Review #50: Shanghai Love by Layne Wong

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Eric Michael Leventhal, a literary consultant and holistic educator on the island of Maui, Hawaii, has once quoted a remarkable line about the holistic approach of treatment:

“A healer's power stems not from any special ability, but from maintaining the courage and awareness to embody and express the universal healing power that every human being naturally possesses.”
And this defines the real definition of Chinese Herbal Healing Methods!

Layne Wong, an American author, has bring out the whole wide world of Chinese herbal medicinal practice, in her debut book, Shanghai Love, which is not only a love-story set up amidst of Hitler's raging war in Germany and the Japanese's wrath in Shanghai, but also delves into the exotic dimension of herbal healing methods in those oriental periods, in the late 1930s in the provinces and in the very core of the city, Shanghai.

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Review #14: All the Flowers in Shanghai by Duncan Jepson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


As quoted by the Chinese Communist revolutionary leader and the founding father of the People's Republic of China, Mao Tse Tung, commonly called Chairman Mao,

"In class society, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class."

Well no wonder why the middle-class Chinese families in the 1930s were so keen on becoming the 'face' of the society or, rather say a class society, thus leading to animosity between the poor and rich and the rich used to treat the poor like the untouchables. The rich used to get scared whether if their children befriend someone so poor, that they might lose their 'face' in the society. It's so astounding to see that this type of narrow-mindedness existed in those people and thus giving birth to seed of the Chinese revolution. Not only that, it was shameful to give birth to daughters in the rich family and how they were given away to the poor farmers.

Well it was so fascinating to gather these kinds of knowledge and especially more captivating and alluring to read about a young girl's life journey during those hard times. A very notable author-cum-award-winning-director/producer-of-5-feature-films-cum-editor-cum-lawyer, Duncan Jepson has remarkably got into the skin of a young Chinese girl living in Shanghai, in his novel, All the Flowers in Shanghai, to narrate her journey from the beautiful gardens to the lavish cage of marriage to the dreadful village outside Shanghai. After reading this book, I learnt that by writing this novel, Duncan has certainly paid tribute to his loving mother as well as to his homeland and the people of his homeland. And as said by the American leader/politician/author, James E. Faust,

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