Beautiful Country: a quiet read
The “United States of America”, literally translated into Chinese, is “Beautiful Country”. (In Chinese, 美国 is pronounced “mĕi guó” to imitate the phonetic syllables of ah-MEr-ica). “mei” means beautiful, in every sense of its definition, ever since this character evolved on tortoiseshell carvings thousands of years ago. Beautiful Country tells the tale of an immigrant family seeing a beautiful destination, leaving home in China, to endure a transition into a newer and much harsher world.
Beautiful Country is a boring memoir. Life, my friends, is boring. We must not say so. Qian Julie Wang is an ordinary girl, on a few occasions reminding me, of me. I find it boring because it loosely resembles some parts of my personal memory, blended up so that only a few fragments are still recognizable, but much of it is unrecognizable, then thrown one or two decades earlier. It only felt boring because I was living a few split-seconds twice, once in my life, and once in Qian’s life. In that sense, I suppose, “boring” could be praise.
I think this book unlocked something new for me. Reading about a Chinese-American girl whose family moved overseas years in 1994, 10 to 20 years before mine, opens a new door to fiction demarcating the Asian-American immigrant experience, that for the first time, I actually see myself in. I’ve read The Joy Luck Club, but all I remember is that when reading it years ago, I felt overwhelmed. Here was this book I was supposed to feel, but I feel like words were taken from my mouth, words that were entirely foreign to me. Looking back, that book was set in the 1980s, and many characters grew up in the 40s, with an entire collection of historical moments and social values of their own. Given China’s tumultuous history in the 20th century, of course, I can’t expect myself to relate to catastrophes that have happened before my parents were born. Some moments will only stay with people who grew up in that time capsule.
Qian and I have very different childhoods. But at points, her references to pop culture and traditional culture connect the dots. I, too, love Peking duck and chive dumplings. I hum along to her graduation chorus of “True Colors” and “Every Breath You Take”, and I can see her little face scrunched up, watching Beijinger in New York. This whole book felt like something foreign yet familiar to me. Every minute, I could pick out a few details that apply to my life, that I understand so completely, and a few details that are new. I can’t stand inaccurate translations of colloquialisms, but I think that Wang writes well despite a few little hiccups, and for someone who moved to America so early in her life, little Qian is mature for her age in remembering moments vividly.
Literature gives a voice to people who are on the sidelines, in the background. Beautiful Country is a quiet read.
