Life and love in London
Written: Nov 06 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cleverly written, witty, great cultural insight
Cons: Perhaps too much sex for some !
The Bottom Line: A witty book, giving an insight into living in another country.
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| chinesemel's Full Review: Xiaolu Guo - A Concise Chinese-english Dictionary ... |
Known as Z (because no-one can pronounce her name), an innocent Chinese girl in her early twenties arrives in London to study English. She finds everything confusing at first; the language, the food, the attitudes are all deeply alien to her. Soon, she bumps into an English man at the cinema and falls in love. The English man, whose name we never discover, asks Z to ‘be his guest’ at his home, which she translates as meaning she can move in with him. Once living together, Z has a rapid introduction to sex and the cultural differences between China and England.
To Z, living together as lovers means that they are committed to each other. Unfortunately, the English man (or ‘you’ as she refers to him) fears commitment and refuses to talk about the future. Will Z manage to understand him as her language improves? Or are their cultures too alien for a successful relationship?
This book has been in the news quite a lot recently because it is included as an entry into the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. As soon as I saw the blurb, I knew I was going to love it. At the tender age of 20, I jetted off for China, where I remained on and off for eleven years. Like Z, I grew up and matured abroad, like Z, I know what it is like to be a foreigner in a country that is totally alien and like Z, I constantly carried around a concise English-Chinese/Chinese-English dictionary during my first months in China! I have also read a previous book by Guo Xiaolu, called A Village of Stone, which was fantastic. For once, despite my high expectations, my enjoyment of this book was totally fulfilled.
I particularly liked the writing style of this book, which is very different from A Village of Stone. Written directly in English, rather than translated, each chapter is headed by a particular word that inspires Z to write that particular entry into her diary; for example, she thinks of ‘you’ as noble, so this is the heading for that entry, which discusses why she thinks so. Very cleverly, she starts off which very short chapters written in very bad English, and progresses onto longer chapters in which the level of English improves, but is realistically never 100% correct. She also throws in a couple of passages in Chinese, which are translated, but that are really funny and show the frustration of living in a foreign country. This is one of those books that is easy to read, but that manages to convey an awful lot in just a few words and made me laugh and want to cry with sympathy at the same time.
Another thing I really liked about this book is that it manages to portray the difficulties of living in a foreign country without making me, as an English person, annoyed at her lack of understanding. Z clearly thinks that us English are odd, but at the same time she realises that she too is odd and is totally accepting of this. I have read other books by Chinese authors that tend to ridicule customs and habits that we have in the West, which can be quite annoying.
Most importantly of all, I think that this book and others like it are important in that they allow Westerners to find out more about China and the Chinese and hopefully bring us closer together. I am frequently shocked at the lack of understanding of China on the part of friends and colleagues. The Chinese make up a quarter of the world’s population and include many different ethnic groups and languages, yet I am always hearing people say ‘oh yes, the Chinese, they all like gambling, don’t they?’ or ‘they’re a violent race the Chinese’ – such massive generalisations for a country with so many people! Of course, this is understandable, because the Chinese deliberately kept themselves to themselves until relatively recently. Likewise, the Chinese can be ignorant of us, although they have much more access to Western TV, films and books than we do to Chinese ones. Unfortunately, I would be amazed if this book will be published in China because of the sexual content. I read another book by a Chinese author that focussed on experimentation with sex and it was banned in China.
Some people may not like the focus on sex in this book. Z undergoes a real sexual awakening in London and while travelling through Europe and sex plays an important role in the book. I generally don’t like to read about too much sex when I’m reading modern fiction – I’ll pull out my old copy of Emanuelle if I do! – but in this case, the slightly clumsy language Z uses to describe sex is oddly touching and I felt fitted in very well.
This book obviously has deeply personal connotations for me. It is the book that I wish I had written about my experiences in China and for the first time ever, I feel so close to the author that I would like to meet her. However, that aside, I also thought it was original, well-written, charming and witty and I think it could be enjoyed and understood by most women and probably a lot of men as well. I have a couple of friends who know nothing about China and have read it; both loved it. I highly recommend it – give it a try!
Publisher: Vintage (UK)
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9780701181147
Recommended:
Yes
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chinesemel
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Location: London, UK
Reviews written: 59
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I also write on other review sites as sunmeilan
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