Review + Author Recipe: Love and History

Review: Dreams of Joy

by Lisa See
One of my first reviews for this blog was for Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (click here). And the first books I read by See were her mysteries, including Flower Net, The Interior, and Dragon Bones, all of which are amazing.
Whether set in ancient eras or in more modern times, See's books have one thing in common – the stories center around family and relationships.
Dreams of Joy continues on those themes, picking up immediately where the book Shanghai Girls ended. Joy has just learned that her family is not what it seems, that her mother Pearl is actually her aunt and that her aunt May is her true mother. Distraught, she runs away from her Los Angeles Chinatown home to Shanghai to find her birth father, a famous artist named Z.G. Li.
But there's a complicating factor. The China that sisters Pearl and May knew as young women has changed dramatically, with Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China solidifying their power. Like some in the '50s, Joy has an idealistic notion of Communism, seeing it as a solution to corrupt capitalism and the only way to achieve balance between rich and poor.
As she reunites with Z.G. in Shanghai, her naivete keeps her from seeing the implied threat in the order that sends her artist father to Green Dragon Village, a collective in Anhwei province where he must teach art to the peasants. Just 250 miles from Shanghai, the village is like another world, with no cars, electricity, plumbing or phones.
As Joy and Z.G. settle into the village, Pearl takes the dangerous step of following Joy to Shanghai. With travel within China restricted, she must wait in the city for Joy's return, while trying to blend in and not attract notice from the authorities.
Joy and Z.G. travel to Peking for an art exhibit, even meeting Mao himself who chooses Z.G.'s painting of Joy for a propaganda poster that is soon showcased all over China – reminiscent of Z.G.'s early "beautiful girl" paintings of May and Pearl.
Returning to Shanghai, Joy and Z.G. are confronted by Pearl, who wants to return to America with the woman she raised as her own daughter. Joy refuses and insists on returning to Green Dragon Village just as Mao institutes the disastrous Great Leap Forward, a program designed to make China overtake the West in agriculture and steel production in just a few years. Bizarre ideas that are forced on the country – such as planting six times the normal amount of wheat in a field or sowing the ground with glass as a "nutrient" – lead to famine, widespread disease and death.
A disillusioned Joy, who is now married and has a baby, sends a desperate message to Pearl and Z.G., who race to save her before she becomes yet another statistic of the starvation and deprivation that grip China.
Dreams of Joy is a gripping account of a convulsive period in Chinese history, but again it is also a touching story of the love between mothers and daughters, and of sacrifices of the heart.
(2011 – Random House)

Recipe: Lisa See's Curried Tomato Beef
My sincere thanks to Lisa See for providing this recipe. She wrote all of the following copy:
"Food is memory, and many of my memories are linked to food. This recipe has grown and evolved over three generations in my family. My grandfather used to own a restaurant in Los Angeles Chinatown called Dragon’s Den. It was only the seventh family-style Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles. Back in 1936, when Dragon’s Den opened, this dish – minus the curry and the noodles – cost just twenty-five cents. The restaurant had closed by the time I was born, but I can remember my grandfather making a version of the Dragon’s Den tomato beef at home.
"Tomato beef is a uniquely Chinese-American dish – symbolic in many ways of the 'melting pot.' 'Mein' means noodles in Cantonese, but beef and tomatoes are not typical Chinese ingredients. But in the past, if you were Chinese and lucky enough to own your own restaurant, you put together ingredients you thought would please your American customers. That’s how American tomatoes and beef came to be thrown together with Chinese noodles. For a time tomato beef lo mein and curried tomato beef lo mein could be found on every menu in Chinese-American restaurants and cafés, such as the Golden Dragon Café. Now you can’t even find tomato beef in Chinese restaurants! No one asks for it, orders it, or remembers it. So this truly is a taste of the past, specifically 1950s Chinese America. There is no right or wrong way to make this dish. It’s all about your personal taste and whether you like more vinegar or sugar."
1 lb. flank steak – cut into ¼" strips against the grain
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon dry sherry
1 teaspoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste
1 teaspoon cornstarch
2-3 Tbsp. canola oil
1 medium to large onion – cut into 1"squares
1 green bell pepper – chopped into 1" squares
4 roma tomatoes – quartered
1 Tbsp. Madras curry powder
4-6 Tbsp. white vinegar
1-3 teaspoons white sugar
Cilantro – loosely chopped
1 lb pasta
Mix ingredients for marinade (soy sauce, sherry, sesame oil, salt, pepper, and cornstarch) and add sliced beef. Let marinate for 20 minutes.
Put oil in a wok (or frying pan) over high heat. When oil is hot and smoking, add the beef and stir fry until browned but not fully cooked. Add the onion and bell pepper. After they’ve cooked for a while (but are still crisp), add the curry powder, vinegar, and sugar. Add tomatoes and cook until just heated through. (You don’t want the vegetables to lose their shape. They should remain whole and crisp.) Taste for flavor. The sauce should be strong, because it will be toned down by the noodles (or rice).
Meanwhile, in a separate pot, heat water and cook the noodles of your choice according to package instructions. When done, drain the noodles and put them on a platter. Pour the curried tomato on top of noodles, sprinkle with chopped cilantro, and serve.
• For the more health conscious, you can substitute chicken for the beef. My dad fries boneless, skinless chicken thighs until they’re done enough to cut them up easily. Then he adds them back to the wok after the onion and bell pepper to cook a bit more.
• Some people like to add the noodles to the wok and toss them with the other ingredients. Transfer to a platter and sprinkle with cilantro.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! That isn't a belated greeting. Today is Chinese New Year (also known as the Lunar New Year), the first day of the year 4710 and the Year of the Dragon. I've been to China many times; it's an intriguing and amazing country. My husband also lived there for two years, which was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that allowed him to really get to know so many people and to appreciate the Chinese culture.

In honor of the New Year, here are three of my favorite books about China, running the gamut from reality to fiction.

Mr. China

by Tom Clissold
One of the biggest errors anyone can make is thinking that China is a backward country that needs the West to come in and set it straight. Many businessmen have made that mistake, believing that they can teach the Chinese a thing or two about how to compete in the world.
Tom Clissold is a British businessman who entered China in the '90s, a heady gold-rush era that saw Western companies flocking to the world's biggest economy in search of a get-rich-quick scheme, and the Chinese taking their first steps into the capitalist world.
Clissold quickly learned that the Chinese were not as in need of instruction as everyone first thought, and that the country and its people were just as smart, fun, scheming, interesting, and frustrating as they are in any other part of the world.

Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused

A Short Story Anthology
Twenty Chinese writers offer a glimpse into their lives in China over the 10-year period between 1984 and 1995, a time that saw huge changes in society and politics for the country.
The stories, most of which are published here in English for the first time, range from a look at small village politics to an urban love story to a very funny story of a man with a toothache. Despite their different plot lines, they all serve to showcase the everyday lives of the Chinese people.
Authors include Wang Meng, a former Minister of Culture, and Su Tong, whose most famous work was Raise the Red Lantern.

Empress

by Evelyn McCune
This is a fictionalized version of the story of Wu Jao, the only woman who ruled China as empress. She began her climb as the 13-year-old concubine for Emperor Taitsung during the Tang dynasty around 600AD.
The Chinese harem she enters is a world of intrigue, murder, and vicious fights for power and money. Jao gathers the courage to tell the emperor of the evil doings in the women's quarters, earning his admiration, but also placing a target squarely on her own back.
After the emperor's death, Jao enters a convent, only to be quickly called back to court by the new emperor who has always had an infatuation for Jao. As his primary concubine, she rules with the emperor until his death, then taking the risky move of grabbing the throne when none of her children are capable of ruling.
If you like Philippa Gregory, you'll love this novel and all of its soapy intrigue.

Last Chance!
Remember that today is your last chance to enter my first Read.Eat.Think. contest. To celebrate my 100th post, I'm giving away a big box of books. All you have to do is send an email to readeatthink(at)gmail.com to tell me what your favorite post from my blog has been so far. We'll have a drawing at 5pm today for the books. Good luck!

Meeting Lisa See

If you've read my review of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (click here), you know I'm a fan of Lisa See. So I was happy to hear that she would be speaking at the Bookmarks Festival in Winston-Salem last weekend. There she is to the right during the event.

I'm not a stalker-fan when it comes to meeting favorite authors. I like to hear them speak, but I don't hang around at the foot of the stage with books clutched to my chest (okay, there was that one time with Elizabeth George, but I was younger then).
I was charmed by Lisa See, however. I knew she would be intelligent and hopefully entertaining. But who knew she would have such a wicked sense of humor?
She also agreed with my assessment that the movie edition of Snow Flower did not mesh with her book. Unlike other authors who have given interviews about how much they hated the filmed version of their works, Lisa See had a much more sanguine viewpoint. She said that her book was her vision as an artist, and that once the director took on the film project it then became his vision as an artist, so there was a part of her that respected that.
But she followed that with a quick comment that she had also learned a few lessons that will come in handy when filming begins later this year on the adaptation of her book Peony in Love. 
See also talked about her own laotong (or life friend), Amy Tan, and their interesting parallel lives. And she gave us some insights into the book she's working on now, tentatively titled China Dolls. It will tell the story of women on the "Chop Suey" entertainment circuit in the '30s and '40s, and how they straddled the line between American looseness and Asian cultural rules. Sounds great!
If you  live in the area, be sure to mark your calendars for the next Bookmarks event, held the second weekend in September. To tempt you, I'll post a couple more photos from this year's festival.

Friday: Review and Recipe

Review: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

by Lisa See
I imagine it must be difficult to bring a book to life on screen. There are so many disparate readers with their own ideas of how characters should look, and what has to be included, or left out of, a story.
From what I've heard, The Help is an example of the best books on film (I'm seeing it this weekend). Unfortunately, another very good book didn't receive the same treatment. You may not want to see the new movie Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but definitely read the novel.
Author Lisa See is a deft hand at weaving together themes of history, family, women, and friendship. I first discovered her through her earlier mystery series set in 1990s urban China (see recommended books below).
I was intrigued when she changed genres with this novel, set in 19th century rural China. No matter the time period, though, See remains true to her strengths, focusing on ties that bind women around the world and throughout history.
Despite the title, Lily is the central figure in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. She is a girl whose bound feet are a symbol of her life - bound by rules, by men, by the strictures of her culture. Women of Lily's time were confined to their homes, rarely able to venture outdoors due to their inability to walk normally, their world as narrow and small as their feet. See's description of the tortuous foot-binding process - and its aftermath - is horrifying, and ironic given that men of that time believed women were the weaker sex.
Lily's new "beautifully formed feet" give her an opportunity to rise in the world, to leave her middle-class family and move into a high-status marriage. She also is offered the chance to have a laotong, or "old-same" friendship, with Snow Flower in a ceremony that binds them to each other for eternity.
As Lily and Snow Flower enter their new marriages - with Snow Flower taking a different path and marrying beneath her status - the two old-sames must communicate through nu shu, a secret phonetic code that women have used for over 1,000 years in China. Messages were sent on embroidery, paintings, fan decorations, and carvings, which gave the women a way to communicate despite their confinement. However, the very fact that the messages were coded and hidden occasionally led to confusion and misunderstandings.
As Lily gains power in her family and community, she becomes prideful and bitterly protective of her rank and status. She and Snow Flower survive war, epidemic, and loss, but it is one of those misunderstood nu shu messages that divides the laotongs, in an event that Lily comes to regret. (2005 - Random House)
Other Recommended Books by Lisa See: Shanghai Girls, Peony in Love, Flower Net, Interior, Dragon Bones

Recipe: Bok Choy Salad
Bok choy is a Chinese cabbage that was first used for medicinal purposes in ancient China, but quickly became a popular ingredient in stir-frys and salads. Like Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, this recipe is a good combination of complex and simple, sweet and salty.
1 pkg. ramen noodles                                  1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup slivered almonds                             1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup olive oil                                            1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 Tbs. soy sauce                                          
6 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 cups bok choy (can substitute or supplement with spinach)
Remove flavor packet from ramen and set aside for something else. Crumble dry noodles onto baking pan, and combine with seeds and almonds. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden. Set aside. Combine sugar, olive oil, vinegar, and soy sauce. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and cool thoroughly. Combine greens and onions, sprinkle with dressing and toss. Add noodle/nut mixture and toss. Serve immediately. (Recipe courtesy of Anne Taylor)