Adeline Yen Mah is so passionate about the Chinese proverbs learned
from her beloved grandfather that she even dreams of them. In
Watching the Tree she related them to Chinese philosophy, and here
she sets them in their historical context. Proverbs are more highly
valued and widely used in China than they are in the West. The
author tells of Sima Qian, who first recorded these sayings at
dreadful personal cost over 2000 years ago. The actual historical
events from which they arose and more recent political examples are
interwoven with snippets from Yen Mah's own traumatic past -
documented more fully in her autobiography, Falling Leaves.
Bite-sized sections focus on single proverbs - examples include
'Pointing to a Deer and Calling it a Horse' and 'When the Map is
Unrolled, the Dagger is Revealed', and within the sections are
snapshots of the life and times of the First Emperor (who unified
China), his short-lived dynasty and the rivals who subsequently
fought over his empire. You will read of the famous entombed
terracotta army and how the Great Wall was built, and be guided
through political and military intrigues more convoluted than the
plot of a Le Carre spy novel. Without some background knowledge of
ancient Chinese history, the narrative might leave your head
spinning, but the tales, told with Yen Mah's irresistible
enthusiasm, are immediately accessible, encompassing all of
humanity. The characteristic honesty of her earlier works is
repeated here, giving unsanitized glimpses of Chinese history
rarely found elsewhere. Yen Mah aims 'to make [these proverbs] come
alive, thereby explaining how the Chinese think, and why we think
the way we do', and she succeeds triumphantly. (Kirkus UK)
The author of the international bestsellers Watching the Tree and
Falling Leaves has always been fascinated by proverbs and their
importance and use in China. Both her book titles are based on such
proverbs. The majority of Chinese proverbs are drawn from the 1st
century, when the First King of all China established his
leadership over the whole country and its warring kingdoms. In
ancient China, a scholar's conversation would be studded with
appropriate sayings, and a man's status in society would be defined
by his use and knowledge of proverbs. In modern China, much of this
is still true, and proverbs are used daily. Adeline Yen Mah
introduces us to the whole rich picture of the first century BC
when after the long wars between states, China was finally united
and the richness of the literature and art could flourish. She
portrays the leaders, the plots and the counter-revolutions with
great vividness and liveliness so that even those ignorant of
Chinese history become absorbed. And as in all her other books, she
relates the historical episodes and the proverbs derived from these
to experiences in her own life. One of the major expressions of
this age was of course the First King's tomb with its terracotta
soldiers, of horses and carriages and the stones of the building.
The re-finding of this monument - now open to us all - and Adeline
Yen Mah's own experiences there, are extraordinary. A Thousand
Pieces of Gold, following Watching the Tree and Falling Leaves, is
a personal account by a much loved author, but it is also a lively
history of the fascinating period of civilisation when Europe was
barely out of the stone age.
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