Short Review: "The Porcelain Thief"

Huan Hsu is an American of Chinese descent (an ABC - American born Chinese), so there are multiple layers of confusion when he takes a break from his career to return to China to investigate the whereabouts of a treasure his several greats grandfather Liu buried during China's upheavals in the early 20th century. Huan does not speak Chinese very well, but he does not look like a foreigner to the Chinese either, which causes problems. The grandmother he hopes will help him has her own agenda and doesn't want him raking up the past.

What struck me, however, is how very American his behavior is - brash, impatient, occasionally angry and sometimes unreasonable, but absolutely determined to figure out the mystery. In lesser hands this might have been unpleasant, but here he skillfully meshes a fascinating history of the last Chinese dynasties with his family's trials through several wars. (The porcelain is really just the McGuffin - the real story is his family's cultural history, and the tag line for the title shows this: Searching the Middle Kingdom for Buried China - literally and figuratively.) I learned quite a bit - highly recommended.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review. The image above links to the book's Amazon page.