Wild Swans - #17

Yes, I know that image is Japanese not Chinese. Not to mention god knows what or who is doing what to whom. But it sums up this book for me. Elephant-Swan. The thing was huge.

This was one of those highly acclaimed and raved about books I had been meaning to read for a very long time. I was given it by my housemate who bought it at a garage sale down the road for 50 cents. He was very pleased with himself how little it cost. While appreciating the present, it was one of those occasions where you kinda didn't want to know how little was spent on you, no matter the bargain  It has sat on my shelf since then, trying to lure me to read it to see if it was worth 50 cents.

Was it? Yes. Was it insightful? Yes. Was it astonishing? Yes. Was it informative? Yes. Did it inform me how much of a bad person I have become? Oh hell yes.

I was amazed and horrified at the autocracies described in this book. By the Chinese landowners, by the Japanese and especially by the Communists. I had no idea about the Long March. I knew the phrase the Cultural Revolution, but actually had no idea what it meant. Chatting to my brother the other night highlighted how my education has lacked from doing no history in high school and very little in Uni. He knew all about this stuff from a subject he took in Yr 12. I, however, was completely in the dark.

Which lead me to an interesting discovery. I was listening to Jung talk about how she could not challenge Mao in her mind. How she was brainwashed into believing he was almost a god and infallible. And I thought, how stupid do you have to be? Well, not stupid as the consequence was torture and either death or complete destruction of your family and their futures. But how could you accept this and not challenge it at least internally.

And then I realised. Being a child of the 1980s I was always brought up to think that China was wrong. That they were bad and not good. They had human rights issues and freedom of speech problems and you don't want to end up like them. Oh and that Mao guy? Bit of a dick really. Not very nice. And I, until this book, had never known why besides one or two stories I had heard over the years. Except I accepted this premise. It was what we were taught. It's what was right.

While I am definitely on that side still after reading this book, my questioning of her brainwashing, lead me to discover the almost brainwashing of my own. My quick judgement of her made me realise that as a child especially, it is so easy to be talked around to other people's way of thinking. While I'm not saying we are comparable to Maoist China, I am saying that maybe we are throwing stones and not realising we are in a glass house.

But that's not why I am a bad person nor why this book is an elephant-swan. Why I am a bad person and this book to me is an elephant-swan is because my boss, who happens to be a Professor of Literature (you know, I mention this for the street cred haha), saw I was reading this book. While work is still insane, she was all "You have to go and read this book!! Now! Stop that work and read! I was all puffy-eyed for over a fortnight while reading that book. I couldn't stop crying!!".

I sort of looked at her, and replied, "Really? Until we got to the Cultural Revolution I was a bit bored. Hopefully things pick up a bit now".

There was a bit of a blank stare in return.

Really. I was bored. I was just thinking over and over again:

If it wasn't for the fact I had to read the book in September I may have, possibly, dumped it. Not sure, as the positives for reading it far out weighed the bogging down bits. But still. Bad person. I mean, seriously, who gets bored hearing about a families persecution and torture and harassment by a flawed but immensely powerful system?!? Not a good one.

But whether I am a good person or not, it's 3.5 elephant-swan stars. Recommend to everyone to read who has no idea about Chinese modern history, but be prepared you may be bogged down in the middle. Or I'm just horrid.

Another Aside - Last Chance to See

Work is insane. I do not believe I will have a lunch break at work until November. However, I have thought to keep me sane during these days, especially when it involves inane activities like filing (I haven't filed since May until last week, as I haven't had the time. I still don't but I was working on piles of paperwork that really should have been locked away) to listen to an audio book. 

I was unsure of audio books. The boy raves about them. He likes to listen to them in the car. I was always worried I would get too caught up in the book I would drive off the road or into someone else. I like things in the background so I can have enough distraction to not be bored but if I tune out due to driving or work, I don't miss anything. I also though have lots of things to read for all these damn challenges I have signed myself on to, so this knocked one out of the way.

But I will say, that listening to this book was the best thing I ever did. There is a very slim chance to my mind that you could get as much out of this book if you weren't read it by Douglas Adams. His tone of voice and way of telling the story enhances everything, which you would expect as they are his thoughts and musings. Now, I don't usually say things like this, but this audio book was close to perfect.

What the book is about is Douglas Adams, being the writer of Hitchhiker's Guide, and a zoologist travelling around the world to see endangered animals, sometimes critically so, in their own environments in the late 1980s. This involved places like New Zealand to see the Kakapo shown above (I will house any Kakapos anyone would like to bestow on me. Apparently they love people) but also places like Zaire (It's changed it's name) to see the White Rhinoceros, and China to see the Yangtze River Dolphin, both of which would have been "interesting" places to visit in 1988-1989. Adams then tells all of their adventures in alarming detail to us the reader.

Whether this is the intricacies and bizarre happenings of Tanzanian airports, chickens being stolen by Komodo Dragons in Indonesia, being lectured by crazy scientists in Mauritius, you feel like you were there. With Adams' matter of fact, but yet sometimes exasperated voice walking you through as some form of spirit guide. The story that made me giggle as it hit so true to home at the moment was the Australian scientist in Melbourne giving them advice about what not to get bitten by in Komodo. That was, everything. And every time he tried to explain himself, he just made it worse. I spend far too much time in the role of the Australian, explaining the exact same thing to all our European visitors at work. It was wonderful to hear this discussion from the terrified European's side for once, instead of being the blasé Aussie.

In short, everyone should read, or more accurately listen, to this book. You learn so much about the amazing animals in this world we take for granted, hear of the ridiculous destruction our species is causing, and to boot get a good workout giggling. And once you have done that, you should do what I'm going to now do and watch the BBC follow up show made 20 years later in 2009. As Douglas Adam's had sadly passed away by this stage, his friend Stephen Fry fills his shoes.

5 very big, Kakapo hug worthy, stars.

Saving Fish from Drowning - #11

I wish this novel lived up to it's name. Instead of Saving Fish from Drowning as it claimed, this story slowly suffocated. Amy Tan let it flip flop all over the place in front of you, and then, when you thought it couldn't possibly still be alive, it would spring up and kinda flop over again.

The story is apparently about a woman called Bibi (which is a ridiculous name... no offence to any one reading called Bibi, you can't help your parents). She's dead. That's not a spoiler, it happens on page one. She's self obsessed, incredibly learned and cultured. And she's haunting her friends who are going on a holiday she organised. She sucks at haunting though as she just kinda follows them around like annoying small animal. But one you don't notice.

So you follow her friends around, after you get through 50 pages about her funeral. Which you don't care about as you don't like her. And her friends are awful, stereotypical travelling Americans. They are the people that walk into your hotel breakfast and you shudder with embarrassment as you feel terrible for being white as people may think you're from the same country, or worse, family.

I'm sorry. It's true. American's have the stereotype of being obnoxious, loud and ignorant while travelling. With the Brit's, they look down their nose at *everything*. Australians have the stereotype of being constantly drunk and obnoxious. You learn to work with it, and prove you are the exception.

Anyways. These are people you do not want to be around. All of them. Dead fish people or alive people. So after 100 pages, they got abandoned. And I hate myself a little for it. But after 100 pages, you had a good shot, and I couldn't see it getting better.

Also, I should have been warned when I found out that Amy Tan made up some stupid story about the book coming out of automatic writings she stumbled across in some Psychic Museum. So this was a "real story" told to a "real psychic". While my personal bullshit meter was going into overdrive, I then learnt that she made up this story to get more interest in the book. If you have to make up some story about automatic writings and psychics to sell your book, that should scream that it's not worth reading. Next time, I listen to that meter.

The problem is now, I don't know what to do with my journey. I think I have to find another South East Asian story, as I already felt my SE Asian pickings were rather slim. And for that, I am, just frankly, annoyed. Ruining my list *mumble mumble mumble*.



Next: To Romania, and let's hope it does better with The Appointment