What Never Leaves Daniel TamClaiborne 9780692212134 Books
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In his debut work of fiction, Daniel Tam-Claiborne chronicles the experience of living and working as an English teacher in the rural Chinese town of Taigu. In a collection of twenty-two short stories organized around the theme of culture shock, he intersperses the narrative with scenes from his journeys further afield, while constantly questioning his own identity as a Chinese American. What Never Leaves is a fascinating and often startling look into China’s modern culture and the ceaseless search for understanding in a foreign land. With humor, poise, and curiosity, Tam-Claiborne weaves an intricate portrait of a young man struggling through what it means to travel and what makes us human.
What Never Leaves Daniel TamClaiborne 9780692212134 Books
"What Never Leaves" is a lightly fictionalized account of the author’s two-year teaching stint in the small northern Chinese city of Taigu, Shanxi Province, and also his Asian travels during this time. Shanxi is definitely a hardship posting – pollution, coal dust, and dust storms in the spring – and that’s especially true in a one-horse town like Taigu. It doesn’t, for example, get a mention in the Lonely Planet travel guide section on Shanxi, not even marked on the provincial map. Basically, it sounds like a crap place to spent a couple of years, but character-building, and as such an excellent setting for an account of teaching English in China’s fly-over country.Unfortunately, the author largely squanders the opportunities this setting gave him. And that’s a real pity because the writing itself is good, and honest, and the book has some nice moments which anyone who’s lived in China will be able to relate to. There’s a great scene when he’s auditioning for a part in a television series and he’s not blond enough. Another funny vignette involves a local “western-style” restaurant.
The author comes across as likeable, funny, and honest, though overly introspective for my tastes. I would have preferred more of a narrative plot. Author Tam-Claiborne uses the stages of culture shock as a framework to hang vignettes; not a bad idea at all, but the execution is undermined I feel by interruptions to the story in the form of overseas travels. Rather than immerse us in the gritty town of Taigu and give us a taste of being isolated out in the boonies and a feel for the passage of seasons and semesters, we’re dragged off set every few chapters. He goes to Korea, a couple of chapters later he's in India, some chapters more and he's in Japan, a couple of chapters later it's Laos, and then after just one chapter back in China he is overseas again, this time in Thailand. And there are also some trips in China. I think it would have worked much better concentrating on Taigu and Shanxi (and perhaps one trip to Beijing).
I’ve just read through this review and it seems a bit harsh. Although I was disappointed (I came in with high expectations, having had the book recommended enthusiastically to me by Quincy Carrol) I still enjoyed much of it . The degree to which you enjoy the book will probably be a matter of how closely your own circumstances and experiences match the author’s.
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Tags : What Never Leaves [Daniel Tam-Claiborne] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In his debut work of fiction, Daniel Tam-Claiborne chronicles the experience of living and working as an English teacher in the rural Chinese town of Taigu. In a collection of twenty-two short stories organized around the theme of culture shock,Daniel Tam-Claiborne,What Never Leaves,Wilder Voice Books,0692212132,Essays & Travelogues,TRAVEL Asia China,TRAVEL Essays & Travelogues,Travel - General,Travel writing,TravelAsia - China
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What Never Leaves Daniel TamClaiborne 9780692212134 Books Reviews
So I stole this book off of Daniel's shelf since I couldn't hold back my curiosity any more. Daniel was actually one of my teaching fellows, so before reading this book, I had only known him in his professional role. With that in mind, I can say that the book felt very honest to me, and it felt very vulnerable. It made me feel like I got to know him outside of the classroom in a way that almost felt like I, perhaps as his student, was not supposed to be reading something so personal.
Anyway, I think it's kind of funny for someone so young to write a memoir (it's supposed to be "fiction"), but the events are interesting enough that I suppose it's justified. There are a bunch of funny moments in the book, and I hope that they're universally funny, but they were especially funny to me, as someone who has also spent a lot of time in Asia, especially China. I especially recommend this book to people who have wrestled with the idea of being Asian American.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it to be a departure from other travelogue type novels/memoirs that I've read. The author honestly discloses instances of culture shock throughout these chapters but in a way that seems fair to both individual and culture yet not remotely sugarcoated and sometimes even painful. Tam Claiborne uses this as a jumping off point to write similarly about other aspects of the human experience identity, relationships, and education. I found this book to be a perfect mix of travelogue, pseudo-philosophical meditation, and identity tale. Tam Claiborne expertly conveys his particular experience but in doing so strikes a common nerve and also teaches you some fun facts along the way. Five stars.
“Why should I blame anyone but myself if I cannot understand what I know nothing about?”
We are all—even the best of us—quick to judge. The unfamiliar confuses, upsets, and undermines our conventions, forcing us to put aside what we’re accustomed to, including the distinct, learned ways in which we’ve come to think. This is uncomfortable for many, as it presupposes an inherent deficit, if not outright fault, on the part of the observer. Pablo Picasso penned the line above in a statement entitled “Picasso Speaks” to voice his frustrations at those who would so easily dismiss his art. “I do not read English,” he argued, but “this does not mean that the English language does not exist.”
The impulse toward summary judgment is common among expats in Asia, and too many memoirs have been written in such a vein, stressing the kooky and the exotic, while complaining about the backwardness of the place. This isn’t to say that the perspective is baseless, but rather that it’s a boorish, too-obvious way of looking at the world. Oftentimes, what we dismiss as weird is actually surprisingly complex (think Cubism)—it just takes a willingness to engage with one’s environment empathetically enough (and long enough) to understand.
Daniel Tam-Claiborne’s debut work of fiction, What Never Leaves, a selection of twenty-two short stories (or, perhaps more accurately, vignettes) detailing the experiences of an English teacher in rural China, does just this; it is an earnest attempt to process two years lived abroad, written with an honesty and vulnerability that jumps off the page. Tam-Claiborne details episodes that will be familiar to anyone who has lived in-country (the initial disorientation of one’s arrival, the constant staring, the uneasy relationship with local “Western” food, being offered acting gigs solely on the basis of one’s nationality), and his ability to write about such everyday observations with sincerity and compassion lends a real credibility to the text. There is no posturing here, and although some readers may find the narrator, at times, bungling and naïve, he feels like an honest representation of the callow, well-intentioned, foreign teacher archetype.
The book will certainly be a challenge for those who have never lived abroad, particularly in China, since there’s nothing in the way of a traditional narrative arc holding the stories together. There’s a chronological progression to the vignettes, which are grouped according to the seven stages of culture shock (Arrival, Settling In, Rejection, Despair, Clarity, Acceptance, and lastly, Leaving), and though this does provide a measure of structure to the work, it’s probably not enough to maintain the interest of readers without any direct connection to teaching and/or China. WNL is a slice-of-life tale that’s best opened with the expectation of reading one man’s journal. But it is a beautiful, introspective, and truthful recounting, and that certainly has its worth.
Another issue the author wrestles with is his mixed-race heritage; as the son of a Chinese mother, he quickly comes to realize that “there was a whole other level to my experience living there that lay beneath the surface.” His students wonder at his black hair, he senses “an intrinsic connection to the place … borne of the spiritual more than anything else,” and he is denied an acting gig in a television drama when the director learns about his mother, asking, in utter bewilderment, “Then how can you say that you’re American?” Much of the book focuses on the narrator trying to make sense of his position When is he a Chinese versus a foreigner? A teacher versus a friend? WNL is filled with such doubts, and this creates a psychological backdrop to the text which allows one to feel as if he/she were there. And now, knowing something about the experience, the reader—by way of the narrator—can start to understand.
"What Never Leaves" is a lightly fictionalized account of the author’s two-year teaching stint in the small northern Chinese city of Taigu, Shanxi Province, and also his Asian travels during this time. Shanxi is definitely a hardship posting – pollution, coal dust, and dust storms in the spring – and that’s especially true in a one-horse town like Taigu. It doesn’t, for example, get a mention in the Lonely Planet travel guide section on Shanxi, not even marked on the provincial map. Basically, it sounds like a crap place to spent a couple of years, but character-building, and as such an excellent setting for an account of teaching English in China’s fly-over country.
Unfortunately, the author largely squanders the opportunities this setting gave him. And that’s a real pity because the writing itself is good, and honest, and the book has some nice moments which anyone who’s lived in China will be able to relate to. There’s a great scene when he’s auditioning for a part in a television series and he’s not blond enough. Another funny vignette involves a local “western-style” restaurant.
The author comes across as likeable, funny, and honest, though overly introspective for my tastes. I would have preferred more of a narrative plot. Author Tam-Claiborne uses the stages of culture shock as a framework to hang vignettes; not a bad idea at all, but the execution is undermined I feel by interruptions to the story in the form of overseas travels. Rather than immerse us in the gritty town of Taigu and give us a taste of being isolated out in the boonies and a feel for the passage of seasons and semesters, we’re dragged off set every few chapters. He goes to Korea, a couple of chapters later he's in India, some chapters more and he's in Japan, a couple of chapters later it's Laos, and then after just one chapter back in China he is overseas again, this time in Thailand. And there are also some trips in China. I think it would have worked much better concentrating on Taigu and Shanxi (and perhaps one trip to Beijing).
I’ve just read through this review and it seems a bit harsh. Although I was disappointed (I came in with high expectations, having had the book recommended enthusiastically to me by Quincy Carrol) I still enjoyed much of it . The degree to which you enjoy the book will probably be a matter of how closely your own circumstances and experiences match the author’s.
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