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A review by unladylike
Boxers by Gene Luen Yang
4.0
I'll admit, despite having spent multiple years being the only non-Chinese person in my household, from age 20-22, and specifically being in the unfortunate role of initially trying to befriend grad students in the international community at my university as a means of evangelizing to them with Christian house churches, I never really learned anything about the Boxer Rebellion. I would say, like many significant movements or atrocities in history, it was something I just knew had happened at some point, but couldn't tell you anything about it.
This is basically a magical realism story of a growing group of peasants who are barely trained in warfare but learn an easy magical ritual that invokes ancient Chinese deities and historical figures, allowing them to fight and kill many "foreign devils" comprised of Christian missionaries, converted Chinese Christians, and the various colonizing military powers taking control of significant portions of the country.
It's a well-told story, with both pleasing and troubling elements. I was particularly bothered by the particular brand of misogyny that's culturally enforced with spiritual philosophies, and the constant threat of sexual violence and condescension the women in the story endure.
Where I'm at with efforts of decolonizing, a big part of me, even as a white person, is like, "Yeah! Kill all the white devils coming in before it's too late!"
Two things briefly alluded to but never explained in this book that I want to follow up on and learn about: "dragon lines," which are apparently the same thing as what we call "ley lines" in the West, and which are said to be taken over in the story by Christians (deliberately?) building churches over their sacred and powerful paths. This would make sense, in light of some of the insidious tactics employed by aggressively proselytizing Christians. Second, the name Red Lantern, either singular or plural, comes up. I vaguely recall my Chinese friends in college trying to explain to me that in China, the film Raise the Red Lantern, by famed director Zhang Yimou, is much more critically praised (and controversial) than the western blockbusters that were coming out at the time - Hero and House of Flying Daggers. I picked up that the "red lantern" was loaded with a lot of cultural significance that didn't mean anything to me in my own awareness or cultural context.
I realize this is not much of a review, but those are the thoughts I've got. I'd recommend this book to anyone who can dig in to a legit graphic novel of historical fiction, and I'm curious what the counterpart, Saints, will hold.
This is basically a magical realism story of a growing group of peasants who are barely trained in warfare but learn an easy magical ritual that invokes ancient Chinese deities and historical figures, allowing them to fight and kill many "foreign devils" comprised of Christian missionaries, converted Chinese Christians, and the various colonizing military powers taking control of significant portions of the country.
It's a well-told story, with both pleasing and troubling elements. I was particularly bothered by the particular brand of misogyny that's culturally enforced with spiritual philosophies, and the constant threat of sexual violence and condescension the women in the story endure.
Where I'm at with efforts of decolonizing, a big part of me, even as a white person, is like, "Yeah! Kill all the white devils coming in before it's too late!"
Two things briefly alluded to but never explained in this book that I want to follow up on and learn about: "dragon lines," which are apparently the same thing as what we call "ley lines" in the West, and which are said to be taken over in the story by Christians (deliberately?) building churches over their sacred and powerful paths. This would make sense, in light of some of the insidious tactics employed by aggressively proselytizing Christians. Second, the name Red Lantern, either singular or plural, comes up. I vaguely recall my Chinese friends in college trying to explain to me that in China, the film Raise the Red Lantern, by famed director Zhang Yimou, is much more critically praised (and controversial) than the western blockbusters that were coming out at the time - Hero and House of Flying Daggers. I picked up that the "red lantern" was loaded with a lot of cultural significance that didn't mean anything to me in my own awareness or cultural context.
I realize this is not much of a review, but those are the thoughts I've got. I'd recommend this book to anyone who can dig in to a legit graphic novel of historical fiction, and I'm curious what the counterpart, Saints, will hold.