A Village with My Name

Starred review from November 15, 2017

Discovering and understanding one's family history is never an easy journey, but that road is even bumpier for those who have lost touch with relatives or who have family on the "wrong side of history." Such is the story of Tong, a correspondent for the American Public Media radio program Marketplace, who sets out to learn more about his heritage in modern China. Focusing on the stories of five relatives through five generations, Tong uncovers the lives of those with connections outside of China, who were later considered enemies of the state and suffered for it. In talking to family members who didn't want certain family secrets to be told, the author finds a recording of his grandmother, who received a Western education. This personal narrative could easily become one of bitterness; instead, Tong tells his story with humor, a little snark, lots of love, and a determination to show the dignity of his people and others he meets along the way. VERDICT A charming book about a second-generation American's search for his family (past and present) and for himself in contemporary China. Highly recommended, especially for those interested in Chinese history and family journeys.--Melissa Aho, Univ. of Minnesota Bio-Medical Lib., Minneapolis

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2017

Discovering and understanding one's family history is never an easy journey, but that road is even bumpier for those who have lost touch with relatives or who have family on the "wrong side of history." Such is the story of Tong, a correspondent for the American Public Media radio program Marketplace, who sets out to learn more about his heritage in modern China. Focusing on the stories of five relatives through five generations, Tong uncovers the lives of those with connections outside of China, who were later considered enemies of the state and suffered for it. In talking to family members who didn't want certain family secrets to be told, the author finds a recording of his grandmother, who received a Western education. This personal narrative could easily become one of bitterness; instead, Tong tells his story with humor, a little snark, lots of love, and a determination to show the dignity of his people and others he meets along the way. VERDICT A charming book about a second-generation American's search for his family (past and present) and for himself in contemporary China. Highly recommended, especially for those interested in Chinese history and family journeys.--Melissa Aho, Univ. of Minnesota Bio-Medical Lib., Minneapolis

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2017
In his first book, Marketplace correspondent Tong offers a unique look into the lives of his Chinese relatives since the communist takeover in 1949. Though the narrative is sometimes confusing as the author runs through the lists of maternal and paternal grandparents and great-grandparents (though the character list at the beginning is helpful), it is particularly interesting in that, as his relatives say, it was the same for everyone; they all suffered. Tong's decision to write about his family's past was driven by the fact that so many in his family wanted to bury it. As the China bureau chief for Marketplace, he was well-placed to seek out the histories of his ancestors. The most intriguing story is that of his maternal grandmother, Mildred Zhao, who moved to Shanghai after the great flood of 1931 and ended up founding the Light of the Sea Primary School with her husband, Carleton Sun. After the communists took over the mainland in 1949, she left Shanghai for Hong Kong, and Carleton sent the children on a year later, staying behind to run the school. He was arrested in 1951 and convicted as a counterrevolutionary, and he received a 15-year sentence. Many of these stories are heartbreaking narratives of separation, of wives escaping with their children and husbands taking one but leaving other children behind. The book also represents Tong's search for a history to pass on to his children. "Sometimes you have to flip back in the album to try to understand the pictures you're seeing now," he writes. "And flip slowly." The author ends with an expose of the baby-selling market and the dodgy methods often used to procure children for Americans desperate to adopt. A solid exploration of China past and present in which the author climbs "a punishing mountain of history with [his] intergenerational team."

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November 1, 2017
During the years he spent in China reporting for American Public Media's Marketplace, first-time author Tong became curious about his family's history and how it connected to the broader story of China's development over the past century. His parents, who had immigrated separately to the U.S. and met there, helped, if reluctantly, to fill in the gaps in his personal history, and he was lucky enough to find in a university archive a trove of letters written by his maternal grandmother to her American missionary teachers. This ambitious work, part social and political history and part personal story, doesn't attempt to cover all the members of Tong's family. Tong instead concentrates on a few representative relatives who reveal particular facets of the vast changes in China: his feminist grandmother, a grandfather who collaborated with the Japanese, an uncle left behind in the rural family village. Although it can occasionally be difficult to keep characters straight, Tong clearly communicates the complexity of Chinese life and effectively integrates his own story into a much larger one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)