Beautiful as Yesterday: A Novel

by Fan Wu

Stretching from mid-century China to both coasts of the United States at the turn of the millennium, Beautiful as Yesterday tells the powerful and captivating story of three Chinese women from the same family. It is a penetrating exploration of what it means to belong, what it means to be a family, and the impact of history and memories on one's life. "Speaking English is like taking a bath with my clothes on," Mary Chang admits after having lived in America for more than ten years. Under the facade of being a devoted wife, mother, churchgoer, and a hightech professional, she is tormented by adultery, her grudge toward her parents, and her despair at work. Ingrid, Mary's attractive estranged sister, prefers her bohemian friends' Latin culture to her own, though her college boyfriend's tragic death never fails to haunt her. And when their widowed mother Wang Fenglan, a state factory retiree, travels from China to America for the first time under Mary's request to explore the possibility of emigrating, she awkwardly reunites the family and unknowingly stirs up buried family tensions and secrets.

Genres: Fiction, China, Asia, The United States Of America, Asian American, Cultural, Historical Fiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

The youngest of the five children, Fan Wu grew up on a state-run farm in southern China, where her parents were exiled during the Cultural Revolution. Her debut novel, February Flowers, has been translated into 8 languages. Her second novel Beautiful as Yesterday was praised by Amy Tan as "a story with intelligence, insight and heart." Her short fiction, besides being anthologized and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, has appeared in Granta, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Asia Literary Review, Redivider, Hyphen, and elsewhere. She has reviewed books for the San Francisco Chronicle and blogged for Ploughshares.

Wu's been published by Simon & Schuster, Doubleday & Picador UK.

Wu holds a B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature from Sun Yat-sen University (Zhongshan University) and an M.A. in Mass Media Studies from Stanford University. After graduating from Stanford University, she worked as a market research analyst at Yahoo! for quite a few years. She currently lives in northern California with her husband and two young children.

Wu's new novel, I Can Hear the Daisies Grow, is nearly completed after five years of researching, writing and editing. The book focuses on the historical and psychological impact of a tumultuous past on individuals and families and is a mediation on themes that are still relevant in our contemporary world. It is ultimately about people, their fears and hopes, their secrets and desires, and how they reconcile with their past and move forward.

Inspired by her children, Wu's recently started writing stories for children. She wishes she could draw, but the truth is that her 6-year-old daughter is a far better artist than she is.

Wu loves to read, travel, and spend time with family and friends. Running, yoga and pilates help her stay healthy. When she is running, she likes to listen to the old episodes of NPR's Car Talk and "This American Life."

Excerpts from her novels:

February Flowers
http://www.amazon.com/February-Flower...

Beautiful As Yesterday
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-as-Ye...

Her short stories:

The Guest
http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/magazin...

Jade
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&...

Her book reviews:

On Bi Feiyu's "Three Sisters"
http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/T...

On Ha Jin's "A Good Fall"
http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/A...

On Yiyun Li's "Gold Boy, Emerald Girl"
http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/G...

On Anchee Min's "Pearl of China"
http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/P...

On Yang Xianhui's "Woman from Shanghai"
http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/F...

Reviews

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An family drama about a mother and her grown daughters. Wanted to like this more then I did. It was decent but I didn't feel connected with the story.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

American immigrant and "multicultural" fiction - from Chaim Potok to Edwidge Danticat - has often focused on the interaction between mainstream American culture and the culture of the protagonists. Predictably, that is also a prominent issue in Beautiful as Yesterday. What currently distinguishes China and the Chinese people, however, is the country's rapid, almost overnight transformation from a brutal and stagnant Communist backwater to a modern, quasi-capitalist economic powerhouse (albeit a repressive one). Chinese culture is ancient; yet the disparity between China in the twenty-first century and China under Mao is akin to two divergent cultures colliding and trying to make sense of one another. Even siblings have known different childhoods: there are only six years between Mary (Guo-Mei) and her younger sister Ingrid (Guo-Ying), but Mary remembers the difficult times of the Cultural Revolution, whereas Ingrid tasted enough freedom to wind up at Tienanmen Square one fateful afternoon.

Mary arrived in the United States for college, and then helped to pay her sister's way through an American university as well. Life in a foreign country, however, has only heightened the contrast between them, as Mary has since settled into conventional, affluent suburbia while Ingrid enjoys la vie bohème in New York City. But the arrival of their widowed mother, Wang Fenglang, from their Chinese hometown disrupts the uncomfortable status quo existing between them and forces them both to confront a past they thought they had left behind. As perspective shifts from one woman to another, themes of innocence, world-weariness, loss, idealism, and hope slowly develop in the form of reunions between family and friends, and the accompanying moments of accusation and acceptance. Culture clash is both burdensome (Fenglang can't drive and speaks no English) and humorous (a Chinese tourist in NYC snaps a photo of a random obese woman). There is also a split between Chinese-Americans born in America and "FOB's" ("fresh off the boat"); yet instead of simply showcasing that tension and raising awareness that it exists, Wu subtly explores the contradiction inherent to these artificial estrangements between groups and sub-groups. Mary and Ingrid communicate easily with non-Chinese when it comes to finances, science, and shared interests in art and literature. Fenglang learns to look past regional differences between herself and other Chinese expatriates, realizing the other seniors at the park relate to her tragic past far better than her own daughters ever will. Above all, Beautiful as Yesterday is about unification and understanding, whether it is between individuals, generations, and different facets of human society.

Just a side note: Beautiful as Yesterday is written in English, which is not the Chinese-born author's first language. As a result, Wu's prose can be awkward and the dialogue is sometimes stilted and unnatural (from an American six-year-old: "Why must I do this?"). But after awhile it almost feels like a deliberate stylistic choice.

Review Copy

Original Review

[Karin Duarte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that many people who arrived in the USA as immigrants no matter what their background will recognize their stories, feelings of belonging, or not, within these characters. Understanding of their parents and ancestors is a familiar story for many of us.
Well defined characters and storyline.

[Rimpi Devamrithan · Rating 4 out of 5]

definitely liked reading this one !

[Goh Jiayin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It felt nostalgic reading this when we were occasionally brought to the past. I really love how the story comes to an end. Everything sound distant yet near.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting storyline and characters.

[Erica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hoped this book would get better, but it kind of dragged on for me. I just couldn't get into it.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful as Yesterday is about 2 sisters (Mary and Ingrid) and their mother. All were born in China, but Mary and Ingrid have immigrated to the U.S. (Ingrid had the help of her older sister, who helped pay her way through college)

Mary lives and works in Silicon Valley with the typical American Dream: Own home, son she adores, hard-working husband who she just convinced to join a start-up in hopes of really making it when their ipo comes out.

Ingrid is more of a free spirit in that she balks against the conventional Chinese goals of finding a husband and/or finding a stable job and just settling down in general.

Fenglan is their mother. She still lives in China in the same apartment she has lived in for decades. Mary had been trying to get her to come to the US for an extended visit in hopes that she might want to immigrate to the US.

All 3 come together when Fenglan does finally come to visit the US. We see a glimpse into each of the their current personal lives and their goals as well as some past history.

In the beginning, I felt Wu was trying too hard. I really can't explain what I mean by that lol, maybe it was in some of the descriptive language she used in parts and the fact that I didn't really like it (or it didn't feel as natural to me as dialog in something like Joy Luck Club) when Mary would go into sort of a broken English when she got frustrated when talking with her husband.

So, for most of the beginning, it was a 2-star book for me. But, I did end up enjoying it a lot more when I got to know Ingrid and Fenglan more and when reading about the stories of the past.

Here are some quotes:
"Your love only flowers, but bears no fruit."

"Ingrid knows that people in China are used to talking loudly in public; it's not uncommon for two people to chat comfortably about private matters on a jostling bus, over many strangers' shoulders. Moreover, her tour group members are government employees, who tend to be arrogant and intolerant of criticism."

"Men turn bad when they have money, and women can't have money unless they turn bad."

"People who use their brains manage people who use their muscles."

"It was like saying that porn and politics were in fact one big family, that porn revealed too much, while politics hid too much."

"Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully."

"No one should comply with an immoral law."

"...history is a scar that never heals, the best medicine is to forget."

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this as a free book to review from Amazon. Fan Wu shares with us a history of the lives of Chinese women here and in China. It is difficult to know what has happened to these people in the last 40 years and Wu's story is detailed and beautiful. The two sisters, Mary and Ingrid, have moved to the U.S. to study and have stayed to work and live. The character of Mary is the least likeable of the three women, while the Mother, Fenglen, is the most likeable character, or at least the one I can relate to the most.

Mary is pious, selfish, and demanding of her family. She is resentful of her sister's vagabond behavior after she paid her way to this country and helped her get an education. At first I could noBeautiful as Yesterday by Fan Wut standMary but I did grow to care about her as the story unfolded. Ingrid is also resentful and troubled by her past including her experience at the Tiananmen Square massacre. Fenglen, too, has suffered many hardships that her children could never understand. She seems old beyond her years.

In the past few years I have had to opportunity to host several Chinese men college students in my home. Reading this novel helped me to understand some of the cultural differences that I had not quite grasped. I do not think that any of us who have not experienced the history of the Chinese people can possibly understand what they have gone through. Fan Wu helps us to go forward slightly in our understanding.

I found this book difficult to read at first because the writing gets in the way of the story. She changes tenses constantly, first writing in present tense and then going to past tense without warning. She tends to get bogged down in very small details that really don't help the story move forward. I never did get used to the writing style and found it tedious at times. But I am very glad I read the book. I was quite touched by the story and was sad to have it come to an end. I wanted to know more about how the various characters' lives turned out.

[Graham Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sweet little book without being sentimental. The prose is very simple, but Fan Wu plays to her strengths and on concentrates on storytelling. One of the characters is an aspiring Chinese writer and this point of view allows the author to discuss some of the problems she has using English as a second language to write a novel. There is a lovely passage where she describes her use of English feeling like words swimming on the surface of a pool, never able to dive down into the depths.

I applaud her! - for this book certainly gets under the surface of some complex issues. The Mother and her two daughters have all lived through different periods of 20th Century Chinese tragedy - The Japanese and the Communist Revolution, The Cultural Revolution, and the Tiananmen massacre. Each woman has her own scars and hides these from the rest of the family. Horrible silences build up in the holes these secrets leave behind, and heartbreaking misunderstandings between all the family members.

I have read a lot of novels coming out of the new China, and this one is certainly one of the better ones - giving a great sense of the monumental changes that are still going on in that country - and perhaps more importantly, how Chinese women of different generations feel about those changes - both the good and the bad.

[Yekaterina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story or a family that originates from China and separates. Two sisters move to the US for school and stay afterwards. They share their lives, thoughts and feelings with us over the course of many months. Each of the characters (mother, older daughter and younger daughter) shares their point of view throughout the book.
The Chinese history and traditions embedded in the book are what makes it a great read. Not too many actual scenes are thrilling or active. Mostly, it's the characters emotions and memories that bring each chapter to life. This book is very well written, very thoroughly researched. The story has a very sad undertone and leaves you feeling dull. It's not a negative feature it's just the extraordinary way the author transfers the characters vibes to the reader. I love any writer that can do that.
If you enjoyed the Orphan Masters Son, this is a lighter yet similar read.

[Fiona Groves · Rating 2 out of 5]

A tale of two sisters, Mary and Ingrid, who emigrate from China to the US. They are very different and estranged at the time their Mother comes to visit with a view to joining them in the US. Family secrets emerge and issue between Mary and her husband and Mary and Ingrid are aired to a degree. I suppose I enjoyed and didn't enjoy this book. The sections based in China I found very interesting, but I didn't feel that the author delved too deeply into her characters so they seemed a bit shallow and wooden. We only know that Mary and her husband resolve their issues through the observations of her mother and her sister, but the depth of the issues and how they resolved it is not explained. The ending seemed almost unfinished to me.

[Joshua]

Differentiating her book from the most novels about old time China, Fan Wu wrote a story about two sisters who were born in China and migrated to the states in early 90’s. Fan Wu created two sisters without fantasizing. They are so real, both with history and transformation, love and fantasy, eastern and western. I like the details that author knows two cultures inside out. Fan Wu’s observation is remarkable and her memory is outstanding. She can read mind of different generations and ethnicities of women and characterizes them nearly documentarily.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quiet tangle of family histories - of a mother and her two daughters - as they reconcile their Chinese heritage and past with life in the USA. There were moments of poignancy here but all too often I was distracted by the clunky dialogue which didn't read true. While Wu is descriptive with surroundings I didn't get a real sense of each character, as though even in their thoughts, they had put up an impenetrable wall to their innermost feelings.

[크리스티 (Kristy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed each chapter being about one of the characters point of view. I especially liked how Mary had one perspective of her father but then hearing the real perspective from her mother's view about her father it was a completely different light. It shows how there is definitely two sides to every story. I liked the book it read very easy and was a great story.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story about a Chinese woman, and about her two daughters who live different lifestyles after emigrating to America. It is also about feelings of belonging/not belonging, and family secrets revealed.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

**review brewing in my mind*** reread again this year. now that I own it I can take my time. I had forgotten so much and it was fitting to read it again and remember again. liked it more the second time.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing somewhat clumsy:
Rather disjointed but a good insight into people between two worlds.
Story of a Chinese/American family - interesting, but not easy to read in that it didn't flow so well. Liked the way the connections were made and could see the interest in the cross cultural aspects.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

so far, enjoying the book and relating to the characters - more later!

[Chalida · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mother and daughters story that piqued my interest at times. Family history and tension surfaces. The daughters are polar opposites and mom's visit brings them together.

[Lillie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid 3 1/2*

A story told from the point of view of two sisters that emigrated to the US from China and their mother. Enjoyed the younger sister & mother's stories the best.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good relationships - mother,daughter and friends

[Judith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me.

[Kelly Munro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting reading.. not sure that I rushed to pick it up each night and not really sure that there was a real outcome!

[Betsey Beyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A welll written story of sisters from China

[Sally Schlehlein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very pleasant read, I learned somethings about Chinese history and culture.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always enjoy a book with multiple narrators. I was surprised how much I connected with the mother, Fenglan. This book was quiet and at sometimes slow, but had a very satisfying ending.