Val Wang's quirky memoir, Beijing Bastard, takes a candid look at the ties that bind people together despite cultural, generational and familial divides as well as shows a changing superpower at the beginning of the 21st century. As Wang turns exile and escape into her own heartwarming reality, her emotional journey parallels the insecurities of an emergent China, whose march toward global acceptance has changed the lives of its citizens forever.
Wang came from an overachieving Chinese family; her parents were eager to see the next generation through Ivy League colleges into careers in law or medicine. As an exchange student living in Sweden, Wang took a mutinous turn from her parents' wishes when she saw Beijing Bastards, an idealistic Chinese documentary that spoke to her alienation and restlessness and kindled her interest in film. She took a job as editor of an English-language Beijing weekly and moved into an old courtyard home with her father's relatives, where she endured the same familial battles and philosophical struggles that haunted her in the U.S. Even as she found her niche in journalism and filmmaking, Wang's linguistic and cultural misunderstandings led to countless humorous conflicts. "The very thing I had resisted learning as a child was whipping around and delivering a roadhouse kick to my head," she writes of her stumbles with the language.
Beijing Bastard is a modern comedy of manners and a fresh take on the Lost in Translation theme of an American abroad, learning about herself in ways she doesn't expect, all with a Chinese twist. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant