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21st out of 200 books
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534 voters
Women of the Silk
In Women of the Silk Gail Tsukiyama takes her readers back to rural China in 1926, where a group of women forge a sisterhood amidst the reeling machines that reverberate and clamor in a vast silk factory from dawn to dusk. Leading the first strike the village has ever seen, the young women use the strength of their ambition, dreams, and friendship to achieve the freedom th...more
Paperback, 278 pages
Published
October 15th 1993
by St. Martin's Griffin
(first published October 1st 1991)
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Gail Tsukiyama's "Women of the Silk" is an interesting look into the lives of women who worked in the silk factories in China, in the early 20th century. Come to find out, this grueling labor actually gave these women a kind of freedom from traditional marriage roles, as they lived independently, off their own earnings. Tsukiyama follows a young girl, Pei, through to her years as a young adult, having been left without explanation at the silk factory by her father when she was little. Tsukiyama'...more
If you are just starting with Gail Tsukiyama then I recommend starting with this book. Gail Tsukiyama is Chinese/Japanese American and her books take place mostly in China/Hong Kong around the second World War. This book, "Women of the Silk", tells the story of a young girl who lives in a world where daughters are married off and those that aren't go to work in the newly thriving silk factories. Contrary to the silk work being along the lines of forced labor it is actually an opportunity for the...more
Women of the Silk, Gail Tsukiyama's first novel, is well worth its strong reputation. We had the great pleasure of hosting the author at the Hayward Public Library in February 2009. As a member of the audience commented, readers can count on learning a lot from Tsukiyama's novels. In Women of the Silk, we follow the principal character, Pei, who is essentially abandoned by her family when she is a young girl, sent off to the nearest silk-making factory to earn a living that will help her family...more
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Quite obviously a first novel- not a great work of literature but entertaining. Everyone seems to go on about how empowering this book is to women, but I found that element of the novel limited in scope, since the only women who are successful completely reject men and those who don't are destroyed by their heterosexual realtionships. I like boys, damnit!
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After recently hearing Tsukiyama speak in person, I decided to go back and read her novels in order. This is an excellent first novel, about the lives of women in China working in the silk trade. I loved it! Excellent story of women's friendship.
Fascinating. This is from the back cover of the book:
...rural China in 1926, where a group of women forge a sisterhood amidst the reeling machines that reverberate and clamor in a vast silk factory from dawn until dusk. Leading the first strike the village has ever seen, the young women use the strength of their amibition, dreams, and friendship to achieve the freedom they could never have hoped for on their own.
Loved the characters. The silk factory workers (women) live together in various hou...more
...rural China in 1926, where a group of women forge a sisterhood amidst the reeling machines that reverberate and clamor in a vast silk factory from dawn until dusk. Leading the first strike the village has ever seen, the young women use the strength of their amibition, dreams, and friendship to achieve the freedom they could never have hoped for on their own.
Loved the characters. The silk factory workers (women) live together in various hou...more
Women of the Silk, was the debut novel written by Gail Tsukiyama, and first published in 1991. Ms. Tsukiyama is a new to me author.
Pei is one of the several Chinese daughters born to a poverty stricken fish farm family, dominated the father. She is the outgoing and curious child, and according to the fortune teller that her father takes her to, she is the “non marrying” type. When another girl is born to the family (who dies soon after), Pei's father decides her fate. He arranges to sell her to...more
Pei is one of the several Chinese daughters born to a poverty stricken fish farm family, dominated the father. She is the outgoing and curious child, and according to the fortune teller that her father takes her to, she is the “non marrying” type. When another girl is born to the family (who dies soon after), Pei's father decides her fate. He arranges to sell her to...more
This book had such potential, yet failed to deliver. It was a good book, yet it could have been better. The characters did not progress. I would have loved to get to know them better, to understand their struggles and to feel what they felt. Maybe it’s the culture and they must remain guarded in fiction also. The synopsis of the book stated that it was about a strike at a silk factory in rural China in the 1920’s and 1930’s, but it was about so much more than that. This was the story of the youn...more
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This was a good story. I enjoyed the details of Chinese village life and the silk work. Yet, I couldn't help feeling that the characters lacked emotional resonance. They were somewhat flat, and at times both the feeling and the dialogue came across as forced and contrived. Tsukiyama made an effort to point out the bond of the "sisterhood" among the silk workers, but I would rather have felt that connection myself.
That said, it was not an altogether unengaging read. This is Tsukiyama's first nov...more
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This book was okay until the end. I hated the ending - how much misery can one person endure? Reading this book made me think about how wonderful it is to live in modern American where I, as a woman, have as much independence and autonomy as I choose. I think if I had lived during that time in China I would have chosen to remain unmarried as Pei did. I would never want to be in a loveless marriage, being exploited and treated poorly by a husband who would never talk to me and share his feelings...more
This is the story of Pei, a woman of the silk, who was taken to work in the silk factories as a child of eight. This simple fact is the basis for the novel and a way of life for many girls and women in China in the 1920's and 1930s. They initially helped to support their poor families and ultimately gained a degree of freedom for themselves.
I enjoyed this novel as an introduction to a way of life completely foreign to me. I really don't know anything much of China during that time prior to WWII....more
I enjoyed this novel as an introduction to a way of life completely foreign to me. I really don't know anything much of China during that time prior to WWII....more
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Touching story set during the 1930’s when Japan was invading China about a girl who is born in extreme poverty in the hillside on a fish farm, and her parents sell her to a silk factory to provide for the family. One day her father of few words takes her on a trip & just leaves her at a silk factory with no explanation. Pei couldn’t understand why she was taken away from her home & her mother, father & two sisters and wonders what she did wrong. Over the years Pei learns the value of...more
Het verhaal van de zijdewerksters speelt zich af in de jaren twintig en dertig in China. Pei de hoofdpersoon in dit boek, groeit op op het platteland. Zij is de oudste in het gezin, de meeste kinderen zijn gestorven op een zusje na Li. Het gezin leeft van de visvangst en van de bladeren van de moerbeiboom. Ze zijn erg arm. Na bezoek aan een waarzegster, die vertelt dat Pei waarschijnlijk nooit zal trouwen. Neemt haar vader een moeilijk besluit. Hij verkoopt Pei aan de zijdefabriek in Yung Kee. H...more
I enjoyed reading Ms. Tsukiyama's other book "The Samurai's Garden" so much that I went to my local library seeking other books from this same author and saw this book. It was a very quick read at under 200 pgs but I did not like it as much as "The Samurai's Garden" which I found to be all engrossing. I now see that she wrote "Women of the Silk" in 1993 and "The Samurai's Garden" in 1996 and so I am going to seek out more of her contemporary novels since I think with time, most writers get bette...more
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I find learning about different cultures so interesting - historic asian culture is especially clever in their traditions/customs. There was alot here to take in and I loved it!
It was hard to understand how Pei's family could just sell her out as they did. I felt bitter hearing about what she went through working in the silk factory & knowing that her family was reaping the benefit of that, though it was stated that most workers contributed much of their salary to their families.
Lin and Pe...more
It was hard to understand how Pei's family could just sell her out as they did. I felt bitter hearing about what she went through working in the silk factory & knowing that her family was reaping the benefit of that, though it was stated that most workers contributed much of their salary to their families.
Lin and Pe...more
This review pretty much sums up my thoughts:
This book had such potential, yet failed to deliver. It was a good book, yet it could have been better. The characters did not progress. I would have loved to get to know them better, to understand their struggles and to feel what they felt. Maybe it’s the culture and they must remain guarded in fiction also. The synopsis of the book stated that it was about a strike at a silk factory in rural China in the 1920’s and 1930’s, but it was about so much mo...more
This book had such potential, yet failed to deliver. It was a good book, yet it could have been better. The characters did not progress. I would have loved to get to know them better, to understand their struggles and to feel what they felt. Maybe it’s the culture and they must remain guarded in fiction also. The synopsis of the book stated that it was about a strike at a silk factory in rural China in the 1920’s and 1930’s, but it was about so much mo...more
Follow the story of Pei, brought by her reluctant father to work in the silk house in 1919 at the age of seven, as she acclimates to her new environment and overcomes many obstacles and twists of fate to become a quietly determined young woman.
Focusing on the theme of the Chinese family, this beautiful narrative first exposes us to the culture and difficult circumstances of village life and later to the dawn to dusk struggle facing each of the silk factory women (who are in reality children whe...more
Focusing on the theme of the Chinese family, this beautiful narrative first exposes us to the culture and difficult circumstances of village life and later to the dawn to dusk struggle facing each of the silk factory women (who are in reality children whe...more
Got it off my grandmother's back porch when she was getting rid of a bunch of books, but was sad to find it not really worth reading. Very surface-level story, too many cheap tricks and gimmicks, too many questions left unanswered.
It could have been a great novel! in the hands of another author. Tsukiyama's knowledge of the history of silk factories and the Japan-China conflict of the 1930s is clear - and the historical information woven into the story was interesting. But having a novel range o...more
It could have been a great novel! in the hands of another author. Tsukiyama's knowledge of the history of silk factories and the Japan-China conflict of the 1930s is clear - and the historical information woven into the story was interesting. But having a novel range o...more
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Women of the Silk is a delicate story about the changes going on in China around the second World War, more specifically the changes in feminist culture. Told in a series of vignette-like chapters, the majority of the story follows Pei, a girl who was more or less abandoned by her family to work at a silk factory. Through Pei, the revolutionary movements of China are explored. Women were becoming more educated and more independent. Pei and her friends stage a strike at the silk factory which is...more
This book should have been a nonfiction book presenting the silk factories. The plot and characters seemed to exist only to illustrate an aspect of Chinese history or factory conditions or options in 1920-30s China for women.
I am intrigued by the hair dressing ceremony wherein women could choose to become a member of the sisterhood of silk workers, an alternative to arranged marriages. A parallel ceremony to marriage; the choice as permanent. Like secular nuns.
Even if the factories allowed wom...more
I am intrigued by the hair dressing ceremony wherein women could choose to become a member of the sisterhood of silk workers, an alternative to arranged marriages. A parallel ceremony to marriage; the choice as permanent. Like secular nuns.
Even if the factories allowed wom...more
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The book follows its protagonist, Pei, from 1919 until 1938. Her impoverished family gives her to a silk factory at age 8, where she grows up and forms close bonds with other girls and women. The blurb makes it sound as if the book revolves around the women challenging conditions in the factory, which isn't the case (they do, but this takes up only one 17-page chapter). Instead, it's a novel about sisterhood and about life in China in the early 20th century.
The character development is not espec...more
The character development is not espec...more
This book is about the women who worked in the Chinese silk factories in the 1920s and 30s. The story is handed over to a young woman named Pei, whose family has had to leave her to work at the silf factory so that the money she makes will help support their farm. She is left with no explaniation and at a very young age. The book follows Pei through almost 15 or so years of her life.
I have never read a book on this subject and it seems that despite the grueling hours and very hard work these wo...more
I have never read a book on this subject and it seems that despite the grueling hours and very hard work these wo...more
This book was ok. I enjoyed reading about what it was like to be a woman in the early 1900’s in China. The choices they were faced with were difficult: to choose between a forced, loveless marriage and a life of childbearing, or to dedicate their lives to their work (as Pei did). It seemed like the author was definitely painting the picture that marriage was undesirable and the “women of the silk” had lives that were more valuable and had made a better choice. Although it is interesting to note...more
This simply written novel tells the story of women who work in a silk factory in a little Chinese town in the 20s. It follows one woman, Pei, beginning with her childhood as the daughter of a mulberry farmer. When lean times come, young Pei is taken to work in the silk factory, living in a house with other workers. Her salary is sent home to keep her family alive. Pei forms a close, lifelong attachment with Lin, one of the girls in the house.
This is a lesbian novel, but at the same time, it’s v...more
This is a lesbian novel, but at the same time, it’s v...more
This is the story of girls and young women who work in the silk factories in China in the early 1900's. Their lives were difficult, yet this is not a difficult book to read.
The author’s prose flows as smoothly as river water going downhill, yet it’s never flashy. Only once in a while did I stop reading to consider a phrase and how well it was written. One of those times was her description of a wealthy neighborhood – 'lush greenery that imprisoned each house.'
Her well-crafted characters repr...more
The author’s prose flows as smoothly as river water going downhill, yet it’s never flashy. Only once in a while did I stop reading to consider a phrase and how well it was written. One of those times was her description of a wealthy neighborhood – 'lush greenery that imprisoned each house.'
Her well-crafted characters repr...more
Though it would be easy to pick apart this book, overall I quite liked it. It was Tsukiyama's first novel and, with this in consideration, remarkably free of heavy handed prose, un(der)developed characters, or logical flaws in plot. I had already read The Samurai’s garden, her sophomore novel, and it is a glow with beautiful imagery, lyrical prose, and layers of meaning begging for an explicative reading, so I know her writing only gets better. This book is just that: a book. It largely has one...more
Women of the Silk is a perfectly enjoyable little book, although it suffers from some flaws which may simply be the result of its being Tsukiyama’s first novel.
The book follows its protagonist, Pei, from 1919 until 1938. Her impoverished family gives her to a silk factory at age 8, where she grows up and forms close bonds with other girls and women. The blurb makes it sound as if the book revolves around the women challenging conditions in the factory, which isn’t the case (they do, but this tak...more
The book follows its protagonist, Pei, from 1919 until 1938. Her impoverished family gives her to a silk factory at age 8, where she grows up and forms close bonds with other girls and women. The blurb makes it sound as if the book revolves around the women challenging conditions in the factory, which isn’t the case (they do, but this tak...more
Oct 02, 2009
Tara Chevrestt
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Shelves:
historical-fiction,
chinese-history-culture
Good book. Terrific research was done in order to write this. I had no idea there was an amazing, gutsy group of women in China that held a strike before women in America were really even accepted in the work place. The novel follows Pei and how her family "gives her" to the silk life and she then grows up in a girls home and works 14 hour days in a silk factory. I would have liked more information about the actual silk work process. All this novel really told me was they start with cocoons and...more
A very good book. Beginning in rural China during a poor season (1919), Pei's family can see no alternative but to hire her out to work in the silk reeling factories in a nearby village, and her life changes over the course of a single day. Living in a girl's house run by a retired spinster (silk worker) with a number of other silk girls, Pei discovers a second--and much more supportive--family. Over years that include the first-ever strike action in the village, resulting in a reduction of hour...more
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Born to a Chinese mother and a Japanese father in San Francisco, Gail Tsukiyama now lives in El Cerrito, California. Her novels include Women of the Silk (1991), The Samurai's Garden (1995), Night of Many Dreams (1998), The Language of Threads (1999), Dreaming Water (2002), and The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (2007).
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“Nothing ever stands still, and neither should you.”
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Karen
17. November, 07:09 Uhr