The inaccurate part is when she claims that her stories are traditional stories that are told to Chinese children. The fact is her stories are what's left of her childhood memory combining with her personal imagination. Some of her stories are combinations of different stories together. That's why it's inaccurate. Those traditional stories are really important to Chinese culture. It's like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty to us. That is, if you think that you can read this book and learn traditional Chinese stories, you are wrong. To me, she just wrote a bunch of stories and tries to sell them by luring American readers to think that they can learn Chinese culture through her tales, which was exactly what I thought at first.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands or millions, of books written about racism, sexism, and classism. Some of them even have real cultural references. You have better luck reading books written by native writers translated into English than books that are written by an American born about the culture she hardly knows about. I think it's pointless because we could be reading those books and actually learn something about Chinese culture rather than reading this. And when I talked about her writing style, I mean her "writing" style, not her stories, not her imagination, nor her emotions.
And no, it's not like Barbara Kingsolver. It's like Barbara Kingsolver on intense crack.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands or millions, of books written about racism, sexism, and classism. Some of them even have real cultural references. You have better luck reading books written by native writers translated into English than books that are written by an American born about the culture she hardly knows about. I think it's pointless because we could be reading those books and actually learn something about Chinese culture rather than reading this. And when I talked about her writing style, I mean her "writing" style, not her stories, not her imagination, nor her emotions.
And no, it's not like Barbara Kingsolver. It's like Barbara Kingsolver on intense crack.
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