China Dreams: Growing Up Jewish in Tientsin

by Isabelle Maynard

What does it mean to be "thrice alien"? Isabelle Zimmer Maynard is one who knows. Born in 1929 in Tientsin, China, Maynard was the only child of Russian Jewish parents who had fled the Communists and sought refuge in this teeming city on the North China Sea. They subsequently survived the Japanese invasion of China and ultimately escaped to San Francisco when the Chinese Communists seized power. China Dreams, like a string of beguiling pearls, is a collection of autobiographical stories of an amazing childhood. Maynard's ability to reconstruct her world in the moment will delight and enchant readers. She says, "I have carried China all my life. I do not claim accuracy of history - only accuracy of the heart." Her keen eye and fetching wit provide an arresting, poignant, highly personal portrait of a now-vanished world once shared by thousands of European Jews.

186 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short narrative about a girl who grew up in Jewish Tientsin in the 1930s and 1940s. Her family was originally from Russia, but came before the Soviet Union was established. Later more of her relatives ended up in China after the 1917 revolution. Although they lived in China, the family didn't speak Chinese and didn't associate with Chinese residents apart from their servants, about which they knew very little. I admired the author's honesty; that was probably the way things were back then. She attended both an American school and a Jewish school, and was a wall flower as a teenager. The story is more a collection of snippets about life in Tientsin rather than a memoir, but it works in this case.

Two of my favorite chapters dealt with the author's sense of being an outsider, even among other outsiders in China. In one chapter, her best friend Shirley is an American girl and in Tientsin because her father works at the embassy (of Manchuria?). Shirley is called an embassy kid and is used to luxuries like an embassy car and driver and four bathrooms in her house. Isabelle, on the other hand, has use of a rickshaw and shares one bathroom with several families in her house. Isabelle's mother is too embarrassed to invite Shirley over, so insists that she takes the girls to the Victoria Cafe for tea. Shirley doesn't view it as special, and in fact protests that she's bored there. But she goes there with Isabelle and her mother anyway. An old German Jewish band plays in the background, which Isabelle finds embarrassing. After the outing, Shirley fades away from Isabelle's life and claims that Jewish people are too serious and don't know how to have fun. It's the first time Shirley has spoken about Isabelle's religion, and it's very hurtful to Isabelle that her supposed best friend views her as an other.

The second story that caught my eye was about Isabelle's Aunt Mary, who marries a Russian man. It was pretty unusual back then for Jews to marry outside the community. The White Russians and Jews kept their distance. When Aunt Mary announced she was going to marry a Russian, the family was very upset. The neighbors gossiped, and no one thought it would work. At the couple's first anniversary party, Mary's husband Walter gets roaring drunk and starts lashing out with anti-Semitic rants. Mary gracefully takes him into another room to sleep off his liquor. The marriage lasts for decades, until Mary dies. Even though they came from different backgrounds, Mary and Walter's marriage lasts longer than Isabelle's.

The book finishes with the family's big move to San Francisco and how difficult it was for Isabelle's father to start over. At 166 pages, this book only touched upon different parts of the author's life. That was the style of the series of which this book was a part, but I felt like it ended too quickly. I would have enjoyed reading more about Isabelle's life, both in Tientsin and in San Francisco.

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review at http://nliakos.wordpress.com/2012/10/...