The Bitter Sea: Coming of Age in a China Before Mao
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.76 (510 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0061709549 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-01-09 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Earl said PERFECT. Every thing was all around "PERFECT". Yes, I would buy from this seller again.. Loves the View said A Survivor's Story. There are many good narratives by survivors of this period in Chinese history. This short narrative, by the son of a player in the drama of "A Survivor's Story" according to Loves the View. There are many good narratives by survivors of this period in Chinese history. This short narrative, by the son of a player in the drama of 20th century China, is unique for its descriptions of the number of facets of Chinese life experienced by the author as a boy and young man.Before leaving his teens he had lived in sheltered wealth and in the slums of Nanjing, in the freewheeling city of Shanghai, in v. 0th century China, is unique for its descriptions of the number of facets of Chinese life experienced by the author as a boy and young man.Before leaving his teens he had lived in sheltered wealth and in the slums of Nanjing, in the freewheeling city of Shanghai, in v. "a good read" according to True Reflection. This book tells a personal story of a boy growing up in a very unusual Chinese family during the turbulent times of world war II and the Chinese civil war that followed. The story unfolded as sort of a self analysis, an older man looking back at his childhood and his father with pity, ambivalence, and nostalgia. It is deeping moving, tear-jerking at times, and yet entertaning in its own special way. I read
Li recently retired from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was dean of the graduate division and a professor of linguistics. He lives in Santa Barbara with his wife.. Charles N
Born near the beginning of World War II, Li Na was the youngest son of a wealthy Chinese government official. He saw his father jailed for treason and his family's fortunes dashed when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists came to power in 1945. He experienced the heady materialism of the decadent foreign "white ghosts" in British Hong Kong and starved within the harsh confines of a Communist reform school. Over the course of twenty-one tumultuous years, he went from Li Na, the dutiful Chinese son yearning for a stern, manipulative father's love, to Charles, an independent Chinese American seeking no one's approval but his own. He watched from his aunt's Shanghai apartment as the Communist army seized the city in 1948. Lyrical and luminous, intense and extraordinary, The Bitter Sea is an unforgettable true story of a young man, his father, and his country.
When the political power shifted, Li's father was imprisoned and the family sent to live in a disease-infested slum. Finally, Li's father, in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the Communist party, sent his son to a brutal reform school. With the fall of Shanghai to the Communists, Li went to his parents in Hong Kong, where his father had sought refuge after prison. All rights reserved. . Returning home, he succumbed to depression and "vulgar materialism" before coming to accept his heritage and his father. Yet Li was happy there, running wild with a gang of boys. From School Library Journal Adult/High School—Li was born in 1940 to a harsh and punitive father and an emotionally distant mother. His newfound freedom was short-lived, and he was sent to an eccentric but caring aunt in Shanghai, where he had to learn a new dialect, was taunted by classmates, and found himself at odds with the academic expectations.