Golden Mountain: Beyond the American Dream
by Irene Kai
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Book Summary Information
Author: Irene KaiEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2003-10-01
ISBN: 097448900X
Number of pages: 375
Publisher: Silver Light Publications
Book Reviews of Golden Mountain: Beyond the American Dream
Book Review: Uplifting Memoir of A Chinese Woman's Journey to Becoming Whole
Summary: 5 Stars
Irene Kai writes of her struggle to escape boundaries imposed upon her by her Chinese family while the words of her grandmother to be a dutiful daughter and wife haunt her throughout her journey. She writes of her great grandmother, her grandmother and her mother using the creative non-fiction device of imagined conversations.These conversations draw one immediately into the life of 19th and 20th century rural China, then, Hong Kong and New York. I particularly enjoy reading of overlapping time frames from the points of view of different people, and Kai does it well.
A child of a loveless arranged marriage, she is unwanted, unloved and abused physically and psychologically by her mother, who is struggling to find love. Kai's background material is especially important in helping us understand her mother and to understand Kai's radical rebellion in her teen and young adult years. She sweeps us into her wild, tumultuous exploration of art and sexuality. And when the rebellion is over, she becomes the dutiful wife, driven by her husband and her desire to leave behind all of her Chinese past. In doing so, she finally realizes that she, too, is neglecting her children, just as her mother did. Slowly, slowly, as she begins to discover herself, she finds the strength to leave her lavish life style and become attentive to her children and to her own needs. She reclaims parts of her own culture and becomes whole.
Especially poignant is Kai's struggle to balance her desire to always please her wounded mother with her need to protect herself and her children. The moment of courage when she looks into her mother's eyes and takes charge of her own life must ring as true for many other women as it did for me.
I would love to know more about this woman. Has she continued her art? How does she feel now? When she looks back, what are her feelings? Now that she has written this fascinating autobiography, will she let us into her life again?
Golden Mountain is an uplifting read.
by Judith Helburn
for StorycircleBookReviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women
Summary of Golden Mountain: Beyond the American Dream
In Golden Mountain, Irene Kai tells a deeply personal story of how she overcame cultural bias and a difficult mother to move from China to America and become an independent woman. The child of a loveless arranged marriage, Kai was born into a culture where women were told to accept their fate and not question authority. Beginning with her great-grandmother, Wong Oi, who was humiliated by her husband's concubine, Kai traces the lives of women in her family through three generations until she reaches her own childhood. As a teen, Kai was brought to New York City by her American-born mother and began to rebel against her mother's physical and psychological abuses. In New York, she also discovered art, sexuality, and herself. Finding the strength to prosper in the "Golden Mountain," Kai made her own life and became truly independent, but she could not forget from where she came?in a poignant finale, Kai comes to terms with the family she left behind. An uplifting, unpredictable story, Golden Mountain is a book about overcoming, and coming to terms with, one's culture.Chinese Books
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