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From the author of "The Good Women Of China" comes the uplifting story of 3 sisters who, like so many migrant workers in today's China, leave their peasant community to seek their fortune in the big city, Nanjing. Xinran skilfully tells not only the human story, but also weaves in the story of the city, its past, customs and culture, and potential future.
Synopsis
The Li sisters don't have much education, but one thing has been drummed into them: their mother is a failure because she hasn't managed to produce a son, and they themselves only merit a number as a name. Yet when circumstances lead the sisters to seek work in distant Nanjing, the shocking new urban environment opens their eyes.
Book Details
Publisher:
VINTAGE
Publication Date:
03-Jul-2008
ISBN:
9780099501534
Observer review
Miss Chopsticks
James Purdon the observer Sat 02 August 2008
In Sanniu's Chinese village, girls are called 'chopsticks', boys 'roof-beams'. Unlike sturdy roof-beams, chopstick girls are so disposable that Sanniu's parents have named her and her five sisters only with numbers: Sanniu means 'Three'. Following Three and her sisters, who arrive as painfully naive, wide-eyed newcomers in the big city of Nanjing, Xinran evokes the multiple, layered cultures and customs of modern China with bright, memorable detail and empathy for her characters. An imagined version of the lives of three real people, the book is light and hopeful, but its afterword suggests the troubles as well as the successes of life in the People's Republic. When Xinran tried to track down the model for one of her chopstick girls, she found the teahouse where the woman had worked closed for 'selling banned books'.
