Land of Big Numbers: Stories
By: Te-Ping Chen / Narrated By: Chris Naoki Lee, Eddy Lee, Fiona Rene, Matt Yang Kim, Christine Lakin, Katie Tang, Lynn Chen
Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
Wow… Did the negative reviewers and I listen to the same book?!
Okay, lemme just start off this review of the AWEsome Land of Big Numbers by stating full-out: Yessss, I listened to this audiobook and heard the stories from, yesss, a Western Perspective… I KNOW! Someone in Central Texas; WHOULDA THUNK IT?!
I’m sooo used to seeing negative reviews of works I’ve liked, but never have I seen the vitriol that I found on the top two reviews waaaay over on Amazon. I did NOT hear “Racist”, neither did I hear “Western Bootlicking”. Yikes and jeez louise and what have you.
What I heard was a delicate blend of author Te-Ping Chen coming at this with a Western journalist’s background, finding love and beauty and people she loved and then weaving realities together. Of COURSE the Chinese people take pride in their country; of COURSE they’re fiercely Nationalistic; of COURSE they’d be offended by the Western perspective that All is Mind Control and that All is Limited Freedom. I mean, who doesn’t love their own country?
Just because a person sees the flaws and highlights them a time or two, does NOT suddenly make them Nation Bashers (See: The radical right commandeering the American flag as tho’ the middle or the left are Flag Burners for seeing flaws that can be addressed… Okaaay, gently removing m’ toes from that particular soapbox right about, oh say, noooow…..).
Let’s take the first story which, honestly, I found the weakest. Apparently “Lulu” has been seen as hiiighly offensive. What we have with this one is a pair of fraternal twins where Lulu is seen as the shining star, the brilliant overachiever who is THE one of the pair who will go on to Make Something of Herself and to live out the dreams of the parents who sacrificed sooo much and who thought of themselves as giving her every opportunity to shine brightly. The brother, our narrator? He’s been shunted aside and finds himself through excelling at gaming.
What people found so offensive is that Lulu has a bit of a social awakening and who speaks out, passes and signs petitions and is arrested and jailed for three years. Upon her release, dearest pater canNOT forgive her for giving up such opportunities that were gifted her. Worse? She still hasn’t learned her lesson, she’s still awake and vocal and active, and this earns her a ten year sentence after another arrest. Soooo, ALL in China is OBVIOUSLY, as Westerners would see it: An oppressive system of injustice.
Uhm, I got that there was an individual who spoke out and paid a posssssible price. But mostly there was a confused brother who was shunted aside and who tried living out his own dreams whilst forEVER in the shadow of a sister who Shone Brightly no matter what she did. Who, with siblings, HASn’t been weighed against a shining star?
In no way did I find an All China Bashing All the Time theme. Nope, I found wonderful characters living out Universal Experiences with threads, yes there ARE SOME threads, of Oppression, but those take a backseat to it all. Instead there are lovely people, saaaay, an older gentleman who dreams of creating a “Flying Machine” so that he might dazzle his Community and soar to the sky. Does he succeed? How does he manage it?
There’s a girl from the country who runs away to the big city and finds herself struggling to make ends meet. She daydreams about the guy who comes in each Friday, ordering the same flowers. She hems and haws to make small talk, and each encounter leaves her with more questions. Her dreams gloss over the ugliness of life in a florist’s shop: The washing out of truly gross buckets where flowers have decayed and the buckets stink to high heaven. An odd encounter with the man leaves her with an opportunity to take a chance and live out her dream… only to be crushed by discovering her invisibility, her lack of worth in his eyes. I mean, Jiminy H. Freaking Cricket: That was meeee in college; heck, that was meeee and my entire set of friends.
Be prepared for the best being saved for last. I did NOT see it as China’s Oppression; rather, to my eyes as a person still navigating Covid Altered Life, it just sang with how the extraordinary can become de rigueur. It spoke of the resilience of the human spirit when all was said and done, and it was crafted with a loving eye of each character we can come across during this whacked out thing we call Life On This Planet.
I canNOT speak to each of the performances of the narrators, even tho’ they ARE credited in order of story appearance. Just know that cripes! am I lazy, or what?! Allow me to just posit that some performances are muuuuuch better than others, managing the cast of male or female characters with ease as each conversation goes forth. The American narrator, I’m NOT going to say whom I asSUMe it is as I miiiight be Booo-ing the wrong person, is probably the weakest. The main character in THAT one, “Field Notes on a Marriage”, is an American woman trying to make sense of the life and death of her Chinese-born husband. It’s kinda a heartbreaking tale, but it’s conveyed with a remarkable flatness. I’m going to be gracious enough to offer the possibility that this is a woman who’s HAVING to shut down strong emotions in the wake of her husband’s curiously unforthcoming life, his tragic death. So that’s it: Me being all generous and all…
I reeeeally liked Land of Big Numbers, like, a LOT. I thought it was well-written with good imagery; I thought each sentence was well-chosen. And I CERtainly loved each character and could even put myself in each pair o’ shoes offered to the listener. I would go so far as to say it reminded me of Kevin Wilson’s Tunneling to the Center of the Earth as there is a delightful intermingling of the mundane with the absoLUTEly Magical.
Nope, didn’t see the brutality. Yup, saw loveliness and heart instead.
And gosh: What is wrong with THAT in this fraught world of ours…?!
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