Presentation About Life in Rural China

Chinese-Canadian author Chunqing Wang will be coming to the Chinatown Branch on August 13, 2014, at 6:30 p.m., to talk about life in a Chinese village.

Chinese-Canadian author Chunqing Wang will be coming to the Chinatown Branch on August 13, 2014, at 6:30 p.m., to talk about life in a Chinese village.

Chinese-Canadian author Chunqing Wang will be coming to the Chinatown Branch on August 13, 2014, at 6:30 p.m., to talk about life in a Chinese village. She will be showing photographs of her village, past and present, and will be discussing lifestyles of rural Chinese villagers today and through the past hundred years. From persistent poverty at the end of the Qing Dynasty, through the Japanese invasion, the Communist takeover, and several decades of Communist schemes like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, Ms. Wang will discuss the effects of war, politics and market reforms on her family and her fellow villagers.

Ms. Wang will be showing parts of the real China that very few visitors have a chance to see. “Most tourists travel to the big cities or go on pre-packaged tours, but it’s difficult for an outsider to get a sense of rural China,” she says. “Because hundreds of millions of people live in villages–more than the total population of the United States–it’s worth knowing about if you’re interested in China.” As China becomes more and more urbanized, the experiences of Chinese peasant farmers are being forgotten: but her new memoir assists by committing to print her experiences and the experiences of villagers from Shanxi Province.

Ms. Wang will be reading portions of her book: You May as Well Sing, Brother: Seventy Years of Strange but True Stories of Adventure, Determination, Cruelty, Bravery, Survival and Especially Love from Inside a Chinese Village. In this memoir, compelling stories told in the first person every human foible, folly, virtue and vice, as they describe themselves, their neighbors, and those they have encountered along the way. (The memoir will be available for optional purchase for $12.50.)

Ms. Wang will be accompanied by her husband, Chris Denholm, who will provide his perspective as one of the few westerners to stay in a Chinese village for an extended visit.