Mirabell
27-Sep-2009, 00:25
The phrase ?Hua Song? means ?in praise of the Chinese community?, the book claims. This well describes the intent and basic thrust of Christine Suchen Lim?s book (or Su-chen Christine Lim), which is wonderful and disappointing at the same time. The book is a large C-format paperback, with 264 thick, multicolor pages containing countless photographs and illustrations. In fact, these are the main reason to buy Hua Song: Stories of the Chinese Diaspora. The texts are short burst of information, of brief biographies of particularly remarkable individuals of the Chinese community throughout the past centuries. Among the little text that is provided in the first place, more than half consists of long quotes from historical accounts that, in turn, quote witnesses, letters, speeches and poems. Lim provides the order and the basic historical narrative, but her voice blends into the background so that the voices of Chinese immigrants and of eyewitnesses to the development of the Chinese diaspora function like subtitles to the photographs. We as readers are invited to acquire a feeling for these events, for these people, for their hardships and the resilient spirit that made them overcome these hardships.
read the rest here Travelers: Christine Su-Chen Lim’s “Hua Song: Stories of the Chinese Diaspora” shigekuni. (http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/travelers-christine-su-chen-lims-hua-song-stories-of-the-chinese-diaspora/)
read the rest here Travelers: Christine Su-Chen Lim’s “Hua Song: Stories of the Chinese Diaspora” shigekuni. (http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/travelers-christine-su-chen-lims-hua-song-stories-of-the-chinese-diaspora/)