Download PDF Under Red Skies Three Generations of Life Loss and Hope in China Audible Audio Edition Karoline Kan Allison Hiroto Hachette Audio Books

Product details Audible Audiobook Listening Length 8 hours and 42 minutes Program Type Audiobook Version Unabridged Publisher Hachette Audio Audible.com Release Date March 12, 2019 Whispersync for Voice Ready Language English, English ASIN B07P8VLZN2

Under Red Skies Three Generations of Life Loss and Hope in China Audible Audio Edition Karoline Kan Allison Hiroto Hachette Audio Books Reviews

• An interesting read in that it gave me insights and confirmed what I have experienced with the Chinese culture and people. I heard an interview with the author on NPR. It led me to purchase it. It was not as informative as the interview, so one should listen to that as supporting information.
• I have been doing business in China since 2002. My current company was acquired by a Chinese SOE in 2011, which has been a great experience in many respects. This book has helped answer many questions I have had during my many experiences in China and in doing business with my Chinese friends. A great rad that I intend to share with my children and friends.
• I have read many, many memoirs about life in China. Most of these involve the years of the Cultural Revolution. "Under Red Skies" is different---the author, Karoline Kan, was born in 1989, and grew up during the vast changes of recent Chinese history. I loved reading about this. Her life mirrored the changes in the country. She started life in a small village, and then her parents sacrificed to move her brother and her to a larger town, so they could get a better education. Eventually, she moves to Beijing to go to college, and so we see what life is like in starkly different environments.
  
  By telling of her life and that of her relatives and friends, we see from a personal perspective so much of recent Chinese history, and what events were most noted there, although they might be all but forgotten here in the US. For example, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade or the SARS outbreak both had major effects on Kan's life, in terms of creating fear and influencing education and policy.
  
  The Tiananmen Massacre is something Kan grows up aware happened, but it's almost impossible for her to get any specifics on exactly what happened. Her quest for this knowledge provides a lot of insight into how the media works in China.
  
  Kan herself was an illegal second child, and I loved how her book told much about changing Chinese attitudes toward dating, marriage and decisions about children. She comes from a line of strong women, and women's issues are illustrated very strongly in this book.
  
  I enjoyed every minute of reading this fine memoir, and learned a great deal also. This book deserves wide readership.
• Karoline Kan had a great idea when she decided to write a book about her family and their life under Communist rule in China. Family members were reluctant to talk about the lives they thought were too ordinary for words, so Ms. Kan had to patiently listen and let the stories come out naturally in conversation.
  
  Ordinary life in China is definitely not ordinary or boring for anyone born and raised in the United States! In even tones and often without emotion, Ms. Kan writes about her childhood in an atmosphere of tension and fear, among people whose lives were constricted by blighted hopes and dreams. Given that she was an illegal second child in the one-child policy era and that she was born in a rural village, she shouldn't have had any opportunity to escape the poverty and deprivation of her family's life. But her mother was determined that her son and daughter should have every opportunity to achieve as much as they could.
  
  In the United States, going to college and getting a job that satisfies the soul as well as brings in a good salary can be challenging, but not to the extent that the author demonstrates that it is in China. While reading this book, I had to keep reminding myself that the author is writing about current times. The backwardness, censorship and shocking intrusions into people's lives (particularly women) are hard to imagine for those of us fortunate enough to have been born into a democracy. I can't see for one second how China could be a superpower in the midst of an economic boom when the government seemingly wants its citizens to be ill equipped and undereducated.
  
  A running theme in Ms. Kan's book is her curiosity about the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989 and her determination to learn about it despite its having been erased from history by the Chinese government. By the end of the book, Ms. Kan is forced to struggle with her national pride in being Chinese after absorbing the knowledge of the deception and violence of her repressive government. The book wraps up someone abruptly, with Ms. Kan writing nostalgically about her childhood and place of birth. I would have liked to read more about her struggle with the truth and how she emerged on the other side with any sense of peace.
• The rise of China has been nothing short of remarkable so it was with great anticipation that I sat down to read this book. Quickly two things became apparent - first, the author and her family are at the cross roads of history...reading the story felt like it should cover a hundred years not just the past few decades. Equally obvious is that despite the amazing time in history, the author lacks any type of emotional appeal...the situations are related in what can only be described as "flat". Having said that, this is still a fascinating glimpse into the ordinary lives of people during an extraordinary time in history...well worth the read!
• “Under Red Skies Three Generations of Life, Loss, and Hope in China” by Karoline Kan is a touching, beautifully presented memoir. The author, though young (she was born in 1989, which makes her 20 years younger than my youngest child) none-the-less writes with maturity and depth of vision. She shares not only her own reflections, but vignettes from the lives of her parents and grandparents. At the beginning of the book, she presents a very useful abbreviated historical timeline of the major events from 1945 to 2013. In her narrative, she deals explicitly with how these events impacted her family and herself. Although this is a personal story, not a political polemic, Kan manages to insert valuable sociological and psychological insights as viewed through her own evolving awareness. This is an exceptional book