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A review by chuck9997
Once Upon a Time in the East: A Story of Growing Up by Xiaolu Guo
5.0
Why I read it- Xiaolu Guo is officially on my favorite writer’s list. This book is her autobiography.
I often wonder how an author comes up with the events in their book. Which must be the exact moment that the inspiration strikes. This autobiography is the compilation of all those moments and also what lead the author to be there.
Xiaolu’s books have strong female protagonists. Women who are ready to flung themselves in the unknown, to do whatever it take to move away from their oppressed past. Knowing about her life gives the insight on how each of her heroine is plucked from her life journey. Childhood abandonment, sexual abuse, suicides, struggles of being an artist while living in a communist regime, we walk through it all. The futility of protests, the massacres, the constant state of fear when you are enlightened about your adversities is stifling in itself but was it better for people who in their ignorance knew nothing more than what was shown to them? People in her life dangle in those two categories.
The most distressing story for me was of Xiaolu’s grandmother. Given away in a child marriage merely in exchange for a bag of rice and few bags of yams, she never even had a name of her own. When the census officers visit their house for data collection, she states, unfazed, that she was known before marriage as Second Sister and after as “Guo Shi” i.e. wife of Guo.
With the world now boiling with unjustified hate, it is important to read and listen to the voices of those exiled from their communities. It gives an insight into the hidden and helps us empathize. For is there any other quality more human than empathizing with others?
I often wonder how an author comes up with the events in their book. Which must be the exact moment that the inspiration strikes. This autobiography is the compilation of all those moments and also what lead the author to be there.
Xiaolu’s books have strong female protagonists. Women who are ready to flung themselves in the unknown, to do whatever it take to move away from their oppressed past. Knowing about her life gives the insight on how each of her heroine is plucked from her life journey. Childhood abandonment, sexual abuse, suicides, struggles of being an artist while living in a communist regime, we walk through it all. The futility of protests, the massacres, the constant state of fear when you are enlightened about your adversities is stifling in itself but was it better for people who in their ignorance knew nothing more than what was shown to them? People in her life dangle in those two categories.
The most distressing story for me was of Xiaolu’s grandmother. Given away in a child marriage merely in exchange for a bag of rice and few bags of yams, she never even had a name of her own. When the census officers visit their house for data collection, she states, unfazed, that she was known before marriage as Second Sister and after as “Guo Shi” i.e. wife of Guo.
With the world now boiling with unjustified hate, it is important to read and listen to the voices of those exiled from their communities. It gives an insight into the hidden and helps us empathize. For is there any other quality more human than empathizing with others?