Inspired by her own family story, DAUGHTERS OF SHANDONG is Eve J. Chung’s propulsive debut novel about a mother and her daughters’ harrowing escape to Taiwan as the Communist revolution sweeps through China. For the longest time, Eve was under the impression that her mom didn’t like to read, even though she made sure that Eve made frequent trips to the library. It wasn’t until later in life that Eve, a voracious reader, realized she had so much more in common with her mom than she ever thought, which has made their relationship even stronger.
I never read with my mom when I was a child, and I don’t remember ever seeing her with a book --- until she found a Chinese version of Harry Potter, one of the few English books that had enough clout to get a full translation and display in our local Chinatown. “This is a very good book!” she had exclaimed, finally understanding what the hubbub was about --- 10 years after everyone else I knew had already finished the series.
My mom is a scientist, and English is her second language. In her labs, at least half of the people were immigrants, and most were forgiving of Chinglish, Spanglish, or whatever “ish” or spoken imperfections a colleague had, as long as the experiments themselves were good. Though my mom can speak fluently about mass spectrometry and enzyme activity assays, she never mastered the language enough to read for pleasure. As a kid, I didn’t know that; I just assumed that she didn’t like to read, even though she was always making me go to the library. In Mandarin, “to study” (nian shu) literally means “read books,” so as long as I was reading --- even if it was Animorphs or The Baby-Sitters Club --- my mom thought I was learning.
She was right, though. Decades later, I tell people that while I never had formal training in creative writing, I learned to be a novelist by going to the library and reading anything and everything.
I used to think that I had nothing in common with my mom. While I read voraciously, the only thing she picked up was the Chinese newspaper. Again, I attributed that to a lack of imagination, without understanding that, at the time, there wasn’t much reading material in her native language in our Massachusetts suburb.
As I got older, I began to realize that my mom and I have many similarities, but our different life circumstances influenced who we ultimately became. My mom is a scientist because she grew up in Taiwan, and at that time people weren’t free to study what they wanted. Everyone had to take a test to enter college, and the results determined your major. She tested into the sciences, but recently she has told me that if she had been allowed to choose, she might have been a lawyer. I am currently a lawyer.
It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I learned my mom actually loves to read. She never told me about it, though. I found out because my dad called me to complain that she had become addicted to her cell phone.
“Everyone is addicted to their cell phone,” I replied.
“No, this is worse,” my dad said, genuinely concerned. “She just sits on the sofa or the bed and stares at her phone for the entire day. Nonstop.”
It turned out that my mom, at the age of 60, had finally discovered the Chinese equivalent of fan fiction. A friend of hers had referred her to a website where people post stories for free, with the understanding that you should donate money if you enjoyed reading them. My mom has since blasted through hundreds of online novels and loves Chinese reincarnation romances --- a culturally specific genre in which lovers are separated, usually via the dramatic death of one or both of them, and then subsequently reincarnated to find each other again. My mom likes her happily-ever-afters served with a whopping side of tragedy.
Now that she is living in China, my mom is able to read more books and genres in her native language. Her favorite is still the same tear-jerking type of romance, but it is easier for us to find common ground now. While I never grew up reading with her, I am glad that a love of reading is something that we can share today. With the abundance of translated e-books, we are finally at a point where we can read together --- the same book, at the same time, in our own respective languages.
