Reviews for Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora, Vol. 1

The average rating for Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora, Vol. 1 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-10-04 00:00:00 Shannon Adams Another book that I had from college (a seminar on the Chinese diaspora), which I decided to re-read because it looked interesting and I think I just skimmed it in school. Pretty good, but I think I remember why I skimmed it: the author spends way too much time on Malaysia and Indonesia and hardly any time at all on North and South America or Europe or Africa or Australia. She mentions all these places, mind you, she just kinda gives them short shrift. She'll whiz by something about chinese in Sydney or Vancouver, and then spend another ten pages on traders from Java or Singapore. I realize that a huge number of Chinese immigrants ended up in Southeast Asia, but really, I think there was a little more to say about some other parts of the world. Especially when she gets into lengthy bios of successful immigrants, we get almost nothing about Chinese Americans. Part of this is because the author doesn't seem to really think that Chinese Americans count, because they are too Americanized for her liking and don't speak chinese anymore, but it seems like her diaspora history is sort of incomplete without them. She's also kinda obvious in her feeling that Chinese culture is superior to Malay or Javanese or Vietnamese or other cultures. She doesn't say it outright but I got that sense. Not that that's so weird, she's Chinese, she should have a certain preference for her own native culture, but the tone of the book does seem to wander a bit from objectivity. All in all, it has many interesting tidbits, but if you are looking for a book about Chinese people ALL over the world, this doesn't really cut it.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-02-23 00:00:00 Pedro Agapay Interesting but some bits were dense.