Story Description:
Bloomsbury USA|May
7, 2013|Hardcover|ISBN: 978-1-59691-698-2
In 1994, Anchee
Min made her literary debut with a memoir of growing up in China during the
violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution.
“Red Azalea” became an international bestseller and propelled her career
as a successful critically acclaimed author.
Twenty years later, Min returns to the story of her own life to give us
the next chapter, an immigrant story that takes her from the shocking
deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the promised land of
America, without language, money, or a clear path. It is a hard and lonely road. She teaches herself English by watching
Sesame Street, keeps herself afloat working five jobs at once, lives in
unheated rooms, suffers rape, collapses from exhaustion, marries poorly and
divorces. But she also gives birth to
her daughter, Lauryann, who will inspire her and finally root her in her new
country. Min’s eventual successes - her writing career, a daughter at Stanford,
a second husband she loves – are remarkable, but it is her struggle throughout
toward genuine selfhood that elevates this dramatic, classic immigrant story to
something powerfully universal.
My Review:
The Cooked Seed picks up 20 years after
Min wrote “The Red Azalea”, her memoir of growing up in China during the
violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution.
The story left off as she fled her homeland, but a whole new life was
just beginning.
Speaking no
English, Anchee comes to American, she has no money, and no plan as to what she
is going to do. She teaches herself
English by watching, of all things, ‘Sesame Street.’
On August 31,
1984, Anchee landed in Chicago with $500 of borrowed money in her wallet, she
was 27 years old. Prior to leaving
Shanghai she worked at the Shanghai Film Studio. She was considered a “cooked seed” – no chance
to sprout.
Anchee’s cousin,
whom she’d never met before, picked her up at the airport in Chicago. They were unable to communicate with each
other as Anchee spoke Mandarin and he spoke Cantonese. However, he was kind enough to allow her to
temporarily stay at his student apartment until she was able to find her own
accommodations.
Anchee had come to
Chicago to study at the School of Art Institute. The foreign-student adviser was upset with
her because she had indicated on her application that her English was
excellent. Anchee confessed she was guilty
of lying and was willing to accept any punishment the Art Institute might want
to met out. She was sent to the
intensive tutorial class held at the University of Illinois. The program cost $500 which she had to borrow
from an Aunt she’d never met.
The Art Institute
asked Anchee what type of roommate she’d prefer. She told them that anyone who spoke English,
and wouldn’t mind her silence. That was
when she met and made her first friend, Takisha, in America. Anchee found the dorm room to be very
luxurious considering where she had come from.
She found the fact that hot water was available 24 hours a day to be
incredible considering she’d never grown up with that luxury. She said she “felt like a princess” because
for the first time in her life she would get to sleep on a mattress.
Next, Anchee began
looking for a job. The first day she
spent hours walking and walking downtown Chicago visiting every single Chinese
restaurant she could find but was turned away at every single one. She finally ended up visiting the school’s
job placement office. Unfortunately, the
majority of the jobs posted required English which Anchee had not yet
mastered. Then she saw a job listing for
a model with the school’s fashion design department. A little old lady received her in the office
and hired her on the spot. She was so
excited and the job paid $7.00 per hour which was more than Anchee’s “monthly”
salary in China! She then moved all her
courses to the evenings so she’d be able to apply for more jobs. Soon her schedule was full. She became an attendant for the student
gallery and a helper at the admissions office.
These jobs would not be Anchee’s last, there were many more to come.
The Cooked Seed is a powerful look at
what we humans can achieve when our heart is in the right place. I would highly recommend this to anyone and
would actually like to read this again.
No comments:
Post a Comment