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ccronin2006's review against another edition
3.5
This was a bit confusing at times but I appreciate the author's perspective and struggles to connect with different generations of his family.
susannekaluza's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
jcp1009's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. This little book of essays has blown me away. A. discussion of identity and multiculturalism and how that impacts us and how we relate to other people. While the focus is on his experience in Asia, I feel like it's also very similar to the American experience. How do I relate to my grandparents, children of immigrants, when my life has been so completely different? When the author explains that he can be mistaken for multiple nationalities throughout Asia, it reminds me of how we too have shed our origin story in some way.
lauren_endnotes's review against another edition
5.0
This essay - part of a larger multi-author series all entitled The Face from Restless Books - explores both the physical and historical face of the writers. This essay, by Tash Aw impressed me so much that I want to read more of his work, as well as the others in this series of essays.
In six succinct chapters/mini-essays, Tash Aw recounts cultural and ethnic history, both his own, and post-colonial southeast Asia, as well as his ancestry in Taiwan and China. He speaks of the classifications and identifications - putting people in boxes - that he experiences every day. People always asking where he is from, or assuming that they know based on his skin, his face, his accent. In Thailand, he is mistaken for Thai, in his childhood home of Malaysia, he is surrounded by Cantonese diaspora, but also of the rising Asia, growing nationalism and identity with new nations, and the newly-minted "middle class".
Kuala Lumpur's Twin Towers referenced in the book as the author looks out from his home, conversing with his father.
It was a fascinating and illuminating read. Right after I finished this book, I sought out his other books.
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Read for Book Riot's 2016 Read Harder Challenge - an author from Southeast Asia
In six succinct chapters/mini-essays, Tash Aw recounts cultural and ethnic history, both his own, and post-colonial southeast Asia, as well as his ancestry in Taiwan and China. He speaks of the classifications and identifications - putting people in boxes - that he experiences every day. People always asking where he is from, or assuming that they know based on his skin, his face, his accent. In Thailand, he is mistaken for Thai, in his childhood home of Malaysia, he is surrounded by Cantonese diaspora, but also of the rising Asia, growing nationalism and identity with new nations, and the newly-minted "middle class".
Kuala Lumpur's Twin Towers referenced in the book as the author looks out from his home, conversing with his father.
It was a fascinating and illuminating read. Right after I finished this book, I sought out his other books.
--
Read for Book Riot's 2016 Read Harder Challenge - an author from Southeast Asia
wargwe's review against another edition
4.0
Reading Tash Aw reminded me of old feelings that I experienced in youth, but no longer remember. Not until Tash Aw recounts his own childhood as an aspiring middle-class Chinese boy in KL who eventually went on to receive an overseas education that would forever alter how he relates to the world. The desire but inability to be a part of our grandfathers’ past, feeling like a prissy urban dweller imposter when we visited family in (other parts of) Malaysia, backhanded shame over privileges of education and opportunities (having to dispel an elitist label from high school as a 30yo adult).