Chinese Books

"Simple Language for the Adoptive Families, Chinese" is a super tool for anyone traveling to China for their adoptive child. It has simple phrases for difference situations, and among my favorite are "Coming Home, Words of Affection, Boundaries, Important Words and Phrases, People, and Feelings." There are many more we will use like "at the table, Bedtime and Health." This book gives me the necessary phrases to direct my child in the beginning for the transition to a new language. My 12 year old has had fun learning these phrases as well. The CD is an important tool for correct pronunciation. This book and CD is a must for any adoptive parent. I am very glad I found this book.

This book and CD have been very helpful to our family as we attempt to learn the language we will need to communicate with our new child.

I started off with ambitous plans to learn Chinese before our adoption but have never been able to make the time needed. This product (book and CD) focuses on a critical few phrases that I think I can handle and gives me the tools to do so. I strongly recommend it.

I have searched and searched for a simple, easy to understand, Chinese language book with the basics to communicate with our child when we adopt. I received the book this week and was so pleased with the size and the content. This is the easiest language book and CD that I have ran across to learn. With the English on left page, and Chinese on right, with the exact pronunciation......there's just no other book like it, if you want something to just simply communicate with your child. I have no doubt this book will be extremely useful in our adoption. The CD is great and very easy to understand and follow with a great Mandarin speaker! In my opinion, this is the perfect book to allow you to speak to your child for the first time on "Gotcha Day", and will make the transition for both parent and child smooth. Plus the size is small and easy to fit in a purse, diaper bag, or back pocket.

Our family is in the process of adopting from China. It is important to us to learn enough of the Chinese language so that we will be capable of offering some comfort to our new baby girl. This resource is easy to use, and, as another reviewer mentioned, the size of the book makes it small enough to fit in a purse or diaper bag so that it is readily available when it's needed. My seven year old son has already learned many of the phrases, and I am beginning to feel a little less intimidated about coping with the language barrier that will surely exist between us and our new daughter. I highly recommend this resource for anyone adopting from China!

Everything about this book is great: the food, pictures (we can actually see what the meal is supposed to look like)not to mention that the books were new and arrived in no time. I would definitely go back to this seller.

This is an amazing cookbook. If the bilingual recipes didn't give it away, the recipes would -- this is incredibly authentic and varied cooking. The other positive reviews here are exactly on the mark. The photos are a good indication of the real food you will cook.

After having now tried almost every recipe in this book, I can say that they are all absolutely delicious! This cookbook is essential for anyone who wants to learn how to cook Indo/Malay/Sing food. My boyfriend is Indonesian and had been bugging me for some of his childhood favorites such as Lontong. The satay is the best I have ever had, in or out of Indonesia. The recipes are also super easy. There is no complicated preparation for any of the recipes. Even someone who is a novice could make these with ease (and they will taste great!). I live in Tallahassee and we have one not too big Asian market. With a little searching, I found virtually all of the ingredients needed. Most of the ingredients are readily availible in your average grocery store. If you do have an Asian market, even a small one, they can often find something that you need, so don't be afraid to ask. The book itself is perfectly laid out and there are color photos of every single dish. I highly recommend this cookbook!

Finally, a cookbook that satisfies my frequent cravings for foods like padang spicy beef, sate, and hainan chicken!! After living in Southeast Asia for a number of years, I fell in love with the cuisine of this region and since then, I've been searching long and hard for a cookbook like this one to come out. It's easy enough to find decent cookbooks for Thai food or Vietnamese food these days, as a single search will turn up thousands of results, but it's truly a rare find to come across a cookbook on the foods of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore - especially one of this quality! The recipes, each of which is accompanied by a large, beautiful picture, are concise and easy to follow, and the food itself is simply amazing. Now that I have this book, I no longer have to suppress my cravings or fight the urge to fly back to the islands to get my fix of Gado Gado (Java styled salad), Kari Sapi (Malaysian beef curry), or Kangkung Tumis (spicy, Singaporean water spinach). Funny thing is, I never thought I would ever be able to make these foods myself! But what surprised me most was the fact that these dishes tasted even better than I remembered, coming out of my own kitchen no less! (now *that* is truly incredible). So do yourself a favor and buy this book - you'll not only save tons of money you'd otherwise spend at mediocre Malaysian/Indonesian/Singaporean restaurants in the area (if there even are such restaurants available to you), but you'll also be able to impress everyone with your newfound ability to cook dishes as delicious and as hard to come by as the ones shared in this cookbook. Definitely worth every penny and more!

Being a native Indonesian far away from home, I crave for the rich and savory flavor of the cuisine from these three countries. Unlike Thai cuisine, Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian cuisine is still not well known here in United States. Therefore there are limited restaurants that offer this cuisine. You can imagine my agony of having to suppress my craving until I make a trip to these restaurants in NYC or Toronto. It all changed after I bought this cookbook. This cookbook is amazing! It contains 68 recipes that are divided into Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian recipe sections. A one-page spread picture accompanies each recipe, which is very helpful for people who are not familiar with this cuisine. The author starts by introducing the countries and their cuisine followed by glossary of ingredients, seasonings, spices and herbs. It then continues with recipes for stocks, condiments, pickled salads, sambal chilli sauces (used like chutneys in Indian cuisine), and assorted spice pastes. These spice pastes are used in a lot of the recipes and they are what give this cuisine its fragrant, rich and savory flavors. This book offers specialties from Singapore (Hainan chicken rice, spiced sparerib soup, spring roll, laksa, spicy crabs, sweet coconut rice balls, etc), Malaysia (fried noodle, coconut rice, sate, beef curry,vegetable with grated coconut, etc) and Indonesia (beef rendang, eggs in spicy red sauce, java salad or gado gado, turmeric fried chicken, etc). I have tried more than a dozen of the recipes and they all taste fantastic! Most of all they taste authentic. They are a huge hit with my American boyfriend and roomate. There are some ingredients that are hard to find, even in Asian markets (especially in small towns). I had to shop online at an Indonesian grocery store to find most of the hard to find ingredients like candlenut, dried galangal, pandan leaves, palm sugar, kaffir leaves and shrimp paste. However, they are worth it. I use dried galangal because I don't have access to fresh ones. I substitute fresh red chilli with bottled ground chilli paste called Sambal Oelek. It works just as wonderful! I think this is the most authentic and remarkable cookbook I have. It is simple, clear, precise and a gem. I would recommend this cookbook if you want to bring authentic new flavors to your table. It helps ease my homesickness. Nowadays, I call my mom up to say "I made beef rendang today!"... something I had never said before this cookbook.

OK, first and foremost, this is not a language learning book. What it is is a "learning aid" book that motivates your interest and curiosity of the structure and origins of the Chinese written language. What do I mean? If you are learning Chinese, it describes many relationships between characters that enhance your ability to remember them, as well as recognize insights to meanings of characters you do not even know. In some ways it is a narrative version of another excellent book, the more dictionary-like "Reading and Writing Chinese: A Guide to the Chinese Writing System" by William McNaughton and Li Ying. Both excellently address the origins and relationships between characters, but with very different styles.

Chang and Chang colorfully, interestingly, and amusingly describes contrasts, contradictions, and anomalies in character formation. It is a charming book that I would highly recommend to the language student.

Even if you are not learning the language, the book still offers interesting discussions about characters. Western languages, and many others, are truly different from the "phonetic" languages so many of us know. Chinese construction is old, yet novel, so meaning-rich, that it presents an interesting discussion and perspective. And the writing itself remains unchanged over a much longer period than western languages.

Read a few of its pages and see if you don't agree.

The subtitle sounds daunting, doesn't it? But this clever little book is so well written, in a friendly, colloquial voice, that you'll turn the pages as quickly as you might while reading a frothy novel. At the same time, the book is jammed with information--about the basics of the Chinese language and how it has managed to survive without an alphabet; about various dynasties; about Chinese folklore and everyday life. If you're thinking of visiting China, if you're interested in languages, or if you've adopted a child from China, this book is a wonderful introduction to a land and culture that we Westerners tend to dismiss.

Excellent! This little book is packed with information and is easy to read and follow. Topics covered: The written and spoken language, its historical roots, household communication, the future of the language and the impact of technology. I have perused other Chinese language books, but this one is by far the best I've seen.

This book is great for learning about Chinese language construction and writing. And its relationship to Chinese culture and history. But not for learning specifiaclly how to speak or write Chinese.

With that said, this is a very entertaing book and hard to put down.
Among the subjects it covers are:

* Langage construction. For exaample how questions are asked
in Chinese. And general sentence structure.

* How pictographs came about and how archologists traced their
orgins.

* How Chinese pictographs are taught to children in China.
(They have to memorize them--each one.)

* Chinese tongue twisters.

* How Chinese writing styles differ from the spoken word,
classical and contemporary. How this related to testing
for government officials, and how the Communist revolution
changed this.

* How Chinese language construction differs from English
language.

And much more.



I have been working at teaching myself Chinese, and it is so different that there is a lot of the concepts that I was not able to grasp until reading this book.

If you are going to study Chinese, I would highly recommend reading this book first.

If you are interested in Chinese culture, I highly recommend reading this book. Culture and language are intimately tied togeather.

I write as a newbie to China and its ancient language, who used this book as orientation and as a break from the rote work that learning Chinese demands.

The book is a well-written overview of the written and spoken languages which provides a "top-down" overview of the terrain that language learning neglects for drill in basic conversation. In particular, "business" Chinese can be easily a form of Klingon, an oversimplified language informed only by current concerns, which may create the very misunderstandings it pretends to avoid.

But as a Western educator I disagree with an implication in the chapter "Old Wisdom, New Technology", and this is that because "technology" is "Western", Chinese students are better off learning Pinyin and computers than writing the characters...or, perhaps, that we must accept this naturalized development.

The continued survival of the abacus and the fact that it's faster than electronic calculators in the hands of a skilled operator should teach us not to reify Western Technology, that is, to treat it as a natural force like global warming to which we must necessarily, perhaps with a sigh of ai-ya, demur.

Understood as an extension of culture, the Chinese up to about 1750 had MORE technology in the sense of practical solutions to problems of daily life than did Europeans.

The "complexity" of Chinese characters is not an absolute. It is relative to the origins of the Western encoding of "all" characters in 256 bits, the "ASCII" code, which in the early 1960s simply ignored the fact that most people use a richer "character set".

Complementary to the complexity of Chinese characters is the fact that their mastery imparts information handling skills at an early age and results in the self-discipline which has made Chinese software developers, for years, highly successful at creating "Western" solutions.

In general any claim that a system of writing is "too complex" needs to be classified with Plato's original charge against writing, that it was marginal and unnecessary to the conduct of affairs, and, as Derrida has shown, this charge is bad faith since it can only be made in writing, in traditional Chinese terms, by a vermilion decree swaying all under heaven.

This book is wonderful. It was what kinda got me started into the research of Chinese characters and such. Until I read this book I never knew how beautiful and interesting and deep the chinese character is. The stories and describtions just captivate you. The in depth design of every single character and the story behind it is very interesting and fascinating. Though not as long as I would have hoped, I reccomend it.

great for learning a limited number of characters - 40. step by step illustration to create each character in the order they should be formed. also a brief description of the concept/meaning for each.

I found the book to be a great rep. of what chinese art is like. The meaning are like words we want to hve written know you can write they with a different look to keep people guessing. I now have 4 tatoos that look and mean something cool.

If you only have the time and patience to learn forty Chinese characters in your lifetime, you should learn the ones in this book. Concepts such as "spirit", "benevolence", "harmony", "loyalty", and "wisdom" characterize so much of traditional Chinese thought and culture. The authors illustrate each of these characters with beautiful brush and ink calligraphy on rice paper background. There is a short explanation accompanying each character telling why it is written just so. For example the strokes making up the character "love" show us that the word means "breathing into the heart with a gracious motion". The character "enlightenment" shows the two components "sun" and "moon" which together light the world. Students who wish to practise writing these characters can follow the useful stroke order guide next to the explanations. This is a beautiful gift for the student or scholar, or just for those who appreciate Chinese culture.

This beautifully designed book is a little gem. There is a clear breadth of understanding of Chinese culture and language. The text is eloquent and if you are learning to write Chinese characters, the stroke-by-stroke instructions make it seem easy and less intimidating.

I really like practical information and this book is full of it. It was clear and easy to read. I especially thought the insightful chapter on the five elements very applicable to everyday life. I have seen results from the suggestions in Susan's book.

A wonderful guide to the Chinese practice of placement from a Taoist perspective. Offers traditional Taoist aspects of feng shui, including the Lo P'an Compass and the I Ching, as well as the relationship between feng shui and Taoist astrology. Also includes information on the Ba Gua Map and the Five Elements, including many examples of how to arrange rooms and counter negative energies in your home or office.

Susan Levitt has done a fantastic job of pulling together the ancient art of Feng Shui into a format that is understandable and very useful around the house and office. I am very pleased with the results, and I was fortunate enough to see financial, health, and relationship changes for the better.

This is the only book that explains the wisdom and spirituality of Feng Shui in a way that is practical. I read it cover to cover in one sitting because it reads as exciting as a mystery. It was fun to picture in my mind how to apply the info to my own home as I read. Two thumbs up and six stars!

Ancient Taoists developed feng shui from an understanding of universal energies, and this guide traces its history and how its knowledge has evolved in conjunction with basic Taoist beliefs. More than just a 'how to' guide, this examines the spiritual foundations of feng shui concepts.

Words cannot even begin to describe the beauty of the works of art contained in this book. If you only ever buy one book in your life to just look at the pictures let it be this one. I could sit entranced by this embroidery for hours. I agree with another reviewer who stated that you can't conceive of this art being created by human hands. If you need proof simply look at the cover. That is not a photograph folks, it is embroidered.
The photographs are also quite beatiful. Consider as you look at them that the photo's are trying to capture texture...something very elusive in that medium. In many cases you can barely tell the photo from the embroidery and in others the embroidery is an interpretation of the photo.
I cannot state this enough... this book is truly, truly extraordinary and I don't think that there is anything else like it out there.

This is, by far, the most beautiful embroidery book I've ever seen anywhere, at any time. It seems impossible that such impressive works of art could have been created. Robert Ketchum's photographs are beautiful, but the embroideries are, indeed, so breathtaking that it's hard to believe real human beings could have worked on them. This is the kind of embroidery I would love to be able to do, but it is so amazing that I know I'll never reach such a high level of expertise (at least not in this lifetime). My thanks to all the people involved in this project for sharing their special gifts with me and anyone else fortunate enough to have purchased this book or, better still, to have seen these works in person.

I bought this book, sight unseen purely from the rave reviews listed. To be honest I was a bit disappointed with the book. Firstly, Robert Glenn Ketchum's photographs are very average. In fact any 15 year old with a good camera and decent eye could take photo's of this quality. The thing that redeems them is the skill of the needleworkers. Secondly, I just think the book is overated. There's several western needlework books that cover this type of embroidery and have better images in my opinion so I just don't understand the rave. An interesting read, but..........yeah. I wouldn't have paid this much if I'd been able to flick through it first.

This is, by far, the most beautiful embroidery book I've ever seen anywhere, at any time. It seems impossible that such impressive works of art could have been created. Robert Ketchum's photographs are beautiful, but the embroideries are, indeed, so breathtaking that it's hard to believe real human beings could have worked on them. This is the kind of embroidery I would love to be able to do, but it is so amazing that I know I'll never reach such a high level of expertise (at least not in this lifetime). My thanks to all the people involved in this project for sharing their special gifts with me and anyone else fortunate enough to have purchased this book or, better still, to have seen these works in person.

I'm not all that interested in embroidery, but I enjoy visual excitement. One day while gallery hopping, we came upon a small portion of the work depicted in this book. We were both blown away by the work! Absolutely amazing. I would really like some posters of this work.

For those interested in the embroidery details, it is done with fine silk threads, hand dyed, on various fine fabrics, some of which are so fine you can see through them. Much of the interesting texture and effect is from what they call random stitch embroidery, in which the scenes are depicted by various colored stitches .5 cm (1/4 inch) long running in various random directions, yet they all come together to make the image. Other parts of the images are done by carefully controlled stitch direction to give crisp images. They pick up the light and are quite luminous, some are displayed as screens with light coming from behind. Only the enlargements in the book give a sense of the beauty and amazing technique of the actual pieces.

Oh, and the book is good too. Definitely a 5 star quality coverage of the work, with background information, as described in other reviews. But the work itself is beyond 5 stars. (In the gallery they were priced around the $10,000-$150,000 range, some took several years to complete.)

This book was very appropriate for our family. My daughter is 7 years old, and I adopted her from China when she was 10 months. She is very curious about her origins, including her birth mom. This book directly addresses the fact that in addition to a Chinese name and, in many cases, a newly given name when adopted, you also have a third name which was "whispered" by your birth mom. So my only caveat would be to read this book before reading it with your child to be sure that you are both ready to deal with the questions and emotions that are surely to follow.

We purchased this book along with several others that address Asian adoption. We have kept this one back to give to our daughter when she is a bit older and can grasp the concept of adoption better. Until then, we are using books geared more toward toddlers and early elementary school aged children.

Ada has three names: one given her at the Chinese orphanage, one by her American parents, and a third name whispered by her Chinese mother which is unknown to her. An easy first-person story of Ada's world is provided in a series of lovely full-page color drawings by Lin Wang and a scrapbook memoir format inviting kids to gather their own memories.

My daughter, age 7, was completely entranced by this book and then suddenly she said, "Mom! This girl is just like me! Except I don't play soccer. "Three Names of Me is a gorgeous book that fills us with a sense of China-home and instills such hope and love for the future. It would be quite impossible to convince my daughter this book wasn't intended solely for her. Especially after reading Ada's symbol for her first name; the one beyond "her remembering" - Ada chose a beautiful red star. My daughter's middle name is Mei-Xing, which means beautiful star. Mei-Xing is certain Three Names of Me was written just for her. It is her new prized possession.

This book is lyrical in its beauty - telling the story of a young Chinese adoptee in powerful but spare words and beautiful artwork. Might be best for the 9 and up group - my eight-year-old is not emotionally mature enough for this book yet, but I can tell it will be important later on.

This is the definitive book on feng shue! It is not for people who are looking for fluff - this is serious, and well thought out. It has really worked to get me to focus on the important things in life and has helped in explaining the balance that we all need to have. I am now giving this book as a gift to people I care about! Thank you, Ms. Reichstein, for writing such a wonderful book.

As a Shiatsu (3rd year)student, this book is so helpfull for me, that I am using it every day.
It explaines every Element in such a way, that you can realy understand it and use it in every day's life.
I reccomend this book to everyone who wants to know more.

We all love now to take care of our own health, right ?! Few of us understand, though, the Chinese medicine, unless you read a lot of books on same subject. And then you have to "digest" the information and apply it patiently to yourself. WE ALL ARE UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS. And the ones who will borrow or buy this book will prove to be the smart ones too. Not only that I would recommend this book to all of you who want to change your life for the better (and get rid of your daily pains) but this book --among the thousands written -- is an eye-opener to many other self-healing directions. Beware, at first you will say to yourself that you will need TIME and PATIENCE to go through it (which none of us HAVE anymore!), but you will feel smarter than any doctor in this world, after you assimilate the knowledge in this book. It is better than you imagined by its modest title. One of the best-kept secrets (until now !), trust me on this one. Good luck to all of you !

this books is well written and provides a beautiful overview of the 5 elements and how they manifest in our world. i was looking for something that was more oriented towards the overall charater of the elements and less concerned with the technicalities of chinese medicine. i got what i was looking for.

This book is excellent for anyone starting to learn any aspect of Chinese healing or astrology. Everything is interconnected and this book expands that horizon. This should be a text book for a curriculum of any "Chinese" course. I have had no previous teachings of Chinese culture and this book explains it all without being too political

Each poem of Stonehouse is a meditation in itself, each seeming as lines written after a satori while sitting on his mountain-side. Here was a true Nirmanakaya of Zen, no attachment, all needs provided by chance.

Red Pine's notes can be helpful, but don't worry about them unless you have a question about what you just read. Otherwise, reading the poem then referring to the notes may cause you to be distracted from the insight Stonehouse is attempting to relay to you.

I finally have my copy of this wonderful volume. Why do I say that? I first ordered the book new on Amazon in August 2005, with a note saying 2-4 week delivery. After monthly alterations in delivery dates, Amazon unilaterally cancelled the order in January 2006. So I ordered again. Again, monthy alterations in projected delivery date. So I looked into the matter. Turns out other companies cannot supply the book. Even the publisher has no copies. This realized, I ordered a used book from an individual listing on Amazon, at a reasonable price, and finally have this valuable document in June 2006.

This is not a review, just wanted you to know that the Editorial Review listed for this book "The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems and Talks of a Fourteenth-Century Chinese Hermit",
is for a completely different book... thought you'd want to know & couldn't find any other way to tell you.

Another great treasure of poems translated by Bill Porter. I believe this could be the best of the lot. These poems are tough, gentle & uncomprimising. I've gone through them several times always at ease and also alert.They truly come from the void, the Tao, whatever that is or isn't. Like notes from shakuhachi: soft ,dim slow quick, sloping, climbing. This man was a teacher of many and yet also a true recluse shutting or opening his brushwood door. I have read many poets from this period and used to wonder why Stonehouse was somehow considered one of the very best. On successive viewings their depth and clarity really begin to show them selves in comparison to some others. This ,of course, explains such an opinion

I don't think I can adequately express my love for this book, so I will just tell a little about the contents. Stonehouse is the English translated name of the Chinese Ch'an (Zen) poet Ch'ing-hung who retired early from being a temple abbot (he pleaded old age) so he could return to his beloved mountain retreat and live a peaceful, reflective life in nature. This great Zen monk whose medium of instruction was poetry also gave brief but potent Zen talks which are included here. Burton Watson's commendation on the back cover is correct about Pine's translation of the poems, noting that "...Red Pine has devised and unusual translation style that not only captures much of the flavor of the Chinese originals, but at the same time works splendidly as English." Yes, so splendidly that in reading a few to a friend, she began weeping. As if Red Pine carries in his chest the heart of the original poet, he expresses each poem sensitively and perfectly into English for us.

Here's what else I love about Red Pine's works: he has thoughtfully accompanied every poem with notes explaining contexts, references, and doctrinal backgrounds. The poetry carries you back to a beautiful wilderness in fourteenth century China and awakening a love for simplicity, return to nature, and Zen mind. Six pages of introduction to the monk provide very good backdrop for his poems. This volume contains three parts:
Book One: Mountain Poems
Book Two: Gathas
Book Three: Zen Talks
I read excerpts of Stonehouse for an incense game called Kodo, and a Zen monk attending exclaimed, each one is like a meditation!

From the books of Zen I've read, it always seemed to me that only the ancient writers have had the most impact. See if you will agree by reading this insightful book. It also includes a fascinating biography of this humble man.

Another great novel that explores the Chinese American (well in this case North American) culture as well as growing up during the great depression in an industrialized town. I was disappointed in the ending, feeling like it just drifted off. It was a little confusing. But the rest of the book I found pleasant& intriguing. "In all the ways they lived their lives, survivors like Poh-Poh and Stepmother, Third Uncle and Father, and those elders who hacked their breath away, they were all saying 'Sail, paddle, swim, but push forward to shore. Do not drown in the past.'"

This book tells a story. There's romance, mystery and some funny parts. The writer takes the time to divulge every minute detail, so you can relate to what's going on. That can make it tedious at times and even kind of slow, but it's part of the journey that this book relates. So if you're looking for a fast read, that you don't have to focus much on, this isn't that kind of book.

This was the first book I've read by the author and I plan to read others by him. It was just a pleasure to read this!

I've just re-read this book after having read it last year, and it retained it's touching and poignant story. Having grown up Chinese in Canada, albeit in the 1970's, I related to a lot of Mr Choy's characters.

A beautiful story.

btw: to the first reviewer... the story is of a Chinese-"Canadian", not chinese-american. the story takes place in Canada, and all of the characters pronounce to be Canadian. i just needed to clarify for my sake.

I finished All That Matters by Wayson Choy in the wee hours of the early morning. It was so beautiful and compelling that I could hardly bear to put it down to finish the next day.

All That Matters is the long and eagerly awaited sequel to Choy's first book, the award-winning and national best-selling The Jade Peony. Expectedly, it is a continuation of Jade Peony, this time written in First Son Kiam Kim's eyes, instead of the rotating narrators (which included all of the siblings of the Chen family) found in The Jade Peony.

All That Matters is very reminiscent of The Jade Peony - it is almost like an echo of Choy's first book. The book focuses centrally on Kiam Kim, from when he first boards the Hong Kong ship to Gold Mountain (Vancouver, B.C.) to his adulthood in Vancouver's Chinatown. Kiam Kim's Poh Poh is another important part of the story, with her Old China and superstitious ways. She tells stories about ancient myths and ghosts, of which make Kiam Kim feel torn - in some instances, he believes in the things Poh Poh tells him, but his father is constantly reminding him that they are in Gold Mountain, not Old China, and to adapt essentially to "modern, scientific, Canadian ways."

Kiam Kim's responsibility as "First Son" and "Dai-Goh (Oldest Brother)" sometimes burdens him, but he soon learns that this is the Chinese way - as the First Son and the oldest sibling, he needs to be a good role-model for the rest of the family and, ultimately, refrain from "shaming" the family in any way. He is best friends with Jack O'Connor, an Irish white boy who is his next-door neighbour. A somewhat clandestine but intimate relationship between Kiam Kim and Jenny Chong (the daughter of one of Poh Poh's mah-jong mates) forms. All That Matters also deals with the second World War, of which readers will see makes a significant impact on Kiam Kim and the rest of the characters in the book.

All in all, All That Matters is a satisfying, triumphant sequel to The Jade Peony - and rightfully so that it was long and eagerly awaited. Choy does not disappoint in this sequel to his first book. In fact, he writes hauntingly and seductively, often incorporating Chinese phrases uttered by Poh Poh and other members of his family to make things more homely and authentic. Readers will be compelled by this wonderful book, entering the world of Kiam Kim - his trials and tribulations, his responsibilities and burdens, his relationships and family, and, ultimately, what matters.

For fans of The Jade Peony, I highly urge you to pick up All That Matters and to read it. I guarantee you will like it as much, if not more, than The Jade Peony. It is no surprise why All That Matters won the Trillium Award again, not to mention was also a finalist for the Giller Prize.

Having met Wayson Choy at an author reading in December made reading All That Matters for me that much more exciting and thrilling. I felt like I shared an affinity with various characters in the book and, at times, with Wayson Choy. I am certainly looking forward to reading more work by Wayson Choy.

I highly recommend All That Matters.

I picked this book on a whim at the airport, and had no idea what to expect from the author. By the end of the book I was mesmerized by the heartbreaking story about a young Chinese American growing up in Vancouver's Chinatown during the 1930's. Choy weaves real American history with a lovely touching tale of life for Chinese immigrants, cultural interactions, family traditions, and new friendships. The prose is hauntingly beautiful, catching the reader by his words and tugging at the heart.