Genealogy Books - The Concubine's Children

Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Great Book, good condition
Comment: Received my order quickly, the book was is the advertised condition and I loved the book.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Very dry reading
Comment: I couldn't wait to read this book after it arrived. But I was disappointed. Althought the topic was
fascinating, the writing was not. I became bored and at times found it hard to follow which person
was doing what. I had to re-read some paragraphs to make sure I knew which person I was reading
about. If the writing had been better, it would have been a far more captivating book. Falling
Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter was much better.

Customer Rating:

Summary: GOOD BUY
Comment:
THE BOOK WAS A VERY GOOD BUY....SERVICE WAS OUTSTANDING I RECD
THE BOOK IN A
HURRY. BOOK WAS IN GREAT CONDITION AND EVEN MY
WIFE PICKED IT UP AND READ IT. THIS IS THE
SECOND BOOK I
PURCHASED FROM AMAZON. I WILL BUY AGAIN VERY SOON. KEEP UP
THE
GOOD WORK.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A family on two soils.
Comment: In this fascinating tale, Denise Chong deftly writes the story of her migrant Chinese family on two
soils - Canadian soil, and Chinese soil. Her grandmother ("concubine" May-ying) moves to Canada
following Chan Sam, her assigned husband. Times prove not to be so easy for the Chinese in "Gold
Mountain". Their isolation and institutionalized exclusion from mainstream Canadian society stifled
any progress. May-ying moves almost constantly from Nanaimo to Vancouver (the two Chinatowns)
waitressing to support her husband, Hing (the third daughter and author's mother), and also the
family left in China. Following relations in this book is key to understanding how the story
unfolds.

Denise Chong tells the story of May-ying's taut life in trying to fulfill the
obligations of a Chinese wife in a polygamous setting. She also gives historical accounts (political
and cultural) both at home and in China. When family and history are intertwined, both become
inseperably tangible. I don't think that this book is an exploitation of Chinese culture as one
reviewer pointed out. I think this book will be enlightening to many a reader with sparse knowledge
and misconceptions about early Chinese migration to the New World.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A history of a polygamous family
Comment: For those of you who think polygamy works when it is culturally supported, this is the book that
will give you a new viewpoint to consider.

This book was written by the granddaugther
of a concubine, a second wife taken while the first wife was still in the picture. Culture and
practicality allowed and supported concubinage in China of the 1920s, yet this family suffered
greatly for generations under the practice. It is the history of her grandparents' marriage, a
second marriage. The grandfather took a concubine to be his wife in the New World while he worked
to make a better living from his At Home family and to elevate his social status in his home
community.

The story tells of the struggles of being a "second family," of the
depravation that had to go hand-in-hand with supporting two households, with the shame of having
parents who were together for the convenience of sex and income, of the pain of being separated from
siblings who were being raised by the first wife. It's about the descent from being a merely
disfunctional family unit to being essentially an out-of-control single-parent household when the
bonds of dependency and culture were broken by the stress of having two wives and two families. />
I couldn't put this book down once I started because it's like watching a train-wreck. I
could anticpate the troubles and sorrows, as could the family involved, yet they were just as
powerless as I to change things.

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