Product Description
On June 8, 1972, nine-year-old Kim Phuc, severely burned by napalm, ran from her blazing village in South Vietnam and into the eye of history. Her photograph-one of the most unforgettable images of the twentieth century-was seen around the world and helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War.

This book is the story of how that photograph came to be-and the story of what happened to that girl after the camera shutter closed. Award-winning biographer Denise Chong's portrait of Kim Phuc-who eventually defected to Canada and is now a UNESCO spokesperson-is a rare look at the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese point-of-view and one of the only books to describe everyday life in the wake of this war and to probe its lingering effects on all its participants.Amazon.com Review
When Nick Ut photographed 9-year-old Kim Phuc running down a road, her body aflame with napalm, he turned a terrified girl into a living symbol of the Vietnam War's horror. Even after the war, the North Vietnamese government made the severely scarred Kim a reluctant poster girl for American atrocities. Although her parents, once relatively prosperous South Vietnamese peasants, were reduced to dire poverty when the state took over her mother's noodle shop, Kim was allowed to receive further medical treatment in Germany, to visit the Soviet Union, and to attend the University of Havana. These privileges did not assuage her spiritual turmoil: Why had she been singled out for fame when so many others suffered and died? Searching for answers, Kim converted to Christianity and in 1992 defected with her husband to Canada, where they now live with their two sons. Canadian author Denise Chong's sensitive biography, which doubles as a fascinating social history of Vietnam during and after the war, captures Kim as a complex woman of powerful religious faith: "It was the fire of bombs that burned my body. It was the skill of doctors that mended my skin. But it took the power of God's love to heal my heart." --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Must read for travelers
Great insight into the Vietnamese reaction to the Vietnam War.I highly recommed this book to anyone traveling to Vietnam.

Great History lesson!
As a person from the sixties when Viet Nam, and you had a draft card in your wallet, this book made me appreciate the great country the U.S. is..

excellent book, excellent condition
the book i bought was used, as new it said, and it was. Delivery was before than expected. All cool.

Fascinating story at several levels
This is a wonderful book. It is interesting in the discussion of village life in Viet Nam during the war. It is also an interesting retelling of the physical, emotional, and spiritual journey of the little girl, so well known from the photo. The entire story of what happened to this little girl is quite readable and in fact inspirational. I did not find it to be sappy in any way, and in fact quite moving. I highly reccomend the book.

Life Is At Your Feet
This is the life story of Kim Phuc, with supporting coverage of the horrors of Vietnam and the endless legacy of pain and sorrow caused by the war. Kim was captured on film in the devastating news photo form 1972, as she ran naked and screaming from a napalm attack (which turned out to be a friendly-fire accident, to boot). While reading this book, I was unable to stop flipping it over to look at the famous photo on the cover again and again, as writer Denise Chong does an outstanding job of bringing Kim and her story to life. Granted, the book does have a few weaknesses. Chong obviously saw the need to add background information about the war to support Kim's story, though in the attempt to summarize or introduce the issues and politics of the war, Chong's coverage seems simplistic and perfunctory. Also, as Kim's biography progresses, Chong is trying too hard, and inconsistently, to make the book "inspirational," with Kim's inner thoughts and reflections on her ongoing struggles coming across as forced and sappy in places.

But these weaknesses do not damage the overall success of the book, because Kim's life story is definitely compelling, and her postwar struggles are especially informative. We learn about the wartime travails of Kim's middle-class Vietnamese family, culminating in the horrific day when she was injured and barely survived. Kim has suffered through chronic pain and constant health problems stemming from here severe napalm burns. Meanwhile the incompetent new Communist regime in Vietnam used her for years as a pawn in propaganda schemes, and ruined her once successful family. Kim spent most of her teen and young adult years trying to escape the regime's clutches and finish her schooling; and interestingly, she observed the collapse of two Communist systems, both at home and as an exchange student in Cuba. (She now lives as an activist in Canada.) Chong's coverage of the postwar hardships of those affected by the Vietnam War is especially valuable, because you see little of this type of material in standard war texts. And you will surely root for Kim Phuc as she slowly puts her lifetime of horrors behind her. [~doomsdayer520~] ... Read more

Product Description
Kim Phuc was nine years old in 1972. Severely burned by napalm, she ran from her burning village and was captured on film. Denise Chong relates Kim's experience and recovery in this astonishing biography and history of America's shameful war. The photograph of Kim, seen around the world, was one of many to turn public opinion against the war in Vietnam. This is the story of how the picture came to be and also what happened to Kim after it was taken. It provides an insight into the country Vietnam became after the US army left, and explains why Kim finally had to flee to Canada, where she now lives. ... Read more

Product Description
Chong tells the story of her grandmother, brought from China as a young concubine by a sojourner to the New World, of the man's wife and children left behind, and of the author's incredible discovery of those children six decades later. "Beautiful, haunting, and wise."--New York Times Book Review. Photos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Excellent historical information on Chinese families
I had just read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See when I found this book.The Concubine's Children made China come alive knowing she was writing about actual people and those still living while she was doing her research.If you want to understand the history involving Chinese families and the culture, this is one not to miss.She made it all come alive especially with the family photos that you could refer back to when a new person was introduced or she was describing the home her father built.

These stories must be told
When I finished reading this book I had the desire to contact the author and thank her for her work.

Much to my surprise in this day she doesn't seem to have a website with the obligatory email link.

Thank you Denise for taking the time to bring this story to print.

You did a great job. And I am eager to read your subsequent books.

thanks again

Great Book, good condition
Received my order quickly, the book was is the advertised condition and I loved the book.

Very dry reading
I couldn't wait to read this book after it arrived. But I was disappointed. Althought the topic was fascinating, the writing was not. I became bored and at times found it hard to follow which person was doing what. I had to re-read some paragraphs to make sure I knew which person I was reading about. If the writing had been better, it would have been a far more captivating book. Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter was much better.

GOOD BUY

THE BOOK WAS A VERY GOOD BUY....SERVICE WAS OUTSTANDING I RECD
THE BOOK IN A HURRY. BOOK WAS IN GREAT CONDITION AND EVEN MY
WIFE PICKED IT UP AND READ IT. THIS IS THE SECOND BOOK I
PURCHASED FROM AMAZON. I WILL BUY AGAIN VERY SOON. KEEP UP
THE GOOD WORK. ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry, Adrienne Clarkson, Tarek Fatah, Irshad Manji, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Denise Chong, Bennet Wong, Jan Wong, Ani Phyo, Rita Wong, Rick Shiomi, Deepa Mehta, H. S. Bhabra, Winnifred Eaton, Tara Singh Hayer, Joy Kogawa, Zarqa Nawaz, M. G. Vassanji, Susur Lee, Sui Sin Far, Lily Hoy Price, Pat Lee, Sun Bo, Ajmer Rode, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Fred Wah, Evelyn Lau, Michael D. Mehta, Robin Sharma, Ian Iqbal Rashid, Michelle Sagara, Nasir Siddiki, Sasenarine Persaud, Ven Begamudré, Padma Viswanathan, Sky Lee, Üstün Bilgen-Reinart, Dennis Foon, Kevin Chong, Larissa Lai, Terry Watada, Surjeet Kalsey, Ting-Xing Ye, Ruth Ozeki, Shyam Selvadurai, Tetsuro Shigematsu, Kerri Sakamoto, Nelofer Pazira, Vincent Lam, Jolan Chang, Srinivasan Keshav, Nanda Lwin, Faisal Devji, Ken Adachi, Wayson Choy, Natasha Fatah, Anosh Irani, Himani Bannerji, Roy Miki, Andy Quan, Kaushalya Bannerji, Anita Rau Badami, Xiaowen Zeng, Jaspreet Singh, Jalal Barzanji, Harold Sonny Ladoo, Ying Chen, Jerome Chen, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Ray Hsu, Sonnet L'abbé, List of Asian Canadian Writers, Shani Mootoo, Roy Kiyooka, Priscila Uppal, Hiromi Goto, Akhtar Naraghi, Shree Ghatage, Madeleine Thien, Kim Moritsugu, Gillian Chan, Ook Chung, Aki Shimazaki, Jean Yoon, Shaun Mehta, Jen Sookfong Lee, Navtej Bharati, Richie Mehta, M. J. Kang, Nguyen Ngoc Ngan, Gurcharan Rampuri, John Sakamoto, Rafi Raza, Sabih Mansoor. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 313. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Adrienne Louise Clarkson (née Adrienne Louise Poy, 10 February 1939) is a Canadian journalist and stateswoman who served as Governor General of Canada, the 26th since that country's confederation. Clarkson is a refugee from Hong Kong, coming with her family to Canada in 1941 to settle and be raised in Ottawa, ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=161185 ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Denise Chong, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1010 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Bulletins from Tiananmen
When the students took over Tiananmen Square twenty years ago, the world watched with fascination as they gave the first visible protest against the Communist system in China.That the protesters were eventually overcome, and that the system has continued and has prospered, have not erased the memory of the uprising.Since the Communists won that battle, and seem to be winning the war, we are likely never to hear of all the Tiananmen stories that ought to be told.There is one now, however, that illustrates how strange (and successful) the Chinese repression has been.Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship (Counterpoint) by Denise Chong is testimony, biography, and history told in detail about just one incident in the 1989 temporary takeover, an incident that was part of the protest and yet distinct from it.Chong mentions in an "Author's Note" at the end how she was able to interview some of the former protesters and spent two months in China in 2007 secretly gathering information.In her "Acknowledgement" note, she refers to the many who helped in her research though she cannot name them.Two decades later, "a complete ban remains in place against discussion of the protest and events in the square and the subsequent brutal crackdown and repression - even an accounting of the imprisoned or the dead is a `state secret'."The story of Lu Decheng and his fellow protesters, then, represents an important view into the protest, even though their stories are not representative of the mass of students taking part.

Lu Decheng was born in 1961, and grew up under the strict regime that went unchallenged even after Mao died in 1976.He was a rebellious teen, and resented indoctrination.He became a bus mechanic, but was to face incomprehensible suffering from what he thought were arbitrary or foolish regulations.When he and friends heard of the Tiananmen protests, they traveled there, planning their own version: thirty eggs filled with paint, which they flung across the huge portrait of Chairman Mao that looked over everyone in Tiananmen Square.It was an independent action; they felt that targeting this particular icon would call special attention to the despotic rule of Mao and his successors.Their hope was that the symbolism of the defacement of the portrait would be taken up by the students.They were shocked that just the opposite occurred.The act was so provocative, that the student leaders were scared that Lu Decheng and his two companions might be agents for the other side, there to give an excuse for a crackdown.They were denounced as vandals and turned over to the Public Security Bureau.Lu Decheng was tried and sentenced to sixteen years in atrocious prisons that were supposed to reform his thinking, but he resisted.A practical man, he tried to find ways that even in the prison environment he might make himself a better person, and he did all he could to learn Mandarin, to read and write it, and to enjoy what books were available.He never recanted, and would not hear of the charges against him being reduced to simple vandalism.When a warden, probing to find how right-minded he was becoming, asked him what he thought of the 1991 upheavals in Russia, Lu Decheng said, "It shows the total bankruptcy of Communism."The warden was apoplectic, and there were meetings to denounce Lu Decheng in the prison while he was on stage in front of everyone else, but he kept silent and would not recant.There was a flow of political prisoners gradually released after the 1997 death of Deng Xiaoping, and then to curry favor for the 2000 Olympics, and Lu Decheng was freed in January 1998.He was able to sneak out of China eight years later, and now lives in Canada.

This is a timely and important political story, but Chong has told it by concentrating on the humanity and bravery of her lead character and contrasting it with other individuals, like his father, who had been ground down by authoritarianism.Chong has not stuck to chronology; the narrative zips from Lu Decheng's upbringing, to Tiananmen, to the prison, and back; the lurches can be confusing, but the payoff is that the climactic event of Lu Decheng's life, the defacement of Mao's portrait, is the book's climax on the final pages, with all strands leading up to it.It was a simple, quixotic gesture, but it was deeply resented by the Chinese government.It changed little, but that little matters; this is an inspiring story of real heroism.That the powers in China so feared Lu Decheng's action, and his inability to reform, means that this round was won by the people; there will be other rounds to come.
... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Carol Shields, George Woodcock, Donald Creighton, Alan Walker, Walter Stewart, Denise Chong, Ross King, Gene Lees, Scott Young, Michael Bliss, Neil Mckenty, Leon Edel, Alastair Sweeny, David Day, John Sawatsky, Irene Gammel, John English, Peter C. Newman, George R. D. Goulet, Steve Paikin, William Robinson Clark, William Mccartney Davidson, Robert Barsky, Vaughan L. Baird, Ken Mcgoogan, Phyllis Grosskurth, Simma Holt, Lawrence Martin, Veronica Strong-Boag, Mark Leier, David L. Humphreys, Arthur Slade, Phyllis Blakeley, Rosemary Sullivan, Elizabeth Macleod, Geoffrey Bruun, Elspeth Cameron, Ted Allan, Robert Heal, Rachel Lebowitz, Kevin Bazzana, Eileen Whitfield, Paul A. W. Wallace. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 139. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Donald Grant Creighton, CC (July 15, 1902 December 19, 1979) was a noted Canadian historian. Born in Toronto, the son of Methodist minister, Creighton attended Victoria College, in the University of Toronto, where he received his BA in 1925. He then attended Balliol College at Oxford University, where he received his MA before returning to Canada to teach history, at the University of Toronto, where he remained for his career. Creighton belonged to a generation of English Canadians who were proud of the British Empire, and his anglophilia was often expressed in his books. In 1926, Creighton married Luella Bruce. He was the father of the fiction writer Cynthia Flood. Creighton died in his sleep on December 18, 1979, from cancer, in Brooklin, Ontario. He was 77. In 1967, Creighton was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. University of New Brunswick political science professor Donald A. Wright is writing a biography about Creighton. Creighton was heavily influenced by Harold Innis and took an economic approach to Canadian hi...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=358724 ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: People From Prince George, British Columbia, Dick Harris, Turner Stevenson, Denise Chong, Bill Mahood, Brett Connolly, Steve Carpenter, Richard Hastings, Murray Baron, Mary John, Sr., Marylin Star, Daryl Reaugh, Bridget Moran, Gillian Wigmore, Anthony Sedlak, Dean Butler, Megan Tandy, Andy Burton, Daniel Lapp, Nilesh Patel, Greg Kuznik, Paul Ramsey, Stewart Malgunas, Lois Boone, Lyle Neff, Ken Belford, Stewart Heaney, Morgan Fox, Cliff Hucul, Pat Bell, Christopher Bowie, Kerry Ketter. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 100. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt:Andy Burton (born July 7, 1942) is a Canadian politician. Burton immigrated with his family to Canada from England in 1952 at the age of 10. He grew up in Prince George, British Columbia . In the early 1960s, he worked as a highway surveyor and then as a bulk plant manager for Shell Petroleum . He began his small business in 1964, and operated it until he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 2000 federal election as the Canadian Alliance Member of Parliament (MP) for Skeena riding .Burton entered politics in the 1970s. During his 24 year municipal career, he served as Mayor of Stewart, British Columbia for six years, and town councillor for 18 years.He joined the Reform Party of Canada at its formation in 1987, and remained a member of its successors, the Canadian Alliance and the Conservative Party of Canada . In his tenure in Parliament, Burton served variously as Canadian Alliance Critic for Public Works, Fisheries and Natural Resources and then as the Conservatives Party's Fisheries and Oceans critic.On June 25, 2001, Burton was one of a dozen MPs who were expelled from or left the Canadian Alliance caucus due to their criticisms of Stockwell Day 's leadership and sat as "Independent Alliance" MPs. In early September, an offer was made t... ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Dick Harris, Turner Stevenson, Bill Mahood, Denise Chong, Brett Connolly, Steve Carpenter, Richard Hastings, Murray Baron, Mary John, Sr., Marylin Star, Daryl Reaugh, Bridget Moran, Anthony Sedlak, Gillian Wigmore, Dean Butler, Megan Tandy, Andy Burton, Daniel Lapp, Nilesh Patel, Greg Kuznik, Paul Ramsey, Stewart Malgunas, Lois Boone, Stewart Heaney, Lyle Neff, Ken Belford, Cliff Hucul, Morgan Fox, Pat Bell, Christopher Bowie, Kerry Ketter,. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 93. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Richard M. "Dick" Harris (born September 6, 1944 in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a Canadian politician. He is a Member of Parliament and member of the Conservative Party of Canada. He also was a member of the Reform Party of Canada and the Canadian Alliance. He represents the electoral district of Cariboo-Prince George, and formerly Prince George-Bulkley Valley. He was first elected during the 1993 federal election and was re-elected in 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2008. He challenged Reform Party leader Preston Manning for leadership when Manning proposed merging the party with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. He later campaigned for Stockwell Day to become leader. The most prominent position he held with his party was Chief Opposition Whip from 2001 to 2002. He has served a member on several parliamentary committees, including the 'Standing Committee on Finance' during the 36th and 37th Parliaments and the 'Standing Committee on Natural Resources' during the 39th Parliament. He was accused of financial irregularities during a nomination race in 2004 and generated controversy when he appointed an unelected, Conservative Party member to represent a neighbouring electoral district in governmental affairs, though the electoral district had an elected Member ...http://booksllc.net/?id=3427782 ... Read more