I've been researching my family history for over thirty years. Along this genealogy journey I have been supported by hundreds of books, many of which I have listed on my Librarything page.
During the 2021 #AtoZChallenge I will be writing about two of my passions, books and family history. I'll be taking a trip down memory lane and revisiting some of those books that have enriched my genealogy experience.
Xinran is a British-Chinese author and journalist who has been resident in the UK since 1997. I read her best-selling book, The Good Women of China, not long after it was published in 2002.
"The Good Women of China is primarily composed of interviews Xinran conducted during her time as a radio broadcaster in China in the 1980s. However, she also details some of her own experiences as a woman in China. The interviews usually focus on the embedded cultural perceptions in China about women's rights, roles, and suffering. Many of these interviews were drawn from the call-in portion of Xinran' widely popular radio program, Words on the Night Breeze. She also interviewed other women, whom she sought out for their experiences as Chinese women or opinions about the status of Chinese women."
Although this work didn't impact on my personal geneajourney it gave me an insight into another culture and the plights and successes of women in that culture. When reading about family history it is important that we don't restrict our reading to our own culture, we need to broaden our horizons and enrich our understandings by reading accounts of life in other cultures.
