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Charmaine Chan


A Village With My Name
by Scott Tong
The University of Chicago Press
★★★★★
The cottage industry in soul-baring, multi-generational Chinese family sagas still turns out the occasional gem. This book, subtitled “A Family History of China’s Opening to the World”, is that, but also more than just a trip through the ancestral archives.
Scott Tong puts shiny new China into context in what he calls his “pursuit of a useful historical perspective”. A “ruling Communist Party in desperate search of legitimacy” claims credit for pulling China out of the pre-Deng dark ages, he writes, before giving a more accurate picture in shades of grey.
Growing up in 1930s Shanghai: Hongkonger’s memoir of soirées, school days, a shooting and some Black Swans
The background to his investigation is his family’s story, which he tells through five people across five generations, beginning with his paternal great-grandfather, who left Jiangsu for Japan in 1906.


The tale is punctuated by heart-rending episodes of anti-Western, xenophobia-inspired separation and imprisonment, educa­tion (against the odds) and political redemp­tion. In “a society built on status and avoiding shame” and on obliterating any trace of histori­cal, erstwhile punishable foreign connections and potentially fatal political views, Tong also faces his own struggle to overcome his relatives’ reluctance to talk.
That makes his achievement all the more remarkable.


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The story of China’s opening up told through one family’s history in Scott Tong’s A Village With My Name – book review

A Village With My Name is a remarkable achievement: the writer has overcome his own family’s reluctance to speak about a past punctuated by heart-rending episodes to tell the story of China’s re-emergence through their lives

Handout image shows Scott Tong, author of A Family History of ChinaÕs Opening to the World. [21JANUARY2018 BOOKS POST MAGAZINE]

Post magazine Jan 21, 2018 reviews

Beijing at the turn of the 20th century, when Scott Tong’s history of modern China, told through his family’s, begins. Picture: l'Illustration

Book review: family saga relives horrors of modern Chinese history

A captured tank driver is helped to safety by students in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, as the crowd attempts to beat him on June 4, 1989. Picture: Reuters

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BK-DONOTSAYWEHAVENOTHING Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien, Knopf Canada, 480 pages, $35. Uploaded by: Dundas, Deborah

This handout image shows author Madeleine Thein [31JULY2016 BOOK REVIEW POST MAGAZINE]

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A Village With My Name is a remarkable achievement: the writer has overcome his own family’s reluctance to speak about a past punctuated by heart-rending episodes to tell the story of China’s re-emergence through their lives


An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


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