Book report 20
By A. Bae Hel
Taipei Story
R.F. Kuang
This novel is a bit different from her previous books some of which I loved, some of which I hated.
This is the telling of a Chinese American student studying in Taipei to improve her Chinese language skills. It is a novel of academia, but more it is a novel of culture clash, family and a hero’s journey of sorts; a coming of age.
Lilly, an excellent student in America is off on an adventure to immerse herself in Chinese culture and become fluent with Mandarin. She stumbles, she fails, she doubts and perseveres. Finally, she expresses the idea that the language we speak is the making of who we are in that culture. She feels herself to be a different personality when she speaks Chinese than when she speaks English.
I know so little about Chinese culture, or histories. Vague knowledge of the killing fields, the revolution the strain between China and Taipei fill my head from the news over 60 years. The language is so unintelligible to me. Those complex characters that can mean one thing here and another thing entirely over there. The foods are exotic and seemingly dangerous given I have little understanding of the ingredients or the methods used to produce them. The tastes feel weird in my mouth, and yet it is a fascinating country and culture. Lilly’s trip into Taipei to become more fluent reveals a gap in her cultural understanding until she can be fluent. Despite her sense of failure, she is slowly discovering her family’s history, hidden for so long from her because of culture. And in that understanding she gains the beauty and poetry of a language that is deep with metaphors and symbolism, moving from monochrome to full colour, taste, smell and touch.
These is much revealed in here about Chinese parents and the pressure placed on the children to always be succeeding, to be better than everyone else. There is a sense of loss woven through the novel – an type of anemoia. Quite possibly that is an element of any diaspora story. Yet still the book had me looking up the history and geography of Taipei and its place in the world today. When an author has me googling my way to see the places described in the book I know I have found a worthwhile story.
