The House of Lim: A Study of a Chinese Family

As a chinese knowing 70's chinese farming life, I found that the daily details the author picked to present are very real and worth to keep. Sometimes, I even doubt that the author is a local taiwaness. Though you may not believe many details if your experinces about China/Taiwan are only from recent days, you can not deny something recorded in 60's. I personally think this is a very valuable book to keep the ordinary life of Chinese/taiwaness life befor the globelization or before the invade of Westen cultures. As an anthropologist rather than a historian, the author is strong in details, and the attempts to keep the details without the prejudice(you may doubt though?!). Are not those details truly the history? So, I guess that the value of this book will be truly found when Chinese/taiwaness find the book totally foreign. Let us witness.

I read this book for an anthropology class. I find it very enjoyable as a novel (very lively dialogues and interesting characters, some of whom you will like and identify with), but I question its credibility as an ethnography. Half of the people in my class believed that the author is biased, and that her views towards the women are especially harsh. As someone who is familiar with Taiwan (the book is not about mainland China), I find some descriptions/observations from the book very foreign. Just don't make too much out of the book.

Being a student at Johns Hopkins University, and majoring in East Asian Studies, I found this book to be very educating and interesting. The stories are fast paced, and the reader needs no prior understanding of Chinese society and tradition. This is a story of a Chinese farm family entangled in conflict, and the methods in which the father, Lim Han-Ci, and later, the second son, Lim Chieng-cua, operate to maintain the traditions and honor of the family. One of Wolf's strengths in this book is her interaction with the Lim family, and her reactions to different events. She understands the culture and traditions of a farm family in 1930's Taiwan, yet is able to put a Western perspective on all of it. Ms. Wolf is able to show that the most important thing to a Chinese man is tradition, face, filial piety, honor, and respect. In sum, Wolf's understanding of the integral relationships between parents, foster parents, children, adopted children, wives, second wives, and even the locals, enables us to gain a full perspective of why certain family issues were relevant, and how they were properly adhered to. This work is a brilliant contribution to our understanding of the Chinese family hiearchy, and why discrimination, sex biasness, and family honor was so important to so many different generations in Chinese society.