{"id":4534,"date":"2015-12-13T04:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-12-13T12:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/?p=4534"},"modified":"2015-12-09T15:33:02","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T23:33:02","slug":"south-china-morning-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/south-china-morning-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"South China Morning Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"South<\/a><\/p>\n

Book Review of South China Morning Blues
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When I look back on my twenties, I\u2019m amazed at how much I crammed into that decade\u2014and also at how far-reaching the consequences of my decisions were. I shouldn\u2019t be amazed. We\u2019re meant to choose our path in life during those years. And even though we can<\/em> reinvent ourselves to some extent later, there\u2019s no getting around it, it\u2019s usually during our twenties that we at least make a good start in figuring out who we are and where we\u2019re going.<\/p>\n

The characters in Ray Hecht\u2019s new book, South China Morning Blues,<\/em> are all in their twenties. And to make matters even more challenging, they live in what may be the fastest changing region of the fastest changing country in the world, the Pearl River Delta region in southeastern China, a megalopolis that the World Bank Group<\/a> considers the largest urban area in the world in both size and population. Hecht, an American, has lived there, mostly in the city of Shenzhen, since 2008. He knows the area well.<\/p>\n

The twelve young men and women who tell their stories in South China Morning Blues, <\/em>live and work in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. They\u2019re Chinese, American, Canadian, and African. None of them are quite clear on what they want or how to get it.<\/p>\n

The first character we meet, Marco, is a sleazy American businessman who likes to show off and pick up girls. Since he can\u2019t be bothered to learn Chinese, his Chinese prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Jackie, takes advantage of him and steals his clients. After losing his job, Marco starts a new business, a club that caters to expats. When he falls in love with and marries a Chinese woman, he\u2019s challenged to become his better self.<\/p>\n

Sheila\u2019s parents are from another generation. They don\u2019t understand a modern Chinese career woman like her. Eventually Sheila will realize that even though she\u2019s modern in some ways, the Chinese duty to sacrifice for family obligations is still deep inside her.<\/p>\n

Terry is an American-born Chinese, an ESL teacher, a writer, and an alcoholic. To impress his Chinese girlfriend, Ting Ting, he finally cleans up his disgusting apartment. We can only hope that Ting Ting will inspire him to clean up his act too.<\/p>\n

These are only five of the twelve characters in South China Morning Blues<\/em>. They speak in their own voices about their longing, loneliness, and confusion. They tell us about their hunger for adventure, money, love, and sex, and their desire for success and meaning.<\/p>\n

Each of them represents an animal in the Chinese zodiac. Marco, for example, is the tiger; Jackie is the rat; Sheila is the hare; Terry is the monkey; and Ting Ting is the Dragon. The author uses the Chinese character for each animal to indicate a change in point of view. If you don\u2019t read Chinese and you want to be sure who is speaking, you might want to make a cheat sheet.<\/p>\n

\"Ray<\/a>Hecht doesn\u2019t sugar coat the seamier side of life, and some of his scenes are sexually explicit. As he said in an interview with Jocelyn Eikenburg<\/a>, \u201cI want to show all sides of real life. Using illegal substances, having irresponsible sex, pushing the boundaries, and making mistakes; these are all things that human beings actually do. And they are interesting things. I believe they are things worth writing about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019ve ever traveled to or lived in China, I think you\u2019ll find something new and interesting in South China Morning Blues.<\/em><\/p>\n

Available for pre-order on Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Review of South China Morning Blues When I look back on my twenties, I\u2019m amazed at how much I crammed into that decade\u2014and also at how far-reaching the consequences of my decisions were. I shouldn\u2019t be amazed. We\u2019re meant to choose our path in life during those years. And even though we can reinvent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[343,743,13],"tags":[1109,1105,1108,1106,1107,1104,388,1101,216,1100,1102,1103],"class_list":["post-4534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-books","category-china","tag-book-review-by-nicki-chen","tag-chinese","tag-chinese-zodiac","tag-expats","tag-fiction","tag-guangzou","tag-hong-kong","tag-ray-hecht","tag-shenzhen","tag-south-china-morning-blues","tag-the-pearl-river-delta","tag-twenty-somethings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-1b8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11027,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/vanuatu\/when-something-new-comes-into-my-life-i-look-for-a-book\/","url_meta":{"origin":4534,"position":0},"title":"When Something New Comes into My Life, I Look for a Book","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"September 8, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The something new I\u2019m talking about is something that's more than a simple fact I can google. 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But I\u2019ve never lived in China, and that's an entirely different thing. I was curious. 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