Status Updates From Sommerferien in Peking

Ok, in that little glossary at the end she mentions Mao, the cultural revolution and Mao's great hunger... but not the Beijing massacres?

Hm classifcation regarding nationality/ethnicity is kind of confusing to me here. Now the author speaks of "us", clearly meaning German... Really in fact confusing. It's kind of switching back and forth.

Ok, calling someone a "banana" is at least implied to be wrong, but "long nose" is ok?

Ok, the story behind the peking duck was funny, but I really wonder what sort of usage of the word "banana" the auhor, respectively her characters have. Since "banana" infers that you look Chinese but act like a Westerner, here German. And I am not aware that this is applied to half-bloods. And do people from Beijing usually refer to people like Lisa as Chinese?

Ok, this girl really sees a tad too much to make her Chinese family average. It is not overdone, but close in my eyes.
Plus her talks about eating all parts of a duck makes me hungry and remember how long its been that I ate liver.

I really wander what sort of classification system the author uses. I get why she refers to Bin as a banana, but to Lisa? She didn't just live in Germany, she is a german by ancestry, so why a "banana?"
And as much credit as I can give the author for e.g. having Mrs. Hong with natural curls, but sometimes her depiction of white people seems a tad visual stereotyping in my mind.

Ah, it was in Beijing… I was wondering why she speaks about SARS so vividly when he was in Germany, but this must have been shortly, a year or so, before they moved. However she was still in school so she must have been a first grader.
Also is Ping's father a reference to Jiang Yanyong who reported the number of SARS cases in "Beijing's SARS Attack"?

Ok, this is definitely upperclass Beijing. Ping has furniture from IKEA, so familiar to Lisa that she stated that she could be in the room of one of her friends in Germany.

Finally some Chinese guy refers to her as a German. I found this all around acceptance so far pretty odd.

Is she implying that doing Taiji is in her blood? This is odd, sure it could refer to her father and not mother but still… I already wondered why she suddenly wants to learn Taiji if she never had any interest in it. Sure she was stated to change her mind quickly regarding interests, but considered that she was embarrassed by her father doing Taiji why is she so interested now?

I get cultural differences, but what Ping's grandpa says here makes no sense. He thinks Ping did something wrong by defending himself and when enough people had berated the attacker he would have stopped. Small problem: There were already several of people looking at them and they didn't say one word of berating and the guy was attacking Ping directly. What was he supposed to do? Let himself be beaten up?

Taiji or not, what sort of 12 year old can just throw a grown man with lots of muscles five meters through the air?
Plus with all the other stuff here I have a bit of suspicion that this book wants to promote China.

"The early bird catches the worm" is of Chinese origin? I thought it was english...

Two things:
1) Why do people always speak of black eyes when referring to East Asians? I never saw a single one with black eyes and I live in the center of Berlin. It's all brown here.
2) I think it's pretty clear that Lisa's maternal side is from the upper classes. Her grandparents have a 200 qm apartment and she went to an international school in Beijing.

Ok, we see Knut the polarbear here and he is still a cup so this most likely plays in the summer of 2007.

How on earth is it possible not to see the entrance to the zoo in the center of Berlin? No matter which one, the line would need to be so long that you stand in another street. Plus they say they came out of the subway and got in line, so no way that they would not be able to see it. Did the author exxagerate or is her memory that bad?

I thinkI have to tackle a stereotype here: Apparently the kids in Lisa's class do not believe her when she says that she is German due to he black hair. This is BS, you can easily be a full blood ethnic german and have black hair. Not a problem. Plus even "black" hair is often just very dark brown. In addition Lisa herself said her almond eyes look nearly like her father's, who is German.

That there house was perfectly placed according to Feng Shui was funny. And I have the feeling Lisa is an extension of the author. At least the name suggests it.

Hm, using Lao Lao and Lao Ye to let others know instantly that Lisa is referring to her Chinese grandparents and not her German ones is a nice little idea and makes sense, too bad some other franchise... Oh my Gosh, ok Andre, focus, focus, do not thing of that crime against literature.^^

So they live in Schönau... Which one? There are several places called that. Most seem to be in the South, Bavaria or Baden-Wuerttenberg, so I guess it is not unreasonable to assume that Lisa's mother is the only Chinese around. Trust me if you would live in Berlin that would not be a problem, even if you are more likely to run into a Vietnamese than Chinese.
Also Lisa does sound like a nine-year old here.

On the cover:
The main character Lisa has a Chinese mother (I assume Han) and a German father (ethnic German most likely), and the cover girl doesn't look particularly European too me. Maybe she is and its just her age but either way I cannot feel comfortable with the cover model choice and would actually prefer the Panda cover of the 2012 edition. Of course if they have a second one the book must have sold well.