| Edition |
First edition |
| Description |
viii, 204 pages ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
Introduction -- Part I : China -- The interpreter has arrived -- Childhood years -- Living in a pressure cooker -- An indispensable experience -- Run, never walk again -- Part II : America -- A sour bite on the big apple -- Walking into a labyrinth -- From assimilation to transformation -- The making of a court interpreter. |
| Summary |
"Like millions of immigrants from their homeland to a foreign country, Feng’s journey to America was as strenuous as others in its own way. Equally powerful and engaging as the story in Feng’s memoir, many similar stories of his fellow interpreters have a common thread weaving through their narratives. These are the stories of unfaltering immigrants seeking after opportunities by studying diligently and working industriously to earn the exceptional privilege of being an American that is secured by the liberty to choose. Growing up in China from the 50s to the 70s when freedom of choice had been denied for three decades, identity politics in the name of class struggle was the lethal weapon for the Chinese revolution. Feng was looked upon as a “black child” from a “black family” versus the “red ones”, because his father was persecuted as a rightist and sent to a labor-reform camp in 1957 for two decades for what he had expressed. His childhood home was ransacked by the Red Guards for the evidence of anti-socialism and communism, and bourgeoisie lifestyle during the Cultural Revolution. Following millions of other youth who left schools without diplomas, Feng was assigned to work by the government four times from the age of 16–24. Instead of finishing basic education during the last year of middle school, Feng was assigned to learn farming in a commune and haircutting in a barbershop as part of the reeducation program advocated by Mao. Thereafter, he was assigned to work on a state-owned farm as his employment for seven years. After the Cultural Revolution, Feng began learning English aired on radio at the farm before he returned to Shanghai in 1979 with permission from the government. However, Feng had to replace his mother's employment at the cost of her early retirement at 49, and was assigned to work at an elementary school for eleven years. During the same period, Feng continued studying English in evening classes and earned his BA degree from Shanghai International Studies University. Before applying for his passport to attend graduate school in America, Feng had to obtain permission again from the Party authority to leave his employment. To Feng, the transformation from having little or no choice of his own in China in the 60’s and 70’s to possessing his own autonomy to choose willingly and freely in America has been a far-reaching one. Before then, Feng never realized that coinciding with freedom of speech, freedom of choice is also an inalienable human right. Without freedom of speech, an individual's liberty to choose where to live, to school, to move, to work, and when to resign or retire can never be guaranteed."-- Amazon. |
| Subject |
Translators -- China -- Biography.
|
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Translators -- United States -- Biography.
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Chinese Americans -- Connecticut -- Biography.
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Immigrants -- Connecticut -- Biography.
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Shanghai (China) -- Biography.
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BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Personal Memoirs.
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BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Cultural, Ethnic & Regional -- Asian & Asian American.
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Translators. (OCoLC)fst01154833
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Chinese Americans. (OCoLC)fst00857249
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Immigrants. (OCoLC)fst00967712
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China -- Shanghai.
(OCoLC)fst01205418
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| Genre/Form |
Biographies. (OCoLC)fst01919896
|
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Autobiographies. (OCoLC)fst01919894
|
|
Biographies.
|
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Autobiographies.
|
| ISBN |
9798700117913 |
|
