Product Description: The Golden Mountain tells a powerful personal story that is shaped by the collision of traditional Chinese and modern American culture. Spanning four generations of women, the characters include Great-Grandmother Wong Oi, whose desperate status seeking ruins her life; Grandmother Choi Kum, an educated woman who ends up with ten children in America; and mother Margaret, who takes the pressures of a hateful forced marriage out on her children. One of those children, author Irene Kai, is caught in the clash of traditional and modern ways. She responds by descending into sex and drugs and a high-flying Beverly Hills lifestyle, culminating in a growing awareness that the scars she bears are reappearing in her own children. Scenes of raw passion, anger, brutality, and pleasure intermingle in this stunning narrative thatÂ’s both specific in the details of a woman navigating two cultures and universal in its portrayal of pain and transformation.
disappointing ^ I have read a lot of books on the topic, historical background of Chinese women as a personal story. Fine. This one is lacking. The main character is annoying and just stupid. She does not learn from her mistakes for such a long time while the narrative is droning on and on. what a disappointment.
Uplifting Memoir of A Chinese Woman's Journey to Becoming Whole ^ Irene Kai writes of her struggle to escape boundaries imposed upon her by her Chinese family while the words of her grandmother to be a dutiful daughter and wife haunt her throughout her journey. She writes of her great grandmother, her grandmother and her mother using the creative non-fiction device of imagined conversations.These conversations draw one immediately into the life of 19th and 20th century rural China, then, Hong Kong and New York. I particularly enjoy reading of overlapping time frames from the points of view of different people, and Kai does it well.
A child of a loveless arranged marriage, she is unwanted, unloved and abused physically and psychologically by her mother, who is struggling to find love. Kai's background material is especially important in helping us understand her mother and to understand Kai's radical rebellion in her teen and young adult years. She sweeps us into her wild, tumultuous exploration of art and sexuality. And when the rebellion is over, she becomes the dutiful wife, driven by her husband and her desire to leave behind all of her Chinese past. In doing so, she finally realizes that she, too, is neglecting her children, just as her mother did. Slowly, slowly, as she begins to discover herself, she finds the strength to leave her lavish life style and become attentive to her children and to her own needs. She reclaims parts of her own culture and becomes whole.
Especially poignant is Kai's struggle to balance her desire to always please her wounded mother with her need to protect herself and her children. The moment of courage when she looks into her mother's eyes and takes charge of her own life must ring as true for many other women as it did for me.
I would love to know more about this woman. Has she continued her art? How does she feel now? When she looks back, what are her feelings? Now that she has written this fascinating autobiography, will she let us into her life again?
Golden Mountain is an uplifting read.
by Judith Helburn for StorycircleBookReviews www.storycirclebookreviewsorg reviewing books by, for, and about women
Compelling story ^ I loved this compelling, richly textured, vividly descriptive story. Not only was I transported into Chinese culture over four generations of the author's family, but into how family patterns and cultural mores impact us all. I was also inspired by the hope in this book. The author transcends many obstacles, including family abuse, and courageously builds a meaningful, new life.
A Powerful Story of a Woman's Journey to Create Her Own Destiny ^ I loved this book. I could not put it down. The Golden Mountain is about Irene Kai's journey to claim her power and authenticity. It's a memoir of four generations of Chinese women, but it's really "every woman's" journey. It shows her transition from Hong Kong to the U. S., and how she breaks free from the restrictions of her ethnic background in a way that her mother and grandmother could not. In America, she achieves wealth and success as an artist and businesswoman. But Kai's story of what's possible doesn't end here. She eventually leaves her business and her marriage and moves to a small town. There, she explores and heals the family patterns she realized were still influencing her, even after she thought she had broken away from them. In the process, she creates a new life and a new dream, one that takes her beyond the American dream to live her own authentic destiny.
There's Always Hope ^ I enjoyed this book enormously -- not only for what it taught me about Chinese culture -- but for what it taught me about the universality of women's experience in patriarchial cultures. As always, I am both awed and humbled by the resilience of the human spirit. Irene's story offers hope and inspiration to anyone who has ever felt trapped by circumstances.
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