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Loading... Under the Red Flag (edition 1999)by Ha Jin
Work InformationUnder the Red Flag: Stories by Ha Jin
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. 《光天化日:鄉村的故事》 ( ) As a Chinese, it's always interesting for me to read those Chinese stories written in English. It's like to look at yourself in a mirror through multiple reflections. Usually, you will feel the image distorted a little but still yourself. How well the image represents you depends on the quality of the mirror. Definitely, Ha Jin is a good mirror. It's mostly due to he's an original Chinese too and understands this culture deeply well from its root. While reading the short stories, I couldn't help assuming that he must wrote them in Chinese first then translate into English. At least wrote in Chinese in his mind before he could write down in English. Many Chinese traditional slang and proverbs were translated in a way which maybe not very accurate but quite interesting and affluence in philosophy, which in turn, in my opinion, enriched the English language. Another thing which I really like about this book is his style of telling stories. No matter the story itself was happy or sad (maybe happy is not appropriate to be used for those stories. Here it's just to show the opposite of sad), there are always a bit senses of dark humor here and there in the book. Yes, sometimes life is absurd and laughable. Individuals are too trivial and insignificant against a time. We look back that particular time and consume their life stories. However, who knows they maybe just the distorted images of ourselves in current world. When we laughed at their fates/stories, who knows we're not laughing out our own life? I've always found Ha Jin's writing to be very refreshing and unique. It sounds as though his books are translated from Chinese, but I'm not sure. As a Chinese (who doesn't speak or write much Chinese) from Malaysia, his books speak of a place and time of a heritage I know little of, but long to understand more of. At times disturbing, at times heart-warming, Ha Jin's writing is easy to read, his stories simple yet poignant and serve as a small window into a China few people know about. no reviews | add a review
A collection of stories on the Cultural Revolution in China. In the story, A Man-to-Be, a soldier who refuses to participate in a gang rape pays the consequences, while In Broad Daylight, a woman is punished for being a prostitute. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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