SEPTEMBER GEOCAT: Eastern Asia

The theme of September’s GeoCat is Eastern Asia and the countries that are included in this theme are China, Japan, North and South Korea, Mongolia, Eastern Russia, Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos. This is an extremely rich cultural area and there are many, many excellent books that are set in these countries in an wide assortment of genres.



A small sampling of some books that are set in this area are:

China:



The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Sky Burial by Xinran (China & Tibet)

Korea:

The orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
War Trash by Ha Jin (Korean War)

Japan:



Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Out by Natsuo Kirino


Mongolia & Eastern Russia:

A Bride's Story by Kaoru Mori (graphic novel set in Mongolia)
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant (set in Eastern Russia

Cambodia:



Temple of a Thousand Faces by John Shors
In The Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

Laos:

The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill (and the rest of the series)

Focus on the Viet Nam War

A war that lasted through three presidents: Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. A war that was seen by millions on TV nightly, and divided the American people. Influencing music, the arts and fashion, this war helped to define the 1960’s. There have been many great books, both fiction and non-fiction that have been written about the Viet Nam war.



Some books that are set in this time are:

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo
The Thirteenth Valley by John Del Vecchio

Lots to choose from for this month. Please enjoy your reading and let us know what you have decided to read. Don't forget to list your books on the Wiki.

Link to Wiki

I'm planning to read Silence by Shusaku Endo, which is about Christian missionaries in 16th-century Japan.

I loved Silence!

I'll be reading The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim. A friend who spent most of her childhood in Korea loaned it to me, and I need to read it and return it to her.

I am planning on reading Who Shot the Water Buffalo? by Ken Babbs, Dispatches by Michael Herr and Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick. The first two are set in Viet Nam and the McCormick is set in Cambodia.

>3 cbl_tn: Good to know! I enjoyed The Calligrapher's Daughter as well. :)

I haven't decided yet, but I've narrowed it down to these four from my tbr list:

Hidden Moon by James Church (North Korea)
The Blue Sky by Galsan Tschinag (Mongolia)
Beauty of Humanity by Camilla Gibb (Vietnam)
Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer (Nepal)

I have tons of choices, but since I just got The Lotus and the Storm from a Goodreads Giveaway, and need to read it sooner than later, I'll probably read that one first as it's set in the Vietnam War

I'll be reading The Things They Carried, as it's been on my shelves for some years now and I've not yet gotten to it.

I'll be reading The tapestries. It takes place in Vietnam.

I've got Bonesetter's Daughter set for September.

Even though the whole book is not set in China, I'm going to read The Valley of Amazement.

I'll probably continue Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri series -- whichever one is next, I must check.

I'm going to read The Red Thread by Ann Hood and, if I can get to it, start the Colin Cotterill series.

I will be giving The Orphan Masters Son a second chance!

I have a few that might fit. Top possibilities include:
Peony In Love / Lisa See
Y: The Last Man. Motherland / Brian K. Vaughan
Unbroken / Laura Hillenbrand
The Headmaster's Wager / Vincent Lam

I'm going to read Matterhorn for the Vietnam War focus.

I found Your Republic is Calling You, by Young-Ha Kim, on my get-from-library list, so I'll give it a try. It's set in North Korea, which should be interesting.

I am looking forward to hearing about all of these books. I can practically see my TBR growing!

>13 dudes22: I forgot about the Colin Cotterill series that I have sitting on the shelf, just waiting to be picked up and read.

I have several books set in Japan I'd like to read, but I'd really like to finally read Michael Herr's Dispatches and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, which have both been on my TBR a while and would fit the focus.

I have spotted a couple of possibilities on my shelves. The Last Concubine has been on my shelf for a long time. More recently I bought Imperial Fire, a sequel to Hawk Quest, only this time the adventurers journey from Byzantium to China. I am tending towards Imperial Fire as the first book was really good.

I've just finished Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang, which would have fit in very nicely with September's challenge, but I had to read it this month for my RL book club meeting tomorrow (Saturday).

I have had The Story of the Stone (aka The Red Chamber Dream) sitting on my TBR shelf as a re-read for a while. Who knows, maybe September will be the month it happens. It's an eighteenth century Chinese novel portraying life in a great household.

>22 Robertgreaves: It's nearly September - I'd go ahead and count Empress Dowager for the CAT if I were you - put it on the wiki!

I've already started Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes for the Vietnam War focus. This is my first ever Vietnam War book. I was reluctant to read about that war, but I'm finding the book to be excellent so far. After this, I think I'll be OK to go ahead with more Vietnam-era reading. In fact, I'm considering an entire category for next year for the 1960's to include both Vietnam and the Cold War.

>22 Robertgreaves: I agree with Sandy, Robert, go ahead and count Empress Dowager! I've already started my first September book as well!

OK, then, as it's 1 September here:

COMPLETED Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang

I just completed my first read towards the September GeoCat. Never Fall Down is an amazing story of one young boy's survival during the years of the Khymer Rouge control of Cambodia.

I have a few books that I'll be reading for this CAT.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - Japan
The Coroner's Lunch - Laos
How to Get Filthy Rich in Asia - China?
The Man without a Face - Russia

And maybe The Things They Carried for the Vietnam focus.

So I'm about half finished with Matterhorn - about the Vietnam War. Who has read this already? I can't help but be reminded of Catch-22. The ineptitude of the people in charge, their callous disregard for the fighting men, their ridiculous circular logic. It was funny in Catch-22. Not funny here. I'm enjoying this book very much. One thing I've really found to be telling is the narrator's habit of referring to the marines in the unit as "kids". Accurate since many of them were still teenagers. And even some of the officers are only in their early 20's.

Hi Sandy, I read Matterhorn and rated it a five star read. I also recently watched an HBO mini series about the war in Iraq. There were similarities to the two in that no one seemed to have a clear idea of what they were supposed to be achieving and the blindness of those at the top to the actual day to day requirements of the young people at the front. One is left with the feeling that victory is the direct result of superior weaponry rather than any detailed planning.

Viet Nam was such a difficult war and one of the first where the opposite side wasn't always easy to identify. Added to that the unpopularity of the war back home in America, and the confusion the "kids" must have felt about being there.

One of the most used sayings about the military is SNAFU (Situation Normal All F_cked Up), and I think that pretty much sums up what can happen when things get difficult.

I want to read Memoirs of a Geisha which has been on my TBR shelf for a long time and
Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick because I read her book Sold and found it gripping and compelling and hard to forget.

I'm planning to read Visions of War, Dreams of Peace, a collection of poetry by women who served in Vietnam, edited by Lynda Van Devanter and Joan A. Furey and possibly Home before Morning: the Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam also by Lynda Van Devanter.

I just picked up Sky Burial from the library as well as Boxers and Saints. Just need to finish my current read and then I'll get going too.

I'm thinking of reading The Orphan Master's Son which is set in North Korea.

I'm reading Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto, which is set in Japan. It was first published in 1961 and it has a bit of the feel of the Martin Beck series (Roseanna) with all the looking around for a phone or policemen looking for updates in the local paper.

>33 Roro8: Nothing to Envy is non-fiction, but reads like fiction. It's much better than The Orphan Master's son.

I'm reading Midnight in Peking, which is true crime about a murder of a British girl in Peking in 1937.

>36 sturlington: That was a good book, too - a little slow to start but very interesting.

>35 LoisB: thanks Lois. I have already read Nothing to Envy, it was a very informative book, and well written too.

Y: The Last Man. Vol. 9: Motherland / Brian K. Vaughan
4 stars

In this volume, we learn more about Allison's background, and about how Yorick became one of the last male species on the planet.

This is one of my favourite volumes in the series. I really liked this one. Some questions are starting to be answered, and the action held my interest, as well. There was one section close to the end that I was a bit confused about, however. I'm hoping what's happening there will be explained in the last volume of the series.

>39 LibraryCin: Which section was that? (You can use a spoiler tag if you're worried about that :))

>40 .Monkey.: It was some kind of movie being made or something...?

I take it you've read the series? :-)

Can I count this? A Man of Misconceptions by John Glassie. It's a biography of Athanasius Kircher, who wrote a 17th century encylopedia about China

>41 LibraryCin: I did, I finished it around a year ago. And have no recollection about a movie. hmm.

>43 .Monkey.: Well, either I misread it completely (which wouldn't be a complete surprise!) or it didn't make an impression on you. :-)

And I've already returned it to the library, so I can't even reread that section to try again!

The planning thread for the SFFFCAT and the HistoryCAT are now up at the 2015 Category Challenge.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/180263#

http://www.librarything.com/topic/180264

Please come help us make these CATs fun for everyone!

I've finished and posted a full review for The Lotus and the Storm by Lan Cao, which is mostly set in Vietnam in the years of the Vietnam War. Full Review posted for those who might be interested. I was expecting less family drama and more narrative related to the war, so it wasn't quite my cup of tea, but it was beautifully written.

I just finished the 2-book "series" Boxers and Saints, which describes the Boxer Uprising in China 1898-1900. Excellent set of graphic novels, but if you only want to read one, pick Boxers over Saints.

>44 LibraryCin: Haha, I'm not sure when I'll get to the library next, but when I do I will take a peek if I'm able to locate it. :)

I recently finished Empire of the Sun, the story of a young British boy's imprisonment in Japanese concentration camp in Shanghai during WWI, among other things, it's fascinating to see his appraisal of both the Japanese and the Chinese.

Last night I finished The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. It was a Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction and I can see why. It is very powerful story set in North Korea and doesn't shy away from the things people suffer through in that country. This was a five star read for me.

I read The Red Thread by Ann Hood, the story of an adoption agency which matches couples with baby girls from China. Might have been stretching it to include here, but I am.

I read Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto, which was set in Japan and was excellent.

I finished Matterhorn the other day and thought it was excellent. One of the characters, upon watching a platoon of battle weary Marines marching under fire without flinching, reflected that he then understood how it was that the Holocaust victims were able to quietly walk to their deaths in the gas chambers. At some point, life only exists in the present and has no value beyond right now. Heartbreaking. I was also struck by the passive acceptance of the truth of any situation by all the young people there - as evidenced in the standard response to anyone who spoke the truth out loud, about their mission, about their orders, about the commanders or politicians or the situation they found themselves in. Whenever any uttered a blatantly true statement, the response was "there is it". Another key element of the story had to do with the racial tension among the men, and how the black marines reacted to the white commanders, and to the white men in their unit. The reader of the audio version I had was also excellent. Highly recommended.

I finished The Calligrapher's Daughter yesterday, set in Korea in the first part of the 20th century. It earned one of my few 5 star ratings for the year so far, and it will probably be among my top 5 books at the end of the year. I wasn't aware of the Japanese occupation of Korea before reading this book, nor of how Christianity reached Korea. (It wasn't through missionaries.)

>54 cbl_tn: That sounds very interesting! I've been reading - very slowly due to the size and style - The Living Reed by Pearl S Buck. It's a three generation epic about Korea starting in the late 1800's. It sounds like the two books cover some of the same themes as well as some of the same time period. It's making me rather sad about how the US let the Korean people down while Woodrow Wilson was in office, just prior to WWI.

I'm hoping to get to Calligrapher's Daughter this month.

I just checked out a book from the library today for the October group read over in the 1001 Books group that I'm very excited about, and which would also fit into this month's CAT. Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong, a Vietnamese woman. If I start it soon, I might be able to finish just at the end of the month and count it in both groups.

The book jacket claims that this is the first Vietnamese novel ever to be translated and published in North America, and tells the story of "three women fighting to maintain their dignity in a society that expects ever greater sacrifices from them." The author was expelled from the Vietnamese Communist party and imprisoned for her political beliefs. Her novels are banned in Vietnam.

I just finished The Coroner's Lunch. While I didn't particularly care for the seeing spirits aspect, I did enjoy the glimpse into Laotian history and culture. I think I'll be reading Thirty-Three Teeth for October's Mystery CAT!

I just finished Visions of War, Dreams of Peace, a collection of poetry written by women who had been to Vietnam during the war, edited by Lynda Van Devanter and Joan A. Furey. Most of the authors were military nurses although a few were from the Red Cross or American Friends Service Committee, one was an actress who had entertained the troops, and a few were Vietnamese. Many of the poems were very moving; some spoke of the women's experiences during the war, and some were about the after effects of the war or visiting the Vietnam Memorial War in Washington, DC.

>58 aliciamay: There is a scene in one of the later books where the good doctor and village shamans meet with party officials that was hysterically funny.

Just started Night of Many Dreams by Gail Tsukiyama. Hong Kong at the start of WWII

I have just completed Who Shot the Water Buffalo? by Ken Babbs. This was a random and disjointed look at American helicopter pilots in 1960-62 Vietnam.

I just finished Silence by Shusaku Endo, which is about Portuguese missionaries to Japan in the 17th century. It primarily deals with the issue of God's silence in the face of suffering. I found it a bleak but fascinating read that really made me think.

>63 christina_reads: I read Silence years ago and it still haunts me.

I read The Big Wave by Pearl Buck. Classic story set near a fishing village in Japan.

I read Anarchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill, another good installment in the Dr. Siri series.

I've pulled out Taroko Gorge to read, although I don't know if I'll finish it by the end of the month.

I'm working on Saigon: An Epic Novel of Vietnam, another 800+ pages virtual brick! Hopefully, I can get it finished by the end of the month. I'm taking some medication for my back which makes me fall asleep whenever I try to read!

I finished Dispatches by Michael Herr and it was both very well done and captured that particular time in history very well. I didn't realize until I had finished the book that both characters and stories were used from the book in the movies Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now.

I am completely and entirely unable to read about Vietnam. Right after I got my commission in the Air Force in 1971 we started to get some of our folks back who'd been held captive and tortured in Viet Nam. I was on the tarmac quite a few times as our folks arrived at Scott AFB to be treated in the hospital there, and I came to know several pilots who'd been held captive.

Later, when we moved here to Florida I got to know the families of a couple of them very well (and one woman whose husband's downed plane to this day hasn't been found) and see the ongoing struggle for these people to manage something approximating a normal life. It breaks my heart to remember all that.

I know the US did some awful things too, and I don't much want to deal with that side of things either, especially since one of the jobs I had was 'bomb damage assessment', a euphemism for how well we hit our targets and estimating (mostly wrongly on purpose) how many folks we'd killed.

>70 majkia: I can certainly understand your aversion to books about Vietnam. I, on the other hand, feel that I need to learn more. Fortunately, I had no close friends or family members who did not return from their tours of duty. But, I think the Vietnam vets got a raw deal - we should not blame the guys who fought, we should blame the politicians who sent them!

#71 by LoisB> amen

>71 LoisB: I agree, I believe it is our (society's) obligation to read and learn and understand after such atrocities have happened. If we shove them aside because they're too distasteful, for whatever reasons, we are condemned to repeat them. It's why I have so many books on the Holocaust/Nazi Germany, and Russia's history. No matter how painful reading about all that is, I simply have to. I know that no matter how much I read I will never "understand" how such things happen, it's simply unfathomable, but, I believe having all the information possible surrounding these events helps us, and that if more people truly studied history that less of these things would happen in the future.
That said, before all the nails come out, this is not an attempt to force anyone to read anything they have personal reasons for avoiding! It is merely my personal beliefs on tragic history in general.

we should blame the politicians who sent them!
Is there anyone (well, aside of some shitty politicians perhaps) who doesn't?? I mean I know when they came home the masses rallied against them, but people are stupid, and it's not easy to accuse those politicians who are hidden behind the scenes or vent your anger at them, the soldiers were just an easy target. I don't believe anyone today harbors any blame against those young boys drafted into service to do terrible things against their own desires.

I just finished reading The Tapestries. What an amazing book!

There's a wonderful PBS documentary, Regret to Inform, where an American Vietnam war widow travels to Vietnam. Along the way, we meet several Vietnamese widows and hear their stories.

Before watching this, I really hadn't thought about how devastating the war was to the ordinary people of Vietnam. And I had no idea how beautiful the country is.

ETA a link: http://www.pbs.org/pov/archive/regrettoinform/program.html I got it through Netflix.

>75 streamsong: Sounds interesting!

Almost finished with Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick. Set in Cambodia, 1970s during Khmer Rouge regime. Quite horrifying...

I followed this book with First They Killed My Father, equally horrifying. When you're finished I'd like to share with you an interesting connection between the two.

So far I've read four books for the challenge this month:

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Volume 1 (Japan)
The Frangipani Hotel (Vietnam)
The Land of the Five Flavors: A Cultural History of Chinese Cuisine (China)
Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China (China)

I think The Land of the Five Flavors was my favorite, but they were all good and interesting in their own ways.

Doubt I'm going to have time for Bonesetter's Daughter. :-(

I finished Pearl S Buck's epic of Korea, The Living Reed. It followed three generations of a family from the 1880's through the Japanese occupation until the country was divided after WWII into zones occupied by the US and Russia.

The central character of the book was Korean history. I honestly didn't have much knowledge of this region and learned a lot. It was a slow book to get through, but I thought it was well worth the time.

Originally I had planned to get through three or four books for this challenge. I've finally just started the audiobook of Unbroken and will move one of the Dr Siri's to next month's mysterycat.

I finished Saigon: an epic novel of Vietnam **** . It discusses the history of Vietnam from 1925 through the conclusion of the war. I found it compelling and very informative!

>78 mamzel:

Finished Never Fall Down so now you can tell me the connection with First They Killed My Father.

The subject of the Khmer Rouge genocide is so hard to deal with; I have never been able to watch the award-sinning film Killing Fields.
I've felt like I should be aware of it, however, since I have a friend who came to US as a refugee from Cambodia and Thailand at that time.

The woman who wrote the book was only eight years old when she and her family were moved to a camp. One of her memories was of a band playing native instruments that played at her camp. That sent chills down my back.

I never read the blurbs on the back of books but I was so impressed with Never Fall Down that I did and was so surprised to see one written by Desmond Tutu.

My book for the September East Asia (Vietnam War Focus) was The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli.

Peony in Love / Lisa See
3.5 stars

Peony is only a few days from her 16th birthday when she meets the man she falls hard for and he for her. Unfortunately, this is 17th century China and she is betrothed (as is he).

I didn't want to say too much in the summary so as to give anything away. Overall, I liked the book. It wasn't fast-moving. I was a bit bored with all the comparisons to the opera, but I liked the rest of the story. It was interesting to read the author's note (and interview) at the end of my edition to find out that this story was based on real people.

Very early this morning I finished my second and final book for this challenge: Home before Morning : the Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam by Lynda Van Devanter. This book, which was published approximately 13 years after she returned home from her war service, was begun as a form of therapy. Lynda vividly shows the effects of the war on her. She was a very optimistic person prior to serving; the beginning of the book about her nurse's training and traveling before going to Vietnam contains a lot of humor. The major part of the book describes in detail the horror of working as a nurse in Vietnam; how the Army medical center in which she served was inundated with service men (and some Vietnamese children) with severe injuries. The medical staff had to decide whom they could save; many of the people were seen as numbers instead of as human beings. Lynda had difficulty adjusting after returning home from her year in Vietnam; this adjustment is also described. Approximately ten years after returning, Lynda becomes involved in the Vietnam Veterans of America Women's Project, and finds meaning in her life again.
This book was published eight years before Visions of War, Dreams of Peace, a volume of poetry about the Vietnam War by women who had been there; Lynda was an editor of that work, which was the first book I read about Vietnam for this challenge.

I'm awfully late in posting here, but I suppose it's better late than never as they say. I'd read two books for this challenge in September, but just got around to finishing the reviews on my thread today. They were River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay and My Life as Emperor by Su Tong. Both were set in a fictional version of Ancient China but otherwise they were quite different.