A Thousand Pieces of Gold
Adeline Yen Mah
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2003 HarperSanFrancisco
ISBN: 0060006412

Growing Up Through China's Proverbs. Or My Discovery of China's Character in Its Proverbs.

I have reviewed Adeline Yen Mah's, Falling Leaves, her memoir of growing up the youngest in a family straddling the Old Ways & the new with devastating results for this littlest one who escaped to boarding school outside of China, & a new life.

Before she left China forever, her Grandfather Ye Ye had told Adeline Yen Mah many stories about his childhood, & in doing so taught her about her heritage, part of which was a reverence for the written word.

The title comes from the Chinese proverb: One Written Word Is Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold & in this book, Adeline Yen Mah has opened the coffer of treasures from down the ages & exacting, incidentally, my gratitude by listing the proverbs at the back, the better to find them.

A Thousand Pieces of Gold is but the cover charge to an adventure into a telling of history that will bring the life of China & her people alive with characters, situations & deft renderings of an immensely rich language.

Unlike Romance or Western languages, Chinese does not have an alphabet, it is written in calligraphic symbols which have been refined down the ages from their original representational caricatures. When we say: A picture is worth a thousand words, we are actually expressing a Chinese idea. All Chinese proverbs consist of four characters, & speak pithily of things military, political, domestic & educational.

Part memoir, history lesson, language study & insights into the Chinese way of looking at life, A Thousand Pieces of Gold tells of the author's discovery, in Hong Kong, of the last two of her father's favorite books, one of which was a paperback edition of the Shiji: Historical Record by Sima Qian (145-90 B.C.E.), a much-traveled man with a huge choice to make, who first codified the ancient stories of China. From his record have most Chinese proverbs derived.

Notwithstanding that A Thousand Pieces of Gold is published by a major imprint, I was surprised by the number of repetitions & lack of editing, however, it is a unique, endearing & fascinating read.

More from Adeline Yen Mah:
Watching The Tree
Chinese Cinderella
(01/04/04)

Rebecca