A sharply observed and beautifully intimate memoir-in-pieces that uses one woman's life-long love affair with pop culture as a revelatory lens to explore family, identity, belonging, grief, and the power of female rage. For most of Jen Sookfong Lee's life, pop culture was an escape from family tragedy and a means of fitting in with the larger culture around her. Anne of Green Gables promised her that, despite losing her father at the age of twelve, one day she might still have the loving family of her dreams. Princess Diana was proof that maybe there was more to being a good girl after all. And yet as Jen grew up, she began to recognize the ways in which pop culture was not made for someone like her—the child of Chinese immigrant parents who looked for safety in the invisibility afforded by embracing model minority myths. Ranging from the unattainable perfection of Gwyneth Paltrow and the father-figure familiarity of Bob Ross, to the long shadow cast by The Joy Luck Club and the life lessons she has learned from Rihanna, Jen weaves together key moments in pop culture with stories of her own failings, longings, and struggles as she navigates the minefields that come with carving her own path as an Asian woman, single mother, and writer. And with great wit, bracing honesty, and a deep appreciation for the ways culture shapes us, she draws direct lines between the spectacle of the popular, the intimacy of our personal bonds, and the social foundations of our collective obsessions.
A masterful and gripping novel from ñan undeniably talented writerî (Globe and Mail) On a sunny May morning, social worker Jessica Campbell sorts through her motherÍs belongings after her recent funeral. In the basement, she makes a shocking discovery „ two dead girls curled into the bottom of her motherÍs chest freezers. She remembers a pair of foster children who lived with the family in 1988: Casey and Jamie Cheng „ troubled, beautiful, and wild teenaged sisters from VancouverÍs Chinatown. After six weeks, they disappeared; social workers, police officers, and Jessica herself assumed they had run away. As Jessica learns more about Casey, Jamie, and their troubled immigrant Chinese parents, she also unearths dark stories about Donna, whom she had always thought of as the perfect mother. The complicated truths she uncovers force her to take stock of own life. Moving between present and past, this riveting novel unflinchingly examines the myth of social heroism and traces the often-hidden fractures that divide our diverse cities.
Meet Danny Lim. He spends his days working as a wedding photographer and his nights cruising Stanley Park, far from the family home in East Vancouver that he once fled, and where his parents and sister still live. When he rediscovers a green silk belt he had hidden years earlier, he remembers a fleeting but powerful connection he formed with a burlesque dancer named Miss Val, a.k.a. the Siamese Kitten. On that day in 1958, in an alley behind a nightclub in Chinatown, Miss Val offered eight-year-old Danny an understanding kindness and easy acceptance he had never before experienced. As the memory triggered by Miss Val's belt washes over him, Danny decides he must find her"--Jacket flap.
Gus Van Sant’s film and the ’90s cult of the alternative Gus Van Sant’s 1991 indie darling My Own Private Idaho perplexed and provoked, inspiring a new ethos for a new decade: being different was better than being good. Gentlemen of the Shade examines how the film was a coming-of-age for a generation of young people who would embrace the alternative and bring their outsider perspectives to sustainability, technology, gender constructs, and social responsibility. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Times; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} My Own Private Idaho — fragmented and saturated with colour and dirt and a painfully beautiful masculinity — also crept into popular media, and its influence can still be traced. R.E.M. Portlandia. Hipsterism. James Franco. Referencing the often-funny and sometimes-tragic cultural touchstones of the past 26 years, Gentlemen of the Shade sets the film as social bellwether for the many outsiders who were looking to join the right, or any, revolution.
A moving portrait of three generations of the Chan family living in Vancouver’s Chinatown Sammy Chan was sure she’d escaped her family obligations when she fled Vancouver six years ago, but with her sister’s upcoming marriage, her turn has come to care for their aging mother. Abandoned by all four of her older sisters, jobless and stuck in a city she resents, Sammy finds herself cobbling together a makeshift family history and delving into stories that began in 1913, when her grandfather, Seid Quan, then eighteen years old, first stepped on Canadian soil. The End of East weaves in and out of the past and the present, picking up the threads of the Chan family’s stories: Seid Quan, whose loneliness in this foreign country is profound even as he joins the Chinatown community; Shew Lin, whose hopes for her family are threatened by her own misguided actions; Pon Man, who struggles with obligation and desire; and Siu Sang, who tries to be the caregiver everyone expects, even as she feels herself unravelling. And in the background, five little girls grow up under the weight of family expectations. As the past unfolds around her, Sammy finds herself embroiled in a volatile mixture of a dangerous love affair, a difficult and duty-filled relationship with her mother, and the still-fresh memories of her father’s long illness. An exquisite and evocative debut from one of Canada’s bright new literary stars, The End of East sets family conflicts against the backdrop of Vancouver’s Chinatown – a city within a city where dreams are shattered as quickly as they’re built, and where history repeats itself through the generations.
In the tradition of Amy Tan and Jhumpa Lahiri, a moving portrait of three generations of family living in Vancouver's Chinatown From Knopf Canada's New Face of Fiction program--launching grounds for Yann Martel's Life of Pi and Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees--comes this powerfully evocative novel. At age eighteen, Seid Quan is the first in the Chan family to emigrate from China to Vancover in 1913. Paving the way for a wife and son, he is profoundly lonely, even as he joins the Chinatown community. Weaving in and out of the past and the present, The End of East pieces together the spellbinding tale of Seid Quan's family: his wife Shew Lin, whose hope for her family are threatened by her own misguided actions; his son Pon Man, who struggles with obligation and desire; his daughter-in-law Siu Sang, who tries to be the caregiver everyone expects, even as she feels herself unraveling; and his granddaughter Sammy, who finds herself embroiled in a volatile mixture of seduction, grief, and duty. An exquisite debut of isolation, immigration, romance, and insanity, The End of East sets family conflicts against the backdrop of Vancouver's Chinatown--a city within a city where dreams are shattered as quickly as they're built, and where history repeats itself through the generations. It is a bold and accomplished debut from one of Canada's brightest new literary stars.
Drawing on the myth of the Chinese zodiac, The Animals of Chinese New Year follows twelve animals as they speed across a river, competing to represent the imminent new year in a race held by the Jade Emperor, the most powerful Chinese god. Each animal competes in its own unique way. The ox works hard, the tiger is brave, the dog smiles kindly, but who will win? Bright photographs of babies demonstrating the same traits as the animals in the text, complemented by traditional Chinese graphic elements, accompany Sookfong Lee's lively text. Orca Book Publishers is pleased to offer this book as a dual-language (English/Simplified Chinese) edition.
From its beginnings as a farming celebration marking the end of winter to its current role as a global party featuring good food, lots of gifts and public parades, Chinese New Year is a snapshot of Chinese culture. Award-winning author and broadcaster Jen Sookfong Lee recalls her childhood in Vancouver and weaves family stories into the history, traditions and evolution of Chinese New Year. Lavishly illustrated with color photographs throughout.
In these devastating lyric poems Jen Sookfong Lee unfolds the experience of her narrator, following her through frost-chilled nights and salt-scented days, as she pulls at the knot of accumulated expectations around her trying to create space to want and to be. The Shadow List is a book filled with desire, where we question the politics of who gets to choose and who doesn't and where the narrator creates hidden lists of what she really wants. With a novelist's way with character, Lee builds a deep connection with the narrator of the poems, yet each individual poem creates a vivid snapshot of moments many will recognize. The slick of black ice, the killing light of day, the cheap, plastic diamonds - they are all pieces of a life we gather and put in our pockets to remember with."--
What drives people to search for new homes? From war zones to politics, there are many reasons why people have always searched for a place to call home. In Finding Home: The Journey of Immigrants and Refugees we discover how human migration has shaped our world. We explore its origins and the current issues facing immigrants and refugees today, and we hear the first-hand stories of people who have moved across the globe looking for safety, security and happiness. Author Jen Sookfong Lee shares her personal experience of growing up as the child of immigrants and gives a human face to the realities of being an immigrant or refugee today. The epub edition of this title is fully accessible.
A masterful and gripping novel from ñan undeniably talented writerî (Globe and Mail) On a sunny May morning, social worker Jessica Campbell sorts through her motherÍs belongings after her recent funeral. In the basement, she makes a shocking discovery „ two dead girls curled into the bottom of her motherÍs chest freezers. She remembers a pair of foster children who lived with the family in 1988: Casey and Jamie Cheng „ troubled, beautiful, and wild teenaged sisters from VancouverÍs Chinatown. After six weeks, they disappeared; social workers, police officers, and Jessica herself assumed they had run away. As Jessica learns more about Casey, Jamie, and their troubled immigrant Chinese parents, she also unearths dark stories about Donna, whom she had always thought of as the perfect mother. The complicated truths she uncovers force her to take stock of own life. Moving between present and past, this riveting novel unflinchingly examines the myth of social heroism and traces the often-hidden fractures that divide our diverse cities.
Meet Danny Lim. He spends his days working as a wedding photographer and his nights cruising Stanley Park, far from the family home in East Vancouver that he once fled, and where his parents and sister still live. When he rediscovers a green silk belt he had hidden years earlier, he remembers a fleeting but powerful connection he formed with a burlesque dancer named Miss Val, a.k.a. the Siamese Kitten. On that day in 1958, in an alley behind a nightclub in Chinatown, Miss Val offered eight-year-old Danny an understanding kindness and easy acceptance he had never before experienced. As the memory triggered by Miss Val's belt washes over him, Danny decides he must find her"--Jacket flap.
A moving portrait of three generations of the Chan family living in Vancouver’s Chinatown Sammy Chan was sure she’d escaped her family obligations when she fled Vancouver six years ago, but with her sister’s upcoming marriage, her turn has come to care for their aging mother. Abandoned by all four of her older sisters, jobless and stuck in a city she resents, Sammy finds herself cobbling together a makeshift family history and delving into stories that began in 1913, when her grandfather, Seid Quan, then eighteen years old, first stepped on Canadian soil. The End of East weaves in and out of the past and the present, picking up the threads of the Chan family’s stories: Seid Quan, whose loneliness in this foreign country is profound even as he joins the Chinatown community; Shew Lin, whose hopes for her family are threatened by her own misguided actions; Pon Man, who struggles with obligation and desire; and Siu Sang, who tries to be the caregiver everyone expects, even as she feels herself unravelling. And in the background, five little girls grow up under the weight of family expectations. As the past unfolds around her, Sammy finds herself embroiled in a volatile mixture of a dangerous love affair, a difficult and duty-filled relationship with her mother, and the still-fresh memories of her father’s long illness. An exquisite and evocative debut from one of Canada’s bright new literary stars, The End of East sets family conflicts against the backdrop of Vancouver’s Chinatown – a city within a city where dreams are shattered as quickly as they’re built, and where history repeats itself through the generations.
What drives people to search for new homes? From war zones to politics, there are many reasons why people have always searched for a place to call home. In Finding Home: The Journey of Immigrants and Refugees we discover how human migration has shaped our world. We explore its origins and the current issues facing immigrants and refugees today, and we hear the first-hand stories of people who have moved across the globe looking for safety, security and happiness. Author Jen Sookfong Lee shares her personal experience of growing up as the child of immigrants and gives a human face to the realities of being an immigrant or refugee today. The epub edition of this title is fully accessible.
Gus Van Sant’s film and the ’90s cult of the alternative Gus Van Sant’s 1991 indie darling My Own Private Idaho perplexed and provoked, inspiring a new ethos for a new decade: being different was better than being good. Gentlemen of the Shade examines how the film was a coming-of-age for a generation of young people who would embrace the alternative and bring their outsider perspectives to sustainability, technology, gender constructs, and social responsibility. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 16.0px Times; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} My Own Private Idaho — fragmented and saturated with colour and dirt and a painfully beautiful masculinity — also crept into popular media, and its influence can still be traced. R.E.M. Portlandia. Hipsterism. James Franco. Referencing the often-funny and sometimes-tragic cultural touchstones of the past 26 years, Gentlemen of the Shade sets the film as social bellwether for the many outsiders who were looking to join the right, or any, revolution.
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