never have really wanted to go to India and this book definitely did not change my mind. I give it 2.5 stars.

Hearing Birds Fly: A Nomadic Year in Mongolia" by Louisa Waugh

Louisa is a bit of a nomad. She's spent time to all over the world and when plans fall through to teach in Latin America she finds herself in Mongolia. Mongolia's capital is Ulaanbaatar (there's your trivia for the day, go forth, looks smart, impress your friends) and it has some creature comforts, but that that isn't where Louisa is going.(Though she does work there for 2 years before starting her adventure.) She is going to Tsengel which is in the extreme west of Mongolia.

I provide you with a sloppy google maps screen shot. For I am kind, and not everyone is a geography nerd like me.

To call Tsengel a village might be overly generous, but that's what we will go with. Louisa is there to teach English to the village teachers and their pupils (she already speaks okay-ish Mongolian, which is impressive!). Right away the differences between city living in Mongolia and village life in Mongolia are apparent. Basically: no plumbing, electricity of any kind in any home (there is some in the school and at the one medical clinic), 2 telephones in the entire village, mail is delivered once a week, and whole extended families live in gers (which is like a circular, wood boned structure covered by canvas type fabric).

She doesn't meet with any hostility but the locals take a long time to warm up to her.The children are the most receptive (as is often the case) but the people who give her the most trouble are some of the local men who get drunk, pound on her door and demand sex. So that's a little scary.(This might be a good time to mention that alcoholism is a problem in rural Mongolia.) Another interesting aspect of the village is the self-imposed segregation. There are the tensions between Buddhists and Muslims, and then the native Mongolians and the Kazakhs who have come just over the border from Kazakhstan.

She bonds with several of the families, even spending summer with them up in the mountains helping with their herds, attending a wedding and even learning how to milk a goat.Also the village is quarantined because the next village over (far far far over) got the black plague from eating marmot. So there's that.

I have always been kind of curious about Mongolia. Sandwiched between Russia and China (2 very different types of places) can be a bit of a hairy place to be sometimes, I'd bet.Still my knowledge of Mongolia is pretty much: this book, steppes, horses; a sad state of affairs. I give this book 3 out of 5 stars, an interesting look into a culture and country that (at least in certain parts) are doing things just like their ancestors did.