Andre’s Reviews > Sommerferien in Peking > Status Update
Andre
is starting
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.
— Jul 07, 2014 11:09AM
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.
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Andre’s Previous Updates
Andre
is finished
Ok, in that little glossary at the end she mentions Mao, the cultural revolution and Mao's great hunger... but not the Beijing massacres?
— Jul 12, 2014 03:29AM
Andre
is on page 228 of 240
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.
— Jul 12, 2014 12:17AM
Andre
is on page 220 of 240
Ok, calling someone a "banana" is at least implied to be wrong, but "long nose" is ok?
— Jul 11, 2014 11:23PM
Andre
is on page 218 of 240
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?
— Jul 11, 2014 11:30AM
Andre
is on page 194 of 240
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.
— Jul 11, 2014 10:14AM
Plus her talks about eating all parts of a duck makes me hungry and remember how long its been that I ate liver.
Andre
is on page 168 of 240
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.
— Jul 10, 2014 11:43AM
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.
Andre
is on page 147 of 240
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"?
— Jul 10, 2014 11:39AM
Also is Ping's father a reference to Jiang Yanyong who reported the number of SARS cases in "Beijing's SARS Attack"?
Andre
is on page 142 of 240
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.
— Jul 10, 2014 10:53AM
Andre
is on page 141 of 240
Finally some Chinese guy refers to her as a German. I found this all around acceptance so far pretty odd.
— Jul 10, 2014 10:53AM
Andre
is on page 137 of 240
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?
— Jul 10, 2014 10:30AM
