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    The Porcelain Thief
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    The Porcelain Thief
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    The Porcelain Thief
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Porcelain Thief

    Written by Huan Hsu

    Narrated by Mike Grady

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    In 1938, with the Japanese army approaching from Nanking, Huan Hsu’s great-great grandfather, Liu, and his five granddaughters, were forced to flee their hometown on the banks of the Yangtze River. But before they left a hole was dug as deep as a man, and as wide as a bedroom, in which was stowed the family heirlooms.

    The longer I looked at that red chrysanthemum plate, the more I wanted to touch it, feel its weight, and run my fingers over its edge, which, like its country’s – and my family’s – history, was anything but smooth.

    1938. The Japanese army were fast approaching Xingang, the Yangtze River hometown of Huan Hsu’s great-great-grandfather, Liu. Along with his five granddaughters, Liu prepares to flee. Before they leave, they dig a hole and fill it to the brim with family heirlooms. Amongst their antique furniture, jade and scrolls, was Liu’s vast collection of prized antique porcelain.

    A decades-long flight across war-torn China splintered the family over thousands of miles. Grandfather Liu’s treasure remained buried along with a time that no one wished to speak of. And no one returned to find it – until now.

    Huan Hsu, a journalist raised in America and armed only with curiosity, returned to China many years later. Wanting to learn more about not only his lost ancestral heirlooms but also porcelain itself, Hsu set out to separate the layers of fact and fiction that have obscured both China and his heritage and finally completed his family’s long march back home.

    Melding memoir and travelogue with social and political history, The Porcelain Thief is an intimate and unforgettable way to understand the bloody, tragic and largely forgotten events that defined Chinese history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateMar 26, 2015
    ISBN9780008123987
    Unavailable
    The Porcelain Thief
    Author

    Huan Hsu

    Huan Hsu currently lives in Amsterdam, where he works as a freelance writer and editor for academic and cultural institutions. His essays and fiction have also appeared in Slate, the Literary Review, and Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts.

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    Reviews for The Porcelain Thief

    3.5/5

    35 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a personal story but also a rendering of thousands of years of the history of China. I learned a lot about porcelain making and the Chinese dynasties and also the more recent history of China as it affected this one family.Huan Hsu is an ABC, that is an American-Born Chinese. His parents grew up in Taiwan but moved to the USA to pursue post-secondary schooling and stayed to work in Utah which is where Huan grew up. Huan’s grandmother stayed in Taiwan and then moved to Shanghai with Huan’s uncle Richard who owned a company that made computer chips. One day in the US Huan saw an exhibit of Chinese porcelain and was fascinated by it. He mentioned it to his father who said that Huan’s mother’s family used to have a big collection of porcelain before the Communist takeover. He learned that his great-great grandfather had been a scholar and landlord in Xingang. During the Second World War his grandfather had to flee from the approaching Japanese soldiers with only what he and the family with him could carry. They buried the porcelain and a great deal of silver deep in the ground. Although the family returned after the Japanese were defeated there was such turmoil between the Republicans, lead by Chiang Kai-Shek, and the Communists, led by Mao, that it never seemed safe to unearth the buried treasure. The great-great grandfather was 80 years old when the Communists took control of China. As a landlord he was persecuted and stripped of all his landholdings. He continued to live in a small outbuilding on the land but died soon after. The people who knew about the porcelain never had a chance to return or it was never safe to do so. Huan’s grandmother was quite elderly when Huan started his investigation but he decided to move to Shanghai to be able to talk to her about her grandfather’s home and porcelain collection. To do this he had to take a job in his uncle’s business and learn to speak Mandarin. Little by little he accumulated information as he talked to elderly relatives and travelled to places in China and Taiwan. This is the story of his search and what he found.Although I found the book fascinating there were a few things I would have changed if I was an editor. Firstly, there were several stories that were repeated throughout the book. Once would have been enough to hear about the glaze makers’ attempts to make a deep red glaze. Also, some pictures would have been nice.
    • 4/5
      An informative mix of travelogue, history, and memoir by a Chinese man, born in the US, looking for the fine porcelain that his great grandfather was said to have buried when the Japanese army invaded China in 1938.Huan Hsu was the son of Chinese parents who had migrated to the United States. After working for a time as a journalist, he became interested in family stories about his great great grandfather, a wealthy landowner in China, who had buried his collection of valuable porcelain in his garden as the Japanese advanced into his country. Although Hsu had not previous been interested in his Chinese heritage, he decided to accept a job with a rich uncle who owned a large factory near Shanghai in order to search for the porcelain. For three years, he worked in China, traveling around the country interviewing relatives and others whom he hoped would help in his quest. In the process, he learned about China’s history and the present social conditions there.The Porcelain Thief is an enjoyable, rambling account of Hsu’s time in China and what he learned about the country’s past and present. He uses his journalistic skills to weave together various elements of the story; his own search for information, his family’s personal experiences during World War II and the Communist era, and basic history of China in the twentieth century. He makes generalizations about the Chinese language and how and why being Chinese continues to carry weight for him. In addition, he relates his growing knowledge of history of Chinese porcelain, the museums where he saw it, and the disrupted fields where he and others collected its shards. He goes to live in Jingdezhen, the city on central China that was the center of porcelain production.Hsu provides solid, relatively neutral historical information about Chinese history. Knowing little about the subject, I appreciated his account 0f major historical events and how they affected ordinary people in a variety of ways. He seems to present basic historical scholarship, although his dismal assessment of Cixi, the last empress of China, contradicts the more positive recent biography of her by Jung Chang. (See my review) Like his great great grandfather, Hsu felt no allegiance to the traditional emperors, the Nationalists of Chaing Kai-Shek, or Communists. At the local level, he observes that whoever ruled created chaos and destruction for those they ruled. Although he discusses economic change, his book is not framed by the conflicting views of communism and capitalism.As Hsu traveled around China, he observed the cities and countryside, writing brief sharp accounts of what he saw. Often he supplements these with information about the changes brought by recent government policies. Recent building has meant the destruction of historical sites. In addition, the stories of his relatives and the individuals he happened to meet, he reveals how varied the experiences of World War II, Civil War, and Communist rule had been. Visiting Taiwan, he notes its particular mix of high regard for China’s traditional culture and westernization. Individuals experienced national events differently, often randomly, because of where they were at the time.Looking for the buried porcelain and collecting porcelain shards leads Hsu to think about history and how it is preserved. He gradually moves beyond a simple desire to own his great grandfather’s porcelain to appreciate its larger meaning. '"Corporeal beings eventually leave the world. Places persist under the capricious rule of the bulldozer. Stories—of my family, of bygone China—don’t have to die. Even their fragments can be reassembled."That is exactly what Hsu does in this book.
    • 4/5
      What a fascinating memoir involving a family myth resulting in the quest to ascertain the legitimacy of that myth. Along the journey, author, Huan Hsu, discovers his family's history through the memories of aging relatives. He explores Chinese culture through living, working and traveling within China and through conversations with many who have endured the myriad of revolutions encountered over the last few generations. Hsu, is a gifted writer whose vivid descriptions of the lanscape and his encounters place the reader directly alongside him. The historic detail of the Chinese porcelain trade is thorough and fascinating. The recounting of the Japanese invasion and the actions of corrupt leaders through various revolutions was factual and yet, disturbing. The presumed vast treasures of the family's buried porcelain and coin were highly valued by Hsu's great-great-grandfather and represented his tangible legacy for his family. However, it appears that education is an equally important legacy of Hsu's great-great-grandfather as he made sure that daughters were as well educated as sons. Sadly, the cultural revolution, as noted in the story, penalized those who were educated and the gift was deemed a curse and could often threatened one's existence. Survival seemed all that mattered. I am grateful to author, Huam Hsu, and LibraryThing Early Reviewers for having provided a free copy of anuncorrected proof of this book and hope that the abrupt ending was somehow eased before final publication. Synopsis:Hsu, a first-generation Chinese American, returns to China to discover the fate of his great-great-grandfather's long-buried porcelain collection and, in the process, unearths the key to understanding his family's history over the past one hundred years of Chinese history In the tradition of the best works of history that uncover a forgotten family story, such as The Hare with Amber Eyes or The Lost, The Porcelain Thief recounts journalist Huan Hsu's journey through the old and new worlds of China to find hidden treasure, reconnect with his ancestry, and come to terms with his hyphenated identity. In 1938, when the Japanese arrived in Hsu's great-great-grandfather's Yangtze River hometown of Xingang, the family was forced to bury their valuables, including a vast and prized collection of antique porcelain, and to flee on a decades-long trek that would splinter it over thousands of miles and countless upheavals. Hsu, raised in Salt Lake City and armed with mere strands of a family legend, moves to China to work in his uncle's semiconductor chip business and begins to understand his family's history as he never has before. A conversation with his grandmother, the last living link to his family's life in dynastic China, ignites his desire to learn more about not only his ancestral heirlooms but also porcelain itself. Mastering conversational Chinese enough to launch himself into the countryside, Hsu sets out to separate the layers of fact and fiction that have grown up around both his family and China, and finally complete his family's long march back home. Melding memoir, travelogue, ethnography, and social and political history, The Porcelain Thief takes the reader along with Hsu as he travels throughout mainland China and Taiwan in search of his family's fabled porcelain collection and, as a result, discovers the great-great-grandparents and estranged aunts and uncles he never knew. The Porcelain Thief is an intimate and personal way to understand the bloody, tragic and largely forgotten events that defined Chinese history in the 19th and 20th century.
    • 5/5
      This is a wonderful, comprehensive history of the author's family as well as that of China. It encompasses not only the royal dynasties but also the strive of the Japanese invasion of China and the country's subsequent civil war. The book was a well-written engrossing tale of one man's quest to recover his family's personal and physical history.
    • 3/5
      The author, who is an ABC (American Born Chinese) recounts his travels to China to discover where his great great grandfather buried the family’s valuable porcelain collection just before the Japanese invasion. The book includes lots of information about the history and politics of China. I’ve spent a little bit of time in China, so many of the cultural aspects brought back memories. I had to laugh at Hsu’s description of crotchless pants worn by little children and how the Chinese people seem to have no concept of waiting in a line, something I experienced and had a hard time getting used to. The history of porcelain making and its importance in Chinese culture, particularly the information about counterfeiting or faking, was interesting. However, I found the book hard to follow at times and it seemed to lack continuity. Its abrupt ending was also disconcerting, enough to make me wonder if the last chapter had been misplaced.
    • 4/5
      The intriguing history of the author's family creates the backdrop for this memoir. In the middle of war, Huang Hsu's great-great grandfather was forced to bury all of the family's valuables in their backyard including a large amount of porcelain. As the author explores the history of this story, he travels to Shanghai and works for his wealthy uncle and adjusts to life as an ABC (American-born Chinese). I almost enjoyed his experiences adapting to life in China more than his family's history, which could be confusing at times. Overall, this is an interesting and humorous look at life in China and the act of discovering roots. I received this book from an LibraryThing early reviewers giveaway.
    • 3/5
      Journalist Huan Hsu chronicles his efforts to find his great-grandfather’s porcelain collection, buried in 1938 at his ancestral home in China just in advance of the Japanese invasion. Seventy years later Hsu, a self-described ABC (American Born Chinese), takes a job at his uncle’s factory in Shanghai and learns Chinese in order to search for the lost family treasure. In his quest to find out what happened to the porcelain, Hsu finds his (often cantankerous) family and their history, and a bit about himself.It is a mosaic of a book, created with fragments of Chinese cultural and political history, family stories, a personal memoir and observations, and a travelogue of contemporary China. But from these fragments, like the shards of porcelain that enthrall him, Hsu pieces together a picture of China and of a family caught up in an incredibly turbulent time in its history. And running throughout, a mediation on China past and present and, for good and bad, what it means to be Chinese.Yet for a book that is sometimes awash in details, many are left out (What happened to Hsu’s job? Why did he end up estranged from Tang Hou Chun?), with the biggest omission occurring at the end – what happened next? But that’s life really, isn’t it. The ending may be jarringly abrupt, but it’s the journey that’s the story. The Porcelain Thief takes us on a family’s journey through a history most of us know very little about, and that in itself makes the whole thing worthwhile.
    • 4/5
      In this book, Hsu, an American-born Chinese takes us on a search for his great-great grandfather’s porcelain collection and for his family heritage. Hsu grew up in Utah, and spent his younger years trying to avoid his Chinese heritage. So he returns to China not really speaking Chinese, and barely able to communicate with is grandmother. His family story was really interesting, but a bit hard to follow at times. The book is supposed to have a family tree and maps, which were absent from this advanced reader’s copy. I think that they would have helped. Also, I would have loved pictures!Overall, I did enjoy the book which gives a view of the interactions of history (Japanese invasion, Cultural Revolution, etc) and family identity. I appreciated the perspective that Hsu was able to give of contemporary China. I do think it would have been a better book if he’d gone a little deeper into what the family history meant to him as an individual.
    • 4/5
      Author Huan Hsu became interested in his family history as an adult. He was particularly fascinated by the stories he heard of his great-great-grandfather's porcelain collection that he was said to have buried on his property before fleeing from the Japanese in the 1930s. Some of Hsu's relatives believed that the porcelain was still there. Hsu became obsessed with finding the porcelain. He moved to China, got a job in his uncle's company, and devoted most of his free time to interviewing older relatives to learn more about his family's history and especially about the porcelain collection. Hsu intersperses histories of China, Taiwan, and porcelain manufacturing with his family's history.I found the historical and travel narrative portions of the book more interesting than Hsu's description of his relatives and the family porcelain. Readers learn bits and pieces of Hsu's family history in the same order that Hsu discovered it. What's missing is a synthesis and interpretation of the information. There is a strong current of hostility throughout the book, and at some points it's disturbing. I think he could have written a better story if he had been able to resolve his anger.This review is based on an advanced reading copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
    • 3/5
      I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program.This is a rare case where reading this as a galley doesn't really give an adequate picture of the book. Hsu has penned a book that's part memoir, part genealogy quest, part history lesson on China. As he says at one point, trying to explain Chinese history is like trying to get a drink while drowning. The beginning of the books has placeholders for maps and charts, and that content would have helped immensely to understand the geography and the convoluted connections within Hsu's family (which often confuses and surprises the author as well).Hsu is American-born and raised in Utah. He had to deal with frustrating comments from other people--the compliments on his English, the way he stood out in lily-white Mormon Utah--but also didn't fit in with his Chinese family. He was largely ignorant of the language and history. Even so, he's fascinated by stories of his mother's family and of the wealth of porcelain they once had, and he takes a job in China at a volatile uncle's company so he can find out more.The beginning of the story is a bit whiny as he describes China as it is now (it sure doesn't make me want to travel to Shanghai), even as the content is intriguing from the start. Hsu brings a great perspective; readers are likely to be ignorant of China as it is now or was in the past, and I felt like I got to learn along with him. Once it started to delve into the past and the often contradictory stories within his family, it became a gripping book. Hsu isn't searching for buried treasure to get rich. It's more of a sense to recover something lost. His mother's family struggled through all the turbulence of the 20th century, from the Sino-Japanese War through World War II through communist and the horrible whims of Mao. His grandmother escaped some of the worst by being a teacher in missionary schools and then immigrating from the mainland, but other cousins were not so fortunate. The book does a good job of showing the terrible nature of Mao and what he put the people through, and Hsu with his American sensibilities struggles to understand how they endured. It's not just that the porcelain was lost. Almost all family pictures, books, and artifacts were also lost in immigration or through cultural purges. There's also the historical thread about porcelain itself, how it was made and where, and how that industry has so drastically changed.I liked the book much more as I read, even as I had to utterly give up on keeping track of who was who. I have trouble remembering names in English, so the similarity of the Chinese names--and that some people had a few names--was utterly confusing. Maps would have been an enormous help as Hsu travels all over China, and also describes where his family was and is now.If you have any interest in China, seek for this book when it's out in March. At heart, it's about a genealogical search for self, an it's a fascinating journey.
    • 5/5
      Early reviewers book, thanks.I really liked this book. It reminded me of one of the Lisa See books insomuch as it dealt with the author trying to connect with his heritage (along with history of China's porcelain industry and a little Chinease history too). I would think the final printing should have a family tree along with maps and some pictures would be nice- family, places, and some porcelain perhaps.I liked the writing style and found it easy to read and myself not wanting to put the book down. I will recommend it to my friends.
    • 4/5
      The Porcelain Thief by Huan Hsu. The advance press for this book compares it to The Hare With Amber Eyes. While it does not rise to the heights of that book, The Porcelain Thief has a similar structure in it uses a family legacy to trace the history of the family through a turbulent period of history.The Porcelain Thief starts with stories of the author's great-great-grandfather burying a fortune of priceless porcelain in the backyard of the family home before fleeing the Japaneses invading China. The author, an American of Chinese descent, decides to try and locate the porcelain. In the process, he traces the fate of his extended family as it fled the Second Sino-Japanese War. Shortly after the defeat of Japan, his family is embroiled in the civil between Kuomintang and the Communists. Some of the family flees with the Kuomintang to Taiwan while others stay in the mainland and endure the terror of the Cultural Revolution. While the story of the turmoil of China, as told through Huan's family is fascinating, many of the best parts of the book are Huan's own interactions with modern China. As an American, Huan finds modern China dysfunctional, corrupt, and filthy. At the same time, he comes to admire some qualities of China as he finds himself reconnecting with family that were little more than distant relatives.The search of the family porcelain is the heart of the story but The Porcelain Thief goes far beyond a personal treasure hunt. In the process, you get a personal view of a tumultuous time in Chinese history and a look at the way modern China operates. The journey is well worth it.
    • 4/5
      I won a proof of this book from LibraryThing. The proof did NOT include a family tree, which the final is supposed to have. I think having one will make the narrative much easier to follow. I suspect I would have given if four and a half stars if I'd had a family tree to help make the narrative more understandable. ( Many Chinese family names are very similar for a "round eye.") A time line would also help. The book is non-fiction. The author is a journalist, but there a lot of writing glitches.These are minor, but in the aggregate they are annoying. I hope an editor will fix them before the final publication. The book is well worth reading because the story itself is incredibly interesting. The author is an ABC --an American Born Chinese. While working as a journalist in Seattle, Washington, he writes an article about a local museum which has a collection of Chinese porcelain. He is struck by the porcelain and wants to learn more about it--up until this point in his life, he's had almost no interest in Chinese culture. He's told that his mother's family had a collection of rare porcelain...and from that point..we're off and running, as the author goes off to China to learn more about porcelain and his family. It's hard to "pigeon hole" the book. It's part travelogue. It's part the story of modern China. It's part a history of China. It's partly a story of the attempt of one American from an immigrant family to "reconnect" with his roots. It's partly a story of how historical events impact individual lives. I found all of this fascinating. The "plot" meanders and a lot of the book has zilch to do with the story at its heart. Moreover, the ending of the book is abrupt and unsatisfying. This detracts from the overall quality of the book, but the digressions are interesting. And, as I said before, the underlying story is fascinating.
    • 4/5
      This memoir about contacting family in Taiwan and China on a quest for the family porcelain, turns into a social commentary, travelogue, and history of China, on a personal relatable scale. My early review copy was missing a family tree and three maps which would have been very useful. This was an enjoyable evenhanded look at China from 1900 to today.
    • 3/5
      The book was really an amalgam of memoir, travelogue of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Chinese history and Chinese geography, relating everything to a quest Mr. Hsu takes to the land of his ancestors to find the porcelain collection of his great-great grandfather, after viewing a beautiful red Chinese bowl in the Seattle Art Museum. This search becomes an obsession with him. He connects with family members who help [or hinder] him in his search. Also museum and archives personnel aid as far as they are able. Government bureaucrats seem to be obstructionists.I enjoyed the different anecdotes, facts about China. I chuckled at some of the author's comments and observations on current Chinese social behavior. I appreciate receiving this ARC from LibraryThing. Space was left for an index, which I'm sure will be a big help to anyone reading the book once it is released; right now I miss one. I will enjoy plunging into the book again for such nuggets as these that I do remember: ineptness of the "Great Leap Forward", the section on the innovations in Jingdezhen, a former porcelain center now reduced to producing cheap reproductions. I never knew that the iconic Chinese blue-and-white porcelain was developed there. In Europe, an alchemist, who of course couldn't produce gold from lead, produced the first porcelain there--Meissen. The author's breezy, casual style was just right.