Once Upon A Time In the East by Xiaolu Guo

Author : Xiaolu Guo
Title : Once Upon A Time In The East
Published : 01/02/2018
Pages : 336
Genre : Autobiography
Publisher : Vintage

     As I moved from one city to the next, from one country to the next, I have had to abandon the people I have known, and the places I've loved and lived in. In the end, I am always alone. I always feel very alienated anywhere I go or stay, either in a hotel room or in someone's house. I never feel I belong to anywhere and now I have come to terms with it. Xiaolu Guo meets her parents for the first time when she is almost seven. They are strangers to her.

     Sometimes I like to change things up, most of the books I choose to read are fiction I like the escape the offer. It's fun to immerse my self in the lives I will never live and go to places I can only dream of. But sometimes you have to step away from this and walk a few miles in the footsteps of others. When it comes to autobiography's I try and spread the people I read about out. It works not only to give perspective on our own lives, but also to gain knowledge of the world we live in. To see how although we all live on this one tiny planet in a universe of thousands the possibilities for our lives are infinite, some for better and some for worse.

      I was pulled to this book due to my interest in China.  It is somewhere that I spent time a few years ago and ever since I have felt a great connection to not only in this country but it's people. Xiaolu's life is one that covers a multitude of highs and lows,  from the my very first meeting with her in chapter one I felt captivated by her story. As someone who grew up in a family that held it's self together, the thought of my parents giving me up not long after my birth is something I have never had to face. For me, the author brought this struggle to me in a way that allowed me to face this very topic. She shows how you can struggle to find your identity with the loss of family, the people who teach us about not only the world we live in but also our heritage. They are things we tend to take for granted too often. She also brought to life and of the page what China was like in the seventies. A country still in transition, People who lived through Mao's coming to power and how he changed an entire country. 

     Throughout this book, Xiaolu speaks with a brutal honesty of her life and all the things she had to go through to find her self-writing this book. She opened my eyes to the harsh reality that faced many children at this time. It is as far as I am concerned impossible not to feel a connection to her and a great deal of empathy for everything she went through. This is a woman who struggled to get everything she wanted in life but fought with all she had to achieve her goals. From what I have read the life of an artist in China is not an easy one especially if what you view as your art does not align with that of the party officials. She is someone who feels like she has tried to live her life by her own rules. By the time I finished, I had a great deal of admiration for her and the choices she made. It was also a curious thing to see her coming to England, I am always drawn to the stories of people coming here and how they see this tiny island I call home. Too often I think we see our countries locked in a certain way. Despite her struggles with learning my language and trying to find a living, I was happy to see that she made it. That people can come here and succeed, it gives me some hope for the future. 

     She writes in a style that makes her book accessible to anyone one and gives a great insight into her life. Both raw and honest, it feels like she has emptied her every thought and emotion into trying to help people grasp her life. I would like to thank the author for publishing her book and giving me the chance to get to better know someone I will never meet but feel a connection to. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn a bit about life in China and also this author.