Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22989 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-01
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Publishing News
`A real one-off'

Financial Times
'This is an entertaining novel that will have fans'

Good Housekeeping
`...a delicate love story'

Customer Reviews

A Wonderful Cultural Experience with Humour
I bought the book out of my desire to understand my Chinese Girlfriend & our Cultural differences more. By chance I had already heard part of the serialised Radio 4 version, when later, walking with her along the Creek in Dubai, she quoted the "Close the Door, Properly" scene with the London Cab Driver, to me. My immediate response was to get her to write down the title of the book, because I remembered both the angst & humour portrayed on the Radio. The book has opened my eyes to many of our own cultural clashes, before and since, sadly one too many caused our break up, but the authors' portrayal is uncannily close to many of our own situations and has enhanced my love & desire to learn more about Chinese culture and many of their new emerging authors. This was a beautiful love story tinged with sadness and funny situations, which also gave a great insight into the problems of a lone immigrant coming to London & coping with life in that vast lonely metropolis. A very emotional read for me personally also.

Interesting culture clash.
A heart warming book that shows how two different cultures can come together as one and fuse a future together. It is, maybe, an example of how a post multiculturalist society can progress. This is a good book that shows the differences between English and Chinese cultures. If any readers are seeking a similar tale, albeit a true one, I heartily recommend the book 'One Love Two Colours - the unlikely marriage of a Punk Rocker and his African Queen', by Margaret Oshindele.

Not so much a dictionary as a parody
Sorry, for me it just doesn't ring true. Not only does "Z" speak a form of Chinglish that I have never heard a Chinese person use in real life (and I know many), but she also professes to think that the action of squatting (as in sitting on one's heels) would be painful and uncomfortable, whereas in real life squatting comes /far/ more naturally to the Chinese (and adjacent races, such as the Vietnamese) than it does to we spoiled Westerners who are never far from our comfortable chairs.