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The writing was very stilted feeling, who‘s is perhaps more on the translator than the author, but I lost interest 17% in.

Set in 15th century China, this is the story of Tan Yunxian, a remarkable woman who was schooled by her grandparents from a young age as a doctor. She loses her mother when she is a girl, marries into a successful family at 15, and grows in medical knowledge and skill throughout her life. We follow the seasons of her life, through difficulty and success, as she builds relationships with the women around her. Very interesting historical fiction.

“Apparently some quirk of human nature allows even the most unspeakable acts of evil to become banal within minutes, provided only that they occur far enough away to pose no personal threat.“

It was true in the Japanese massacre of Nanking, it was true in the Jewish Holocaust, in the genocides in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda, in #Palestine, and so many others unnamed. Why are we like this?

To honor my #Chinese roots during this years' #SpringFestival, I read this very important and very sobering, devastating book. Although extremely well-written, it is a horrifyingly captivating and very challenging read to get through because of the atrocities that the Japanese performed against the Chinese in the 1930s and #WWIi and the subsequent coverups by the Japanese government through the present day. (Continued in comments) ⬇️

Such a lovely tribute to a mother and grandmother. Strength and perseverance at its best.

On #Holocaust Remembrance Day as well as the week that Lunar New Year begins, I am starting this very important book by Iris Chang which details the massacre of Nanking by Japanese forces during #WWII. Much less well-known than the genocide in Europe, but no less horrifying.

Read this for work & thought I would mention it for two reasons. First, if you are interested in geography, mapmaking, the process of discovery, this offers a fascinating, albeit it scholarly, look at the subject (fair warning, it is definitely aimed at students/academics). More importantly, every time I read something like this, I marvel at people venturing out into the world without GPS, without knowing much about what is beyond the horizon.

I‘m on a roll with the tough memoirs of horrible lived experiences. This is a topic I had little to no knowledge of prior to reading this book: the oppression of the Uyghur people in China. Izgil, an intellectual, recalls his life under strict rule with lyrical writing, a sharp contrast to what he calls and his family endured. Constantly scared of reprimand, never knowing who may sell them out for owning the wrong book. Unbelievable but real.