Beijing bastard
Subtitle: into the wilds of a changing China
By: Val Wang
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 340
ISBN-13: 9781592408207
Subjects: Ethnic identity; Chinese Americans; Travel; Social change; Personal Memoirs; Young women; Manners and customs; HISTORY; Social life and customs; Families; Family; Coming of age; China; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY; Cultural Heritage; Biography
Description: "A humorous and moving coming-of-age story that brings a unique, not-quite-outsider's perspective to China's shift from ancient empire to modern superpower. Raised in a strict Chinese-American household in the suburbs, Val Wang dutifully got good grades, took piano lessons, and performed in a Chinese dance troupe--until she shaved her head and became a leftist, the stuff of many teenage rebellions. But Val's true mutiny was when she moved to China, the land her parents had fled before the Communist takeover in 1949. Val arrives in Beijing in 1998 expecting to find freedom but instead lives in the old city with her traditional relatives, who wake her at dawn with the sound of a state-run television program playing next to her cot, make a running joke of how much she eats, and monitor her every move. But outside, she soon discovers a city rebelling against its roots just as she is, struggling too to find a new, modern identity. Rickshaws make way for taxicabs, skyscrapers replace hutong courtyard houses, and Beijing prepares to make its debut on the world stage with the 2008 Olympics. And in the gritty outskirts of the city where she moves, a thriving avant-garde subculture is making art out of the chaos. Val plunges into the city's dizzying culture and nightlife and begins shooting a documentary, about a Peking Opera family who is witnessing the death of their traditional art. Brilliantly observed and winningly told, Beijing Bastard is a compelling story of a young woman finding her place in the world and of China, as its ancient past gives way to a dazzling but uncertain future"--
Table of contents: title: PART ONE. I H_T_ CH_N_S_ SCH_ _ L ; Fresh Tensions in U.S.-China Relations ; Like Extras Late For a Take ; Then There is the Urination ; Miss, You're Not a Beijinger, Are You?; title: PART TWO. The Original Beijing Bastard ; Harbinger, Harbinger, Harbinger ; The Most Important Man in My Story ; The Redemptive Power of Family ; Seeks Trouble for Oneself; title: PART THREE. It Stinks ; Yijia's Grand Opening ; Peking Man ; To Fill in the Blanks ; Young Woman, Old Men ; The Evening Swan ; Peking Opera & Sons; title: PART FOUR. Fifty Years Later ; The Warrior and the Clown ; To Know Your Own Life ; The Decomposing Heart of Old Beijing ; Facts are Facts; title: PART FIVE. The Marzipan Inquirer ; Topless Subtitling ; The Outlaws Are the Ones Who Become Moral ; Not Really "In the Mood For Love" ; In the Path of the Wrecking Ball; title: PART SIX. The Shade Provided by the Branches Is Gone ; I Hope to Bring This Tape to You in Person ; Your Face is So Magnificent, But the Back of Your Head Has Rotted Away ; Qu Qu'r in America; title: Epilogue.