Yeh Yeh's House : A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: An extraordinary family portrait in modern Communist China
Review: Ms Chao, a St Paul, Minn artist and first generation Chinese American, writes a personal travelog about seeking her roots. She portrays a saga with extraordinary sensitivity and cultural transparency. Common with the demands of establishing her professional and family life, she indeterminably delays the plaintive urging of her paternal grandfather (Yeh Yeh) to come and visit him in Beijing before it is too late (p6, 22). Her wryly, humorous writing style makes this an enjoyable read and for Sinophiles there are many topics in each chapter to chuckle and reflect on cultural differences.

She writes about a sojourn of 15 years ago, a 5-week visit with her mother. As with most Americans, she must rely on her to explain and interpret what they see, do and meet. As an added layer of complexity and intrigue, as youngest daughter of three children (p3, 72) she discusses the increasing dichotomy between her and her immigrant thinking parents. During the trip, plans and actions by her mother slowly reveal a newfound awe in her brilliance, cleverness and resourcefulness.

As a then 38 year old, her trip to China (p110) was set in the late 80s, when Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening program is in full swing, but before the Tiananmen Square incident in 89 or completion of the Three Gorges Dam. Her book has 26 chapters divided into 2 sections. Her China journey starts on Part II, Chap 10, p103 with a flight to Shanghai. Her book is illustrated with one portrait of her grandfather and a map of the China journey, but no diagram of the family tree, references or index. There is little discussion on the writing of this book, so the artful craft is ultimately up to the reader to judge the intimate thoughts, innate Chinese mannerisms, and veracity of the passages.

Because of her trip's timing to China, the author portrays the hardship and indelible imprint of Mao's China had on her aunts and uncles, cousins and extended family. While personal and intimate, Chao does not mince words in describing the birth of Communist China and how the various epics of the Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward and Reform left their lasting imprint and what it meant to survive. She also clearly and succinctly describes the life and environment of the common people, both their pleasures and their warts.

Part I is a prelude to the actual trip. Sung Lien, her Chinese name given by her grandfather, has been calling for her several times since the 70s. Her grandfather was a famous theologian at Yenching U, Beijing, one of the first Christian missionary schools in China and who was educated at Vanderbilt U in the States. Her grandfather was Dean of Yenching's School of Religion and a top China leader for the World Council of Churches. During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guard singled out Chao Tzu-ch'en for reform of intellectuals and religion. Reform meant forced public recantation of beliefs, burning of his works, being publically denounced, interrogated, imprisonment and menial labor in service to the new regime. Later the Communist regime takes over Yenching to form the elite Peking University.

Interestingly Chao describes the several visits from the extended family to the US. For example in Chap 3, her paternal aunt visited, just after Yeh Yeh committed suicide during to the Red Guard purge of pro-Western ideology (p77). The visit is a distant, highbrow one as her mother describes her paternal aunt, who is cut in the same cloth of her grandfather. Then her other Beijing paternal uncle and his wife visited her family in the US (Chap 5-7), whom she bonded with and immensely enjoyed. They reinforced that it is in her destiny to visit her grandfather house in China, portending that this trip alone, she will experience profound events that will affect her life immeasurably. Chao always demurs that she has no time and must learn Mandarin first.

The previous nine chapters in Part I set the stage for the trip, in a autobiographical portrait of the author during childhood, school, young adult, and professional life as a musician for a major city orchestra. The author clearly and sensitively portrays the common issues between immigrant and later generations. There is much misunderstanding and resentment that mother and daughter distance themselves as a matter of self-preservation (p100).

Chao finally decides to go to China with her mother in 1984 (p84) just after her Beijing Uncle's visit. Three years later and with three months of Mandarin lessons, they depart in June 1987.

Part II, over the next 180 pgs or 2/3rds of the book, is a personal travelog to visit relatives and mother's friends in Shanghai, Xi'an, Chongqing, Yangtze River trip through the 3 Gorges to Wuhan, Changsha, and finally Beijing. This travelog is unique that it shows how to travel as the natives do and how to circumvent travel issues that come up due to the overburdened transportation systems that existed in this slice in time. It also shows the family life and thought patterns of modern Chinese as they weathered the birth and maturation of the new China State.

It also shows the bewilderment and culture shock that any new visitor to China would experience. Chao's innate sensitivity to her environment, facilitiates her writing to include the thrills and pleasures as well as doubts and misgivings in well crafted elocution. In Shanghai and environs, she visits her maternal aunt and family (Chap11-14); flying to Xi'an, she visits her mother's former classmate, friends and Terra-Cotta warriors (Chap 15-18); flying to Chongqing, she visits with a Director of an actor's troupe and family (Chap 17); set sail thru the famed 3 Gorges (Chap 18); in Wuhan, she visits with former classmate, who gets them train tickets to Changsha; where she visits with her mother's sister and brother and families (Chap 19-20); finally she gets the elusive plane tickets to Beijing to visit her paternal and maternal aunts, uncles and friends, the Great Wall and Forbidden City (Chap 21-25); and finally train tickets back to their Shanghai POE.