China Men: National Book Award Winner

I was enthralled with her story and the way she seamlessly interweaves truth and fable. She flips the gender binary of Chinese-American culture in some of her short stories which speaks volumes in and of itself. I read this for a literature seminar in a college class and learned SO MUCH.

Stories about the Asian emigrant experience. I was a student of history but there was much that was new to me and led me to research these times further. Lovely dream like narratives packed with evocative imagery.

THE FIRST PART OF THE BOOK IS A LITTLE DRY...BUT AS HE STARTS HIS STORY FROM ANGEL ISLAND IS OUTSTANDING. I WAS JUST AT ANGEL ISLAND..CAN REALLY FEEL HOW IT WOULD BE. I AM AN AMERICAN CHINESE..STARTED LIFE IN SAN FRANCISCO CHINATOWN.. KNOWS WHAT LIFE HAVE BEEN LIKE...79 YEARS AGO. A VERY GOOD STORY.

What a treasure this book is. Kingston is written from the point of view of both Chinese immigrants to the United States and Chinese-Americans. She paints a vivid picture of the lives led by her Chinese ancestors through various periods of U.S. history. It was a hard book to put down for I enjoyed it immensely. I learned a lot too.

This was a required text for class but I ended up loving it and have never read a book quite like it !

An idiosyncratic mix of history and family stories, with some of the best prose, sentence for sentence, you'll find on any topic, Kingston sought to position her family against the historical moment, and does so, brilliantly. This is sometimes overlooked in comparison to Woman Warrior but it is a companion piece. Shoulder to shoulder.

Touching history. Not quite as good as China Women, but that's no reason not to read.

good book to read for any Asian american person growing up and wanting to learn more about their old culture

China Men est un livre hybride. Il tient de la chronique familiale, celle de familles chinoises qui tentèrent surtout après 1850 de rejoindre la Californie, la Montagne d'or, et fondèrent dans des conditions si difficiles la présence d'une communauté chinoise aux Etats-Unis. Mais le livre est bien plus que cela; il mélange les genres et les formes de récit. C'est un roman, c'est une légende, c'est une biographie collective et il forme un tout singulier et unique qui permet de saisir cette histoire humaine sous différents angles.