"Nu Shu" is the only interesting element in the story. The rest of the story is very lame, very funny and make us laugh when we read. My family, my friends and I all read this book in Hong Kong, and we don't think this is a good story whether it's in English or in Chinese translation. We Chinese feel this story is like a Chinese Stir Fry Hamburger cooked by McDonalds, and then be called "Chinese Food". Poor farm girl could never marry up regardless of her feet! Marriage was dominanted by social status at that time, "Bamboo Door To Bamboo Door", "Wooden Door to Wooden Door" were the undefying rules for arranged marriages, which was never to be violated!!! Well-to-do Chinese Han (Majority Ethnic Chinese) families bounded their daughters' feet so they didn't have to marry down!!! There are many other stupid and laughable things in the story I don't have enough space here to name all!! Powerful, Royal and Rich Ruling Manchurians and a lot of other ethnic groups and poor Han Chinese didn't bind their women's feet!!! Qing Dynasty actually had an imperial ban for feet binding, but was unable to enforce it like the way they enforced the men's dress code!! Han Chinese did it also as a defiance against the ruling Manchurians, because it was the only victory they could hold after China was occupied by a non-Han Chinese ethnic group!
Lily sounds too detached to me in the story. The writer's American voice is too strong in the story, reads more like an American journalist trying to make sense of what she observed and the little she understood in Chinese culture, making whatever she knew Chinese look as exotic as Americans would like to see by adding acts of lesiban scenes (absurd how Lily and Snowflower got naked and lick their finger and write Nu Shu on each other's private parts in Qing Dynasty! They were supposed to be deeply influenced by Confusious teaching and yet doing that!!) Why don't Americans just re-write "Pride & Prejudice" so Elizabeth could do a little dirty lap dancing on Mr. Darcy during their first meeting?
What if the Chinese write a novel about Pre-civil war Georgia in America, e.g. "A Native American Navajo girl Pocahontas O'hara, dressed in a puffy lacey ball gown, wearing a necklace adorned by feathers and danced in a New Year ball hosted by her father, a plantation owner. She danced waltz with a very handsome Mr.Katz, who was an orthodox American Jew and he was wearing a Yamaka...During the whole dance, Pocanhontas was humming her melodic Navajo prayers into Mr. Katz's ears "
What will the American people think of the Chinese if we write something like that?? We will be booed on the "O Reily Factor" every night! Will you call this a good story about the American culture and diversity? But we will never venture into writing stories like that. We respect other people's culture so we just play safe and never write fiction of another culture, cause no matter how much we read about it, there are still things that we will never comprehend becaue we think differently with our Chinese minds! This "Snowflower" book is as silly to the Chinese pepole, as the above book idea to the Americans. Yes, there were some true elements in the book like the Nu Shu, but all mixed up and became very silly together, like a wierd stry-fry.
Lily sounds too detached to me in the story. The writer's American voice is too strong in the story, reads more like an American journalist trying to make sense of what she observed and the little she understood in Chinese culture, making whatever she knew Chinese look as exotic as Americans would like to see by adding acts of lesiban scenes (absurd how Lily and Snowflower got naked and lick their finger and write Nu Shu on each other's private parts in Qing Dynasty! They were supposed to be deeply influenced by Confusious teaching and yet doing that!!) Why don't Americans just re-write "Pride & Prejudice" so Elizabeth could do a little dirty lap dancing on Mr. Darcy during their first meeting?
What if the Chinese write a novel about Pre-civil war Georgia in America, e.g. "A Native American Navajo girl Pocahontas O'hara, dressed in a puffy lacey ball gown, wearing a necklace adorned by feathers and danced in a New Year ball hosted by her father, a plantation owner. She danced waltz with a very handsome Mr.Katz, who was an orthodox American Jew and he was wearing a Yamaka...During the whole dance, Pocanhontas was humming her melodic Navajo prayers into Mr. Katz's ears "
What will the American people think of the Chinese if we write something like that?? We will be booed on the "O Reily Factor" every night! Will you call this a good story about the American culture and diversity? But we will never venture into writing stories like that. We respect other people's culture so we just play safe and never write fiction of another culture, cause no matter how much we read about it, there are still things that we will never comprehend becaue we think differently with our Chinese minds! This "Snowflower" book is as silly to the Chinese pepole, as the above book idea to the Americans. Yes, there were some true elements in the book like the Nu Shu, but all mixed up and became very silly together, like a wierd stry-fry.
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