China Boy

by Gus Lee

“What a knockout. An incredibly rich and new voice for American literature… China Boy grabs the reader’s heart and won’t let go.”—Amy Tan, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club

“A fascinating, evocative portrait of the Chinese community in California in the 1950s, caught between two complex, demanding cultures.”— The New York Times Book Review

Kai Ting is the only American-born son of a Shanghai family that fled China during Mao’s revolution. Growing up in a San Francisco multicultural, low-income neighborhood, Kai is caught between two worlds—embracing neither the Chinese nor the American way of life. After his mother’s death, Kai is suddenly plunged into American culture by his stepmother, who tries to erase every vestige of China from the household.

Warm, funny and deeply moving, China Boy is a brilliantly rendered novel of family relationships, culture shock, and the perils of growing up in an America of sharp differences and shared humanity.

Genres: Fiction, China, Asian American, Coming Of Age, Asian Literature, Young Adult, Asia

336 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1991

Reviews

[Jena Lee Nardella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a 12 year old and am so glad to have read it again as an adult. I am proud of my father - for his story, his art with words and his courage to endure such a childhood. I feel as though I have the great gift of a family heritage beautifully captured in his words and I wish so much that I could have known my grandmother. This is a beautiful tale of identity, faith, redemption and the kind of impact adults can have on a child if when they are given a chance to be loved and believed in. I know I am biased, but I must be. This was heart-warming, heart-wrenching, poetic and delightful.

[Georgia Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Go ahead. Just read the first page and tell me you didn't laugh and get pulled in at the same time.
And I challenge anyone not to cheer when he finally stands up to the bullies outside and inside his home.

[Inbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

China Boy is a memoir about a young boy growing up in the ghettos of San Francisco. The book mainly focuses on his life after his mother's death, in which he is plunged into a world of bullying and abuse, mainly from his stepmother Edna and Big Willie, his main tormentor. However, he meets Toussaint, who becomes his only friend, who introduces him to the idea of fighting back again this oppressors. He convinces his dad to bring him to the Y, where he learns how to box. Soon, he will have to face the biggest challenge of his life, and the question is, will he be ready?

I absolutely adored this book. The whole plot was very well thought out, there is plenty of humor and sadness, and it was all-around just a good book. The only thing I would change is the first fifty or so pages, as I found them a bit tedious because they are about Chinese history and aren't about Kai. However, those extra pages add plenty of background knowledge to an already very believable book. Also, I thought the motifs were very powerful. To list one, there is plenty of violence. We encounter war veterans, domestic violence, child abuse, killing and bullying. Also, there are plenty of language varieties and poverty. I learned a lot about life outside of Lincoln park, a little about the Chinese revolution, and even a few boxing moves! To sum up, this is a wonderful memoir and I recommend it to everyone who likes to read. I rate this book four and a half stars.

[Jaimie Bruzenak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kai Ting's family fled China as Mao was taking over. They settled in the Panhandle of San Francisco, an area in transition and one of the rougher areas. Kai was born in the U.S. and over-protected because he was the 4th child and finally a boy was born. His mother wanted him to be a scholar or musician. When he started school, he escaped being beaten up - most times - by running. Once his mother died and his father remarried, life changed for both him and the 3rd sister. His stepmother, formerly a Philadelphia socialite who thought she was marrying money, hated all things Chinese and children. Kai was locked out of the house after school and after dinner. With no street smarts or social skills plus no decent food, Kai was small for his age, timid and became the neighborhood punching bag for boys proving their stuff or who were just plain mean. His nemesis was Big Willie, a huge 12-year-old.

Toos, a boy in his neighborhood, helped him some but the long and the short of it was that Kai would have to learn to defend himself. Fortunately, a neighborhood mechanic convinced Kai's dad to send him to the YMCA boxing program. Thus begins Kai's journey.

I have read any number of books about Chinese females - in China and who grew up in the U,S. This book, about a male, gave a different perspective. It is clearly autobiographical. I recommend it.

[Kaion · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, I gave up after slogging half of the way through. Impressive descriptive phrases aside, this novel is entirely tedious. Where's the plot arc? The protagonist comes off as a pasty, indolent child, spoiled soft by his position as the only son (born after three older sisters) of a Chinese couple relocated to San Francisco after the Cultural Revolution.

So what he has an almost-comically evil white stepmother? So what the author seeks to create a vibrant '50s hood? It's put to no use and the protagonist is a whiny wimp, not a victim of forced cultural assimilation.

What is amazing about children, what is amazing about immigrants facing off the cultural shock and inevitable clash- is adaptation. A character who adapts to nothing is useless. I would have much rather have heard the same story from the perspective of one of the protagonist's seemingly successful sisters. Rating: 1.5/5 stars

[Susan Cho · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think I can, I think I can was my motto while reading this book. Unfortunately, I was harshly defeated and ran out of gas halfway through this book. This book was very difficult to read because the storytelling was uninformative and the story simply lacked consistency and depth.

I tried with each chapter to reassure myself that the book would become engaging, but I was met with exceptional boredom; simply skipping over paragraphs to get to an interesting part. I never found that interesting part.

There was useless historical information, which I found added unnecessary layers to the book and various characters, which never lead to complete character development. All in all, I found this book to be as engaging as a textbook and as exciting as watching paint dry.

I do not recommend this book.

[Lp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book by accident. I was on vacation, it was sitting out somewhere, I picked it up, and was mesmerized. It's the story of a Chinese-American boy (gosh, ya think?) whose mother dies and whose family moves to a very rough, white, neighborhood. And on top of it all, a stepmother is added to the mix who doesn't like the boy so much and is dedicated to wringing all the Chinese out of the family.

Lee is a gifted story-teller, and this is an interesting story. It's funny and searing, but never stoops to self-pity (although the boy sometimes, understandably does).

This is semi-autobiographical, but the nonfiction version of this story is "Chasing Hepburn," which I bought but haven't read. Maybe I don't want to ruin "China Boy" by introducing another version into the mix.

[Vincent Nistico · Rating 2 out of 5]

I still can't believe (even after 8 years) that my high school changed the summer reading for freshman Honors English to this book. Descriptive of settings and situations, but this is countered by the terribly stereotypical depictions of people. The main character is a walking stereotype, and he, along with every other character, is totally one dimensional.
Other than displaying the racial prejudices of the time period, there are no real redeeming factors to this book. The schools should go back to reading Siddhartha.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

China Boy is beautifully written. Lee has a definite gift for description, and it was this gift that kept me engaged for about the first 75 pages...because the plot was thin. The beginning plot seemed scattered to me, weaving through different dates, alluding to events that hadn't happened yet, so it was hard for me to find a narrative to hold on to. While the storyline stayed slow, it did become apparent and kept me interested. Without giving spoilers, the last few pages of the book are by far the best. If the beginning was a little tighter, I would have given it five stars. As it is though, Gus Lee can describe the crap out of anything, his phrasing is so vivid.

[John Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely marvelous. It reads slow and the tragic story of Master Ting seeps into you... I couldn't put this book down and feel like I lived it. Never have I rooted for the little guy so much.

You hear a lot of books called 'Masterful' but there isn't really a better way to describe the whole of this story. Within vivid descriptions of the city, Lee describes an epic clash of cultures and the raging torrents of confused expectations the children born from them endure. China Boy is bigger than big.

[Mercedes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is about boxing. Had I known that, I probably wouldn't have picked it up, but the blurb on the back described a novel that sounded interesting: a Chinese-American boy with immigrant parents living in San Francisco and dealing with the turbulent race and class issues of the 1950s: interesting! A book about childhood boxing at the S.F. YMCA: not so much, at least for me.

[Gene Wee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this many years ago and enjoyed it the second time catching more details. I like the fact that Kai Ting was an outsider to the Chinatown Chinese as I would be as a Midwestern American-born Chinese. While the story is in Kai Ting's voice, he often makes comments from his older adult self with appropriate cultural references from all over. I seem to like stories of outsiders trying to fit in (e.g., Outlander, Stranger in a Strange Land, Dances with Wolves)

[Books I'm Not Reading · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, another disappointing read! If the true nature of the story had been clearer - maybe a better description on the back of the book? - my reading expectations would have been very different. There were some lovely moments at the beginning and a great scene at the end of the book, but it just was not at all what I was expecting.

[Geraldine Dwlf · Rating 4 out of 5]

De enige reden dat ik het geen 5 sterren geef is omdat ik het in het begin echt heel hard vond (gaat over een jongetje dat veel in elkaar geslagen wordt). Na enkele hoofdstukken maakt hij eindelijk zijn eerste vriend en vanaf dan heeft het verhaal me helemaal meegesleept! De schrijfstijl, de bekende wijken in San Francisco, de personal development vd personages.. top top!!

[Emilye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a crazy memoir. So tragic and sad and still very hopeful. Way too many f-words to slog through but I guess that would be expected growing up in inner city San Francisco.

A story that will stay with me.

[Julia Haas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting reading a book from the perspective of a 7 year old. Heartbreaking and charming and yet somehow simultaneously soul crushing and uplifting? An emotionally tiring read but I’m glad I did.

[Sarah Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is extremely powerful, though it can be a tough read. I’m amazed by how something so dark and troubling can also leave you feeling triumphant. I had a hard time getting through the first couple of chapters of this book (interest level wise) and then some of the other content was very difficult to read (major content warning for violence, child abuse, and extreme poverty), but wow am I so glad I did. I’m in awe of this author. If you do read this, go back and read the acknowledgements again after you finish. The line about Toos broke me 💔

[Anthony Salazar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible prose, repetitive plot, and agonizingly slow pacing. Do not read this book.

[Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the beginning of this book. The quiet, painful, and beautiful longing for his mom is certainly something I sympathize with. He describes her so vividly -- I'm surprised he remembers so much given that she died when he was relatively young. I hope to also have these vivid memories.

I love the ironies and conflicts that comes from being multi-cultural. Being in between two worlds seems normal to you until someone tells you it's not.

What I don't like is his writing style sometimes. He sometimes tries too hard to be funny or witty and engages in unnecessary hyperboles.

Also, I'm growing tired of his descriptions of his attempts at boxing. I'm not sure if it's done purposefully to illustrate how long it took him to get a decent punch in, or maybe because that part doesn't peak my interest that much but either way, it's dragging on at this point.

I'm nearing the end and just get sad at his family's " assimilation" forced by his American stepmother who hates anything Chinese and who burnt all memories of his mother. I was so pained by that! I guess I'm hoping that at the end, he takes back the culture that he was forced to lose. I see his Chinese culture directly related to his mom. Once she died, his growing knowledge of the language and culture went. It didn't go naturally. It was literally killed by his new stepmother. I'm sad about it because she robbed him of something so precious and self-enhancing, as I believe a person who is multi-cultural is blessed b/c she/he can understand and easily adapt to a wider range of things -- thus experience-enhancing. But whatever, I digress.

I'm just curious to see what happens at the end.

[Sharon Cohen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The beginning of this book is interesting, explaining how his family ended up immigrating from china to the streets of San Francisco. The story first seems to be about a boy's relationship with his mother while living with his immigrant family. Very soon in the book though, we find out his mother is dead, and the rest of the story is a long, overstretched description of Kai's evil stepmother and going to the YMCA. The writing is exaggerated, dripping with clichès. The plot itself is not very interesting, other than Kai's relationships with some of his friends and his streetfights. I had to read this book for class to learn about "self identity". The character's struggle to find a medium between being American and Chinese is the only important concept that rises to the surface in this story. Overall, it was not a very good read.

[Xu Li · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that this book reminded me about my Chinese background. In China, boys were favored in the family because they brought on the family name. Today, the Chinese society has changed a little like the American society. Women do not have to stay home to watch the children and so they have more choices. The main character, Kai ting is a little like me because I am also a curious type of person. Since I am the oldest in my family, I always ask my older cousins about China. Like Kai Ting, I immigrated to America at a young age and so I'm not exactly an expert in the Chinese culture.When I was little, many of the Spanish people living in my building would always refer to me as the Chinese girl. So, I understand that Kai Ting went through than just being called China boy.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a young immigrant boy living in a rough neighborhood in San Francisco in the 50s. I did get a tired of the detailed descriptions of boxing and sometimes found the cruelty of his stepmother and the passivity and indifference of his father a little unbelievable, but it was a great story, with clearly drawn characters, surprising insights into human nature, and good, strong prose. It was hard not to root for the character. My favorite part of the story was the description of the men from his neighborhood who understood the boy's predicament, knew that it was up to him to stand up to both the fears and the bullies that tormented him, and did what they could to help him. This story couldn't be told today. The boys would have guns. Courage and skill wouldn't matter.

[Becky Marietta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book. Lee begins the book with evocative descriptions of the traditional life of a Chinese immigrant family, then moves on to describe San Francisco in the 50s. His character depictions are chillingly believable, and the plot really does sweep the reader along. Towards the middle, he mires the book down with too much street lingo (I know he was going for authentic speech, but long dialogues where I have to decipher meaning really upset the flow of the story) and too many description of boxing terms. Once I began to skim through those parts, though, I was fine.

The end was wonderful--Lee actually had me sick to my stomach with fearful anticipation, just like his character was supposed to be feeling. And I thought the last couple of sentences of the book were spot-on perfect.

[Kirstin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not care for the writing style of at all. I found it much too wordy. Someone really needs to take this guy’s thesaurus away. Here is an example from the book that I found just silly, “My aunt’s cranium was analytical, mathematically driven and poorly suited to coexist with mother’s passionate persona.” I guess I didn't realize skull bones could be so talented.

I also didn't care for the story. The first part of the book was rough to get through with all the cruelty, cruelty among children and cruelty of adults towards children. It seemed like things might pick up when the boy got involved with the YMCA and met some great mentors but that is when all the boxing talk started. The detailed descriptions of fights just went on and on and I found it soooo boring.

[Joshua Ng · Rating 5 out of 5]

China Boy was an excellent book. There were tons of different amazing descriptions about the characters. When I was reading the novel it seemed like I was standing on the sidelines watching what was happening. The descriptions were so intense. It seemed to be real. There were tons of scenes were I could have related to because some of the things has happened in my life because our parents can kind of be the same. But at one point of the book there was a part which was really boring to me and everything seemed so interesting to me. But overall it is one of the best books I have every read in my life.

[Nikki Handros · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that someone gave me more than 10 years, but I kept putting it aside every time I ran across it despite the glowing comments on the paperback's cover.
Too bad -- it is quite a touching story. A seven-year-old Chinese boy growing up in the 1950's in San Francisco is bullied for his size and his ethnicity. He is really adrift, having lost a mother to whom he was extremely devoted.
His father marries a difficult American woman who shuns all things Chinese, banning any practices that might help the boy to better assimilate into the challenging American culture.
I suspect that some of the experiences may mirror those of the book's author, a Chinese-American himself.

[Erik Orrantia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to respect the writing of the book, the editing, and the intelligence of the author. That being said, I didn't find the story very believable--a seven year-old boxing and whose parents don't seem to care that he's locked outside with bullies who pulverize his face constantly! Even the teachers and school staff don't notice his contusions, split lips, bruises, etc. Really? If any of this is true, it's terribly sad, though since I have no evidence of its truthfulness, I simply find it a little too hard to swallow. A bit of a slow story, it took a long time to get going and often seemed like more of a lesson on boxing than overcoming personal obstacles.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book and I was easy to relate to it. China boy is about Kai Ting who comes to San Francisco looking for a better life because in China the Mao's revolution was coming into action. This limited their freedom in China so they came over to America. Like many American Literature, he wants to achieve his American dream of becoming successful. He goes through rough times like his mother dying and now his step mother wants to remove everything that has to do with Asian in his house. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good and easy read.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the story of Kai as a young boy growing up in San Frnacisco in the 1950's. It addresses growing up in a rough neighborhood and delaing with clashing cultures and racisim. It also shows how those cultures can be bridged and the power of cross generational realtionships. Kai also has to deal with strained family relationships when his father remarries an American woman. Kai comes into his own by the end of the book with help from his friends at the YMCA and his own determination. It's amazing what you can do when someone believes in you and you start believing in yourself.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kai Ting, the protagonist of this book, is put through a tremendous struggle between two enemies: Big Willie Mac, the neighborhood bully, and Edna, his anti-asian stepmother. Throughout the rough one and a half years that are shown in the book, Kai makes slow progress until he is finally able to stand up to both Edna and Willie Mac. My favorite part would have to be when Kai stands up to Willie Mac because it shows how much the YMCA has helped him. I would definitely recommend this work of art by Gus Lee.