The Good Women of China - Book Review

Book - The good women of China. Hidden Voices
Author - Xinran
Publisher - Vintage

Women are a topic, which has fascinated many from the earliest of times. I picked up this book in Bangalore not because of any similar fascination but since I have been living in china for almost 6 months now so I thought it was a good chance to know more about anything Chinese as it always helps in conversing with people in a foreign country about their things.

The author was a journalist cum radio show presenter presenting a show on women called "words on the night breeze". In her search to understand women better she interviews many women across china. The book contains narration from those interviews and thus comprises of real life stories of Chinese women. It is well written but contains only sad stories about women at different levels of society, in different regions of the country and of different ages. Still most of the stories come from the time of Chinese military revolution.

It would be easier to relate to the book if one has been in touch with China for some time. Through the book I realized my observations about Chinese women were not very incorrect since the book articulated on the same lines as well.

1. Women in China are considered as a mere object of pleasure. Though the same is attributed to women around the world but what makes it interesting in China is the acceptance of this fact by women and thus further encouraging this for personal gains.
2. Though in general it seems women are at par with men in China because they can be found in all professions that men are a part of but this remains true only as long as the jobs are the labour level jobs.

I think stories like this about women might exist in all parts of world. But, the author is trying to correct the illusion anybody might have of women in China having a better life than that of women in other places.

Thai Airways vs. Singapore Airlines

While traveling from Bangalore to Beijing this time I got Thai airways tickets instead of Singapore airlines from the travel department of my company. Though I love Singapore (I have been on the airport only, bt I still love it), I still thought its good I get to try another airlines and their services. Well here is a small summary from my side comparing the two.

Thai does not starts serving a hot towel to clean hands and face. If you are starting from Bangalore it is a must because of the dust and pollution that you have to fight on the way to the airport.

Now if the flight is 4 or more hours and you are traveling international you expect your personalized TV because it can be boring to travel that long without anything to do and one big LCD some 15 feet away makes no sense.

The Flight was delayed by 1 hour. Well I doubt it was those air traffic jam reason because the Singapore airlines plane standing on my right side scheduled to depart 1 hour after us departed before we even moved. Though it might not be a regular affair but it was in this case.

There is no menu for the meals giving information about what one can choose to eat and know beforehand what all is available onboard. There is no glass holder on the front seat tray.

I did not find the food good enough either (though this could vary from individual to individual).

The airhostess/airhost are a little slow to react to your needs.
The magazine really does not contain good content to go through(and this despite there being no TV to watch your desired movie)

For the connecting passengers Thai airways does not boarding pass for the second flight from the original city as is the case with SQ (Sing air). So one has to stand in the queue again to get the next boarding pass. There were only 8-10 counters for issuing boarding passes. This is a small number for the number of passengers who were transiting even at 4AM. Unfortunately the queue in which I stood was so slow (of course all of them were so long as well that I did not dare to quit my line and join another after I realized mine was much slower than the other). I had to stand for 1 hour 20 minutes in the queue to collect my boarding pass (one can call it as a time pass). This is quite ridiculous that the next boarding pass is not issued despite flying by the same airlines. On top of this the Bangkok airport is not full of shops or any entertainment facilities(like Singapore airport).

Now having cribbed enough about the poor chaps some of the good things that I came across were the better legroom on Thai (both flights, Bangalore - Bangkok and Bangkok - Beijing). One of the onboard music channels offered Hindi music. And the seats were more stretchable.

So if you have a choice between these two on your travel route then my suggestion would be Singapore Airlines. Especially if you have a connecting flight and your break is for more than 4 hours.

There is a possibility that because I have not been disappointed by Singapore airlines' service even once of the 8 times I have boarded it, my expectations have increased.

But then obviously Thai Airways is cheaper than Singapore Airlines.

Back to Square 1

The definition of back is kind of loosing its meaning for me as over the last few days I have been saying "I am back" but every time this sentence of mine comes from a different place.

25th April when I reached Jammu after traveling 36 hours nonstop from Huhhot(China)->Beijing->Singapore->Bangalore->Delhi->Jammu and I met my relatives and all of them asked, so when did u come back. I Just said "today". Then I resumed office in Bangalore on 02-May-2007 and all the people in the office asked hey! so when did u return? I said "yesterday night". Now after being back here in China for the last 2 days I still say "I am back". Upon landing on the huhhot airport I said to the Taxi driver "Jiare jodiyan" = Holiday Inn, he said yes. Then I said "do she chian" = how much, and he said "oosher" = 50 and I said "bu" = no. I said "se sher" = 40 and he said "hao de" = ok. I guess I am getting absorbed here.

The burger life has re-started and here and "back" to square 1.

What else?

2 weeks back while I was travelling from China to India and I met another Indian on Singapore airport(I had a flight from beijing to bangalore via Singapore).

I will call him X.

X was travelling from US to India. He was with his family and was visting India after 3 years having settled in the US. It made me feel better as I was travelling after mere 5 months.

While we were talking about everything else about my work and his work, he asked me a question. "So what else do you do other than the usual work for your employer?" . I said - I read books. Based on my area of interest he did ask me some of the authors if I have read them and I had not read most of them, which did prove that I was not one of those avid readers who just read and read.

Then he again asked "so what else do you do?" Well I really did not have a good answer, infact I did not have any answer. Since that day I have been thinking what do I really do with most of my time? I think this is a question that all of us should really be thinking once in a quarter and try to retrospect and look back upon the last 3 months and find out if there was something new or great or interesting they did. If they did not, then why? were they so busy? or they really did not want to do anything because they are happy to assume that they have learnt all that they need to know and done all that they could.

I have been thinking the same for quite some time now and havent arrived upon any concrete conclusion of starting on that something new which I could feel great 3 months from now. While I continue to think may be you could try thinking too for yourself.