The Porcelain Thief: Searching the Middle Kingdom for Buried China, by Huan Hsu
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The Porcelain Thief: Searching the Middle Kingdom for Buried China, by Huan Hsu
Free Ebook PDF Online The Porcelain Thief: Searching the Middle Kingdom for Buried China, by Huan Hsu
A journalist travels throughout mainland China and Taiwan in search of his family’s hidden treasure and comes to understand his ancestry as he never has before. In 1938, when the Japanese arrived in Huan Hsu’s great-great-grandfather Liu’s Yangtze River hometown of Xingang, Liu was forced to bury his valuables, including a vast collection of prized antique porcelain, and undertake a decades-long trek that would splinter the family over thousands of miles. Many years and upheavals later, Hsu, raised in Salt Lake City and armed only with curiosity, moves to China to work in his uncle’s semiconductor chip business. Once there, a conversation with his grandmother, his last living link to dynastic China, ignites a desire to learn more about not only his lost ancestral heirlooms but also porcelain itself. Mastering the language enough to venture into the countryside, Hsu sets out to separate the layers of fact and fiction that have obscured both China and his heritage and finally complete his family’s long march back home.Melding memoir, travelogue, and social and political history, The Porcelain Thief offers an intimate and unforgettable way to understand the complicated events that have defined China over the past two hundred years and provides a revealing, lively perspective on contemporary Chinese society from the point of view of a Chinese American coming to terms with his hyphenated identity.
The Porcelain Thief: Searching the Middle Kingdom for Buried China, by Huan Hsu- Amazon Sales Rank: #621952 in Books
- Brand: Hsu, Huan
- Published on: 2015-03-24
- Released on: 2015-03-24
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.53" h x 1.27" w x 6.49" l, 1.25 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 400 pages
Review “An ambitious family saga that marries the intimacy of memoir, the sweep of political history and the suspense of an adventure novel… [Hsu's] thoroughness leads to a rich, welcome discussion of porcelain, making the book a valuable introduction to this artistic tradition.”– Wall Street Journal“[A] standout book.” – New York Times Book Review“Not only is The Porcelain Thief a tantalizing mystery — will he find the treasure, or will it be a wild goose chase? — but it is an unearthing of various kinds of booty for the reader: a riveting lesson in Chinese history; a fascinating story of porcelain and its prominent place in the development of China; a gastronomic tour; a vivid and complex portrait of contemporary Chinese culture and the texture of modern life in the world’s largest country; and a group portrait of an extended, sprawling, fascinatingly eccentric Chinese family. Moreover, the story is all told through the lens of an ABC, or an American Born Chinese. And not just any old ABC, but one with attitude.” – Washington Independent Book Review“In addition to documentary and family history, Hsu explores China's social and political history, as well as his personal feelings about China, and the value of documenting and sharing Chinese family stories. Hsu's fluid writing helps to synthesize these threads into a coherent story well worth reading.” – Publishers Weekly“[Hsu’s] persistence in the face of numerous obstacles is beyond admirable… He offers plenty of intriguing information about Chinese history and culture, from wild Shanghai traffic to family dynamics. Some first-rate detective work.” – Kirkus Reviews“Huan Hsu takes us on an intriguing journey into his family's and China's tumultuous past. The Porcelain Thief provides a great, intimate view into how modern China really works.” – Frank Langfitt, NPR Correspondent, Shanghai“Huan Hsu's return to his ancestral Chinese village in search of buried treasure keeps readers turning the pages, eager to see what he finds. The dig turns up more than ancient family valuables, as Hsu meets distant relatives and learns of the turmoil that they endured and that he, as an American-born Chinese, avoided. Part memoir, part journey, and part archaeological expedition, The Porcelain Thief is as suspenseful as any Indiana Jones adventure.” – Michael Meyer, author of The Last Days of Old Beijing and In Manchuria“Huan Hsu blends a fascinating search for his own family’s roots with an illuminating portrait of modern China. The Porcelain Thief is a wonderful read.” —Rob Gifford, author of China Road
About the Author
HUAN HSU, born in the Bay Area and raised in Salt Lake City, is a former staff writer for the Washington City Paper in Washington, DC, and the Seattle Weekly. He is the recipient of two Society of Professional Journalists awards and has received recognition from the Casey Foundation for Meritorious Journalism. His essays and fiction have also appeared in Slate, The Literary Review, and Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts. He currently lives in Amsterdam and teaches creative writing at Amsterdam University College.
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Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful. A "5-star" best seller by any other name By robert johnston "The Porcelain Thief" is an absolute masterpiece from a dazzling writer. It's the story of buried treasure. The story is a 21st century mash-up peeling the veneer off layers of perceptions to get to the core.Hsu is an ABC ... an `American born Chinese'. He's a Salt Lake City kid and a journalist in Seattle. Hsu's quest is to track down the fabled family treasure buried by his great-great grandfather as the Japanese conquered the family's front yard during the Sino-Japanese War in 1938. Cataclysmic events scattered his clan worldwide.The thoroughly American Hsu takes up his private obsession and begins a modern trek to rediscover his roots. This is a political history, art history, ethnography, autobiography and a touchingly humorous deep dive travelogue into a parallel universe of social and ideological peculiarities. Hsu is a sophisticated US citizen in an uncompromisingly strange land. Hsu is pumped to follow his journey through to the end. His excitement transfers to the reader. Hsu draws his reader into the story as a silent partner. Hsu's family is, well, not so enthused about it all. Perhaps it's better left to myth? Hsu's known mainland family isn't particularly helpful. That changes as he discovers whole new branches to the family tree.Hsu's story is of such a unique multi-dimensional nature that it's not easily reduced to a review. It's what makes the Porcelain Thief unique. At 400 dense pages, it's a more studied read than one might pre-suppose. The Porcelain Thief grabs you from the beginning and becomes a story that ramps up from the first to push the reader on non-stop. I'm driving my wife crazy and embarrassing myself with a lack of vocabulary to convey the sense of what the book is. You have to read it to `get' it.Huan Hsu is a master observer. He describes his exploits, warts and all, in uncompromising detail. I understand Hsu's conundrum from among my own ABC friends. I've been in Chinatown with my ABC friends and I'm astonished at their `apparent' command of `Chinese'. Every single ABC that I know humbly demurs that they're Chinese is terrible ... but if fools me. The ABC language acumen is no match for the vast scale of the humorous peculiarities, incomprehensibilities, usages, dialects, and accents that span mainland China from mile to mile as Hsu well illustrates.As if not commanding the language might be overcome by language saturation, Hsu is quickly faced with written Chinese that contains over 30,000-some characters variably simplified for better or worse and not a good thing for Hsu's independent research. Hsu finds his glyph name is pretty much lost in time, isolated from modern meaning by a single brush stroke ... his name has something to do with "wood", maybe a house beam, who knows why.My personal favorite sub-plot line is the way Hsu slices and dices the linguistic complexity he's not prepared for. The issue just doesn't go away as he explores out from Shanghai into the reaches of his Middle Kingdom's family story. It's hilarious, dangerous by degree, scary and touching. I'm using language as a book review illustration but it barely scratches the mayhem Hsu gets into. The Porcelain Thief could be explained as an art history of Chinese porcelain, or 20th century history, religion or politics, our human natured intra-family dysfunction, or just the novelty of an American semi-slacker living day to day in China.Hsu is a methodical documentarian of the grand dysfunction. Hsu's ABC compass crashes into a whole other sort of Mainland Chinese compass as he experiences living and working in his rich uncle's Chinese semiconductor business.The greatest Hsu family heirloom is Huan Hsu's poignant narrative. Hsu's sharing so unabashedly and intensely with the reader is the highlight. It's a 5-star standout of a most curious book.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Trying to drink while you're drowning By amazonbuyer I really enjoyed reading "The Porcelain Thief". Hsu is an excellent writer. Although it is a memoir of sorts, I found the book to be a good history lesson as well. The author's "voice" is fascinating. He is Chinese and yet his perspective as he writes about his country is split. On one hand it as if his psyche is completely Western and then it seems completely Eastern. It was strange for me to hear a Chinese person reacting to many aspects of his culture in the same way Westerners do, especially when it comes to unhygienic practices in public places. His response to these experiences made me laugh out loud because he had to go all the way to China to experience it, whereas I encounter them every day in my own neighborhood right here in the U.S.This is not a fast read. Hsu's journey is a thoughtful one that I found to be quite interesting. The more people he spoke to and the more information he found, the more muddled and confusing the facts became. He came to the conclusion that perhaps "China had to much history". China's history is vast and, just like the porcelain, seems to have been buried and then fragmented under the Chinese interpretation of economic capitalism.As I read the book I couldn't help but think that China has lost its sense of identity in the process. Chinese people speak about Chinese as unable to be entrepreneurial and creative. They portray their own as people who are satisfied to sell a "bootleg" version as opposed to designing something unique. If one looks at China's vast history, one knows this was not always true. As flawed as human beings may be, China as a whole represented something much higher and beautiful: inventions, arts, literature, clearly defined forms of government. No, none of these governments/dynasties were perfect, but a very large nation with many people thrived under the "quirks" of the mostly long lasting dynasties. The old values did not seem to integrate well in the swift pacing of industrial and technological ages. From what I understand, is that the Cultural Revolution was the straw that broke the camel's back as Mao tried to eliminate the "four olds": old culture, customs, habits, and ideas. Not that problems did not exist before that time, but in obliterating the "four olds" Mao not only destroyed the memory of the old but the foundation of China's creative pride and thought. Figuratively speaking it is as if he severed the corpus callosum.Yes, these are some of the things I have been mulling over as I read and finished "The Porcelain Thief". I think it is so important to understand the cultures of the world as we are all converge in the political realm and in our neighborhoods.I recommend this book to anyone who is trying to understand the mind and psyche of all things Chinese.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. A beautifully written autobiographical account, of one man's quest to learn about his own family's history. By Tom Brody THE PORCELAIN THIEF by Huan Hsu is a 370-page biography of the author's family, with details extending back to the 1800s. The book has 20 chapters. Along with biographical details about his own family, the author discloses details about the history of the era, for example, about emperors, wars, dictators, and the meddlings of foreigners in mainland China. In a way, THE PORCELAIN THIEF is like an update of CHINESE HISTORY A NEW MANUAL, a 1124 page book published in 2013, and authored by Endymion Wilkinson. Wilkinson's huge book has separate chapters on intriguing aspects of Chinese culture, such as personal names (e.g., courtesy names, nicknames, taboo names), the fine arts (e.g., seals, ceramic inscriptions), and clothing and hairstyles. In the same way, THE PORCELAIN THIEF provides an first-hand account of personal habits, and cultural quirks, of the mainland Chinese. The Wilkinson book covers the personality, habits, and culture, of entire history of China, while Huan Hsu's book covers the personality, habits, and culture in present-day China.The author is an American Born Chinese (ABC). This book discloses his temporary move to China in order to work in his uncle's corporation, where his real motive was to hunt down his roots and, in particular, to learn about the porcelain that was collected by his family and ancestors.But this quest for porcelain is almost like a mere pretext for writing the book. In fact, the book contains little information about porcelain. Relevant facts about porcelain include the following. On page 75, we learn that "about ninety miles east of my grandmother's hometown, Jingdezhen was an entire city that had since ancient times been devoted to manufacturing porcelain . . . nearly all the porcelain exported to the West during the Ming and Zing dynasties originated in Jingdezhen, as did most of my great-great-grandfather's collection." (page 75)Also, in an extended narrative on the Quing dyansty (pages 81-87), which has a few accounts of porcelain, we learn that Emperor Qianjong was a patron of the porcelain arts, and read that, "he closely supervised the imperial porcelain kilns in Jingezhen and compelled artisans to impress him. As a result, the kilns made great leaps in creativity and technology during his reign. (page 81). This part of the book also provides an overview of the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion.Instead of dwelling extensively on porcelain, what the book does provide is an elegantly written account of cultural mores in China during the past 100 years of so, with a focus on the present era. The writing is free of mannerisms. The writing is the work of a seasoned professional. Although the book is almost as turgid with details as any scholarly paper in physics or molecular biology, the book proved to be a captivating and fascinating read. I am glad that the book is filled with turgid, concrete details, and I am glad that the book is a captivating read. Although it is an account that is personal and biographical, I have reason to believe that the anecdotal narrative is universally applicable to experiences that have been common, in the past 80 years or so, in China.The following provides a few excerpts from Chapters 1, 2, and 15.PERSONAL HABITS. We learn about the personality and habits of present-day Chinese, "loud, angry-sounding manner of speaking and odd habits." (page 7), "people in the farming villages still burned their garbage, and when the wind shifted, it blew right into the living quarters" (p. 16), "street sweepers wearing sandals and reflective orange jumpsuits collected litter with handmade brooms and rickety carts" (p. 16), "while riding public transportation the Chinese had the same sense of personal space as puppies, often literally piled on top of one another" (p. 17), "taxi cab drivers took my wearing a seat belt as a grave insult. I'm a good driver, they huffed, you don't need to worry" (p. 30), "restaurants listing menu items that they never intended to serve -- the loss of face from not offering something outweighing having run out of it" (p. 31), "it wasn't uncommon to see mothers instructing children to piss or s*** on sidewalks, in public parks, or on subway platforms" (page 32).FOODY TALK. We learn that "fruit is China's apple pie . . . even the humblest fruit shack in China offers dragonfruits with flaming petals and pink or blood-red flesh, strands of purple grapes, plump as roe and bursting with intense, bubblegum flavor, or crispy starfruit" (page 55). Page 80 provides another nice account of foody-talk, and we read that, "despite horror stories that street vendors cooked with oil reclaimed from sewers, or that the meat of the yangrouchuan lamb skewers was actually cats, I managed to eat street food with no ill effects, breakfasting on jian bing, a thin eggy crepe wrapped around pickled vegetable and a smear of chile sauce . . . for lunch I gobbled sheng jian bao, another type of soup dumpling, but larger, thicker skinned, and pan-fried to create a french fry. These rested on soup spoons in order to bit a small hole in the top to release the steam and suck out the minced pork juice." (p. 80) As one can see, the author Huan Hsu is an excellent writer, when he writes about local cuisine, as well as about other topics. In this "foody talk," the author (Huan Hsu) is as skilled at bringing life to technical topics, in the same was that Elan Bakker brings life and also infusions of poetry, in her technical accounts of ecology in her book, AN ISLAND CALLED CALIFORNIA: AN ECOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION TO ITS NATURAL COMMUNITIES.CORPORATE CULTURE. We also learn about certain aspects about the corporate culture in China, e.g., "China's hardware (technology, machinery, materials) far exceeded its software (know how, critical thinking, moral reasoning). That's why motion sensors in public bathrooms were installed upside down. And road and building construction flouted safety codes" (page 40).HISTORY AND LANGUAGE. A common theme throughout in this book, is excerpts from history, where the author takes care to name leaders, their kin, and relevant dates. Throughout the book, the author also discloses his struggles to learn Chinese. These accounts are amusing and fun to read. To reiterate one of the many examples of the Chinese language, on page 101 we read, "There's a Chinese phrase for this, Jewel said, "Ji tong ya jiang. A chicken talking with a duck." They were both birds, so they went on clucking and quacking and thinking they were having a dialogue." (page 101).CHAPTER 15, NORTHERN EXPEDITION (pages 257-293). This provides an excerpt from Chapter 15. This chapter focuses on the author's visit with a married couple living in Beijing, San Yi Po (wife) and Fang Zhen Zhi (husband). Regarding porcelain, the book tells us that San Yi Po stated that her ancestors had buried the family porcelain to protect it from the invading Japanese in the Sino-Japanese War, and kept it buried to protect it from the Communists (page 283). We learn that Fang Zhen Zhi's father built his own porcelain store and had a small porcelain factory, and that the invading Japanese destroyed his business (page 285). Most of Chapter 15 is about other aspects of San Yi Po and Fang Zhen Zhi. We read that when the author first met San Yi Po, she was "dressed in a black embroidered top and pants, with black clogs, her short white hair tucked girlishly behind her ears." (p. 259). We read about, "her husband, Fang Zhen Zhi, a small, hunched-over man wearing large eyeglasses and gray slacks pulled halfway up his undershirt." (p. 259) Most of the chapter concern's the life and career of Fang Zhen Zhi, e.g., his marriage in 1946 (page 281), his relocation to the University of Missouri to study physics and metallurgy, resulting in a Master's degree (page 287), his return to China to accept a faculty position at Univ. Beijing and his courses in light metals and on how to extract aluminum oxide from low quality ores (page. 268), his move to the Ninth Institute in the remote Qinghai plateau (p. 272) to work on China's atomic bomb, and the fact that he was tortured and jailed during the reign of Zhou Enlai (p. 273). Regarding history, this chapter outlines the complete incompetence of Mao and his various absurd policies (p. 269), and we learn about of Den Xioping's rule, beginning in 1978, occurring at the end of the "Cultural Revolution" and the initiation of the "open door" policy (p. 279).CONCLUSION. Although intended mainly as an autobiography, this book can also be viewed as a contemporary account of the customs and habits of contemporary Chinese, in the context of corporate culture, as well as of street vendors, and of many walks of life that are in between. FIVE STARS.
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