Awards
2005 Benjamin Franklin Award PMA, Best Cover Design
2005 IPPY Award for Multicultural Nonfiction Adult
2005 Best Book of the Year Silver Award, Autobiography/Memoir, ForeWord Magazine
Synopses & Reviews
In
The Golden Mountain, Irene Kai tells a deeply personal story of how she overcame cultural bias and a difficult mother to move from China to America and become an independent woman.
The child of a loveless arranged marriage, Kai was born into a culture where women were told to accept their fate and not question authority. Beginning with her great-grandmother, Wong Oi, who was humiliated by her husband's concubine, Kai traces the lives of women in her family through three generations until she reaches her own childhood. As a teen, Kai was brought to New York City by her American-born mother and began to rebel against her mother's physical and psychological abuses. In New York, she also discovered art, sexuality, and herself. Finding the strength to prosper in the "Golden Mountain," Kai made her own life and became truly independent, but she could not forget from where she came in a poignant finale, Kai comes to terms with the family she left behind.
An uplifting, unpredictable story, The Golden Mountain is a book about overcoming, and coming to terms with, one's culture.
Synopsis
A journey back in time: this is the gripping tale of four generations of Chinese women who live and die under the restrictions of their culture. Except for one: the author. Read her story of growing up in Hong Kong and her transition to New York City where she struggled to meld the American dream with her ethnic background. Finally, at age 50, she dares to move into the present and understand the true nature of dreams and what it means to live. A deeply inspiring tale of a woman claiming her power.