The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See is the story of a girlhood friendship crushed and buckled by shifting political and cultural sands.

Set on a small volcanic island in Korea, and spanning from colonialism under the Japanese through the post-WWII division of the country and the resulting purge of Communist sympathizers in the South, the novel is a dazzling exploration of a little-known culture.

And it is also a testament to the strength of women.

In the 1930s, orphaned Mi-ja, daughter of a Korean who collaborated with the Japanese under colonialism, was sent to live with her aunt and uncle on the island of Jeju. Young-sook, a daughter descended from generations of haenyeo women who support their families by free diving to harvest the seas, befriends Mi-ja. Young-sook's mother teaches Mi-ja and Young-sook the traditional skills to become a haenyeo. 

The women led hard lives of toil, but were proud of their work and contribution. While the sea women culled their "ocean fields" and tended their "dry fields" of sweet potatoes, the menfolk watched the kids and prepared the evening meal, spending their free time in talk. Life was a simple cycle. The girls embrace this life and future.

But the life the girls hope for is under duress. During WWII the resources of Jeju are confiscated for the Japanese war effort, resulting in starvation. Mi-ja is forced into marriage with a collaborator with the Japanese, while Young-sook remains in her village, married to a childhood friend. The women drift apart as truths remain unspoken and assumptions lead to prejudice and bitterness that lasts Young-sook's lifetime--until Mi-ja's granddaughter arrives, determined to tell Mi-ja's story to Young-sook.

What I loved about this novel is what I love about the best Historical Fiction: through sympathetic characters and an engaging storyline, history comes alive and I gain insight into the past.

I had little knowledge of the history of Korea. My birth prevented my father's induction during the Korean War; he was already supporting his mother and sister and wife. The Korea of the television series MASH offered little insight. I kinda knew about colonization under the Japanese, and I knew about the devastation of WWII and how impoverished the country was, thanks to my investigation into a handkerchief that led me to Father Al Schwartz and his Korea Relief work. (read about it here.)

But I didn't realize that after WWII, with Korea divided against its will, the Soviets in the North, and America in the South, each led by puppet presidents, resulted in such horrible violence that was unchecked by America. There are scenes in the book that rivals any horrors I have read in history. 

The statistics, presented in the Acknowledgments, are staggering.

See informs us that Jeju's population of 300,000 was decimated by about 10%, with another 80,000 become refugees. Hundreds of villages disappeared. Talk about this dark time was banned for fifty years.

Under See's capable hands, the story is not weighed down by her research into her subject. She weaves the facts and history through the action.

See has a huge following and I expect The Island of Sea Women to become as popular as her earlier novels. It would be an excellent book club pick.

Read about her last novel The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane here.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Island of Sea Women
by Lisa See
Scribner
March 5, 2019
ISBN 9781501154850, 1501154850
Hardcover $27.00 USD, $36.00 CAD

Lisa See and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

The Troy Public Library in Troy, Michigan, hosted author Lisa See this week. I quickly bought her latest book, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, and read it in two days.

The author series has brought some great writers to the local public, including Elizabeth Berg, David Maraniss, and Emily St. John Mandel. 250 people signed up for See's presentation, the largest crowd yet!

A few years ago I read Lisa's earlier books Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy. This latest book focuses on a minority ethnic group, the Akha, who live in a biodiverse area comprised of parts of China and Laos. The book opens in 1988 when the Akha were still cut off from the modern world.

The Tea Girl is about mothers and daughters, a culture in transition, the "grateful but sad" experience of Chinese children adopted in the United States, and the history of Pu'er tea. We meet Li-yan and follow her story of sorrow and loss, self-reliance and renewal. 

See believes fiction should address what it means to be human, allowing readers to occupy another world and experience other realities. Her writing has certainly provided that experience for thousands worldwide.

With Lisa See and her new book at the
Troy Community Center, Troy, Michigan

I found the novel to be very interesting and engaging. I particularly responded to the section where the adopted girls discuss their experiences. Our son was friends with a boy adopted from China and he often related to us his concern for this boy's sadness and his feeling of alienation as the only Chinese boy in school.

I am a tea drinker and enjoyed learning about tea production and how it has changed. I was fascinated by the Akha culture and how the commercialization of Pu'er tea offered the advantages of electricity and sanitation while impacting their traditions.

"No coincidence, no story," the novel begins, quoting the main character's mother. The novel is filled with coincidences but so was the birth and development of the novel, See told the audience.

See knew she had to write about Chinese girls adopted into foreign families; being of American-Chinese heritage, she understood their question of identity. See found her story through several serendipitous experiences, from the sight of a girl's swinging ponytail as she walked with her parents to a fortuitous connection with a purveyor of Pu-er tea offering a chance to see the Akha people and experience the harvesting and processing of the tea.

When asked if she enjoys research or writing best, See admitted she loves the research aspect and talked about how the research impels her writing.

A comment was made on the nonjudgemental quality of her books, and See talked about "living in their clothes for a while" (a favorite quote from Wallace Stenger in his novel Angle of Repose) as her motivation for writing.

Another in the audience asked why See did not use her writing to make social statements. For instance, one novel she wrote about foot binding and in The Tea Girl the Akha view of twins as "human rejects" involving infanticide. See stated that telling the story is all that is needed, for no one is going read her book and think killing twins is a good idea! I agree. Great writing engages the reader's mind and heart; the story should be all that is needed.

See avoids reading fiction while writing to protect her voice. While on tour these past months she has enjoyed reading many genres, including South American writers and currently is reading House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea, which I have been reading.

See has written a book on her family, On Gold Mountain, and a mystery series. Her next book is set on a small island off Korea in a dying society where woman free divers are the 'breadwinners'.

Read about See's favorite novels at Off the Shelf here. She includes several of my favorites, including Howard's End by E. M. Forster and, of course, Wallace Stenger's Angle of Repose.

Mini Reviews: Sagas of the Handicapped, the Chinese, and the Apache

Annie's Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg was my Book Club selection for June. It was the Great Michigan Read selection in 2013-14. After his mother's funeral Luxenberg discovered a secret aunt and set on a quest to discover Annie and why she was kept secret.

The immigrant experience, the Holocaust, the Depression, and Detroit's Eloise Asylum are revealed in his search. Luxenberg discovers more than one family secret.

My book club enjoyed the book and identified with the concept of family secrets, but several found the book at time repetitive and lacking in focus.

Shanghi Girls by Lisa See

I borrowed this book from the library after seeing it was the 2016 Everyone's Reading pick for the Detroit Public Libraries.

Pearl was born in 1916, the fourth year of the Republic of China, in Shanghai. Women's lives had changed for the better; foot-binding was forbidden, arranged marriages were replaced by free love and marriages for love. Pearl attended the Methodist Mission, posed with her younger sister May as a Beautiful Girl immortalized on calendars and advertising, and stayed out late clubbing. When her father gambled away everything the price was selling his daughters in marriage to two brothers, one a fourteen-year-old with brain damage, the other a 'paper son' adopted to inherit the business. The girls are to travel to the US with their husband's family but 'miss the boat'.

With the Japanese invasion the girls and their mother flee their home town. They meet with tragedy that alters Pearl's life forever. Finally managing to arrive in the US to go to their husbands they are delayed for months living in prison-like isolation until proving they are legit. Life in America turns out to be hard, jobs scarce and the Chinese forced to live in ghettos.

Shanghi Girls tells the saga of Chinese immigrants in America from the 1920s into the Communist regime and McCarthy era. Told in the first person by Pearl the novel lacks emotional depth and deep characterization, although the experiences she undergoes are harrowing. The book's appeal is learning about the broader history of the Chinese in the 20th c. and for those who are not familiar with how America treated these refugees the story will be a real eye-opener. See's research included taking oral histories, some of which appear nearly verbatim in the novel.

The follow-up novel Dreams of Joy takes Peal and her daughter to Communist China. Readers will learn about life under Mao, with the characters secondary to the greater picture.

The Apache Wars by Paul Andrew Hutton was my Blogging for Books choice. It was a subject I knew almost nothing about.

At nearly 500 pages this book offers a complete and detailed history of the relationship between the Native Americans of Apacheria and Americans whose expansion encroached into their traditional homelands. This is not a book for the fainthearted, and I rued not making a list to keep track of the ever-changing major players. The publisher description calls it a "sprawling, monumental work" about the "two decades of the last war for the West through the eyes of the men and women who lived it." Because the book is encyclopedic it can be overwhelming.

I moved by the stories and quite disgusted (once again) by the horrible choices American government has made concerning those we fear--or those just plain in the way of 'progress,' which mostly means making money. It was very interesting to learn details of the Apache culture.

When I was a kid in the 50s watching the TV and movie westerns there were several cliches, one being 'white man speak with forked tongue.' Well, that is about it in a nutshell. Treaties and promises were broken with impunity, and the Apache who sought peace were treated badly and barely trusted. And there were leaders who tired of war and just wanted peace with the White Eyes. Not giving them a fair deal lost their trust Even when President Grant endeavored to change how the Apache were treated by sending Dutch Reformed agents did not improve how the Apache fared.

Hutton's knowledge is incredible and his treatment of this war fair and unbiased.