The text is above all a deeply moving love letter from Pingru to his wife ... it is also his love painting; almost every page is gorgeously illustrated with his enchanting, sometimes heartbreaking paintings ... Nicky Harman’s translation reads fluently in English and gives a sense of what must be the vibrancy of the original Chinese ... Where explanation of characters is needed, it is included gracefully, so the reader is not distracted ... I defy anyone to flip from the photographs inside the front cover, of Pingru and Meitang in youth, to the one inside the back cover, of them in old age, without feeling their eyes become moist.
The 350-page memoir, half in prose and half in color drawings, is a vivid, at times intimate, portrait of a changing China ... The perspective of a KMT soldier—something China's censors still limit today—will be an eye-opener for many readers, especially young people of Chinese descent around the world ... Pingru’s drawings recall illustrations in classic Chinese novels. These are 'wide-angle shots' that situate characters and action in a larger environment ... 'Close-ups' are rarer but striking ... Despite these powerful snapshots, much of Pingru’s life from the 1960s and 70s—a censored topic in China—is left unexplored. Mao’s name is never mentioned, nor the abuse of prisoners in labor camps, nor the decade-long Cultural Revolution ... As we read Our Story, we should keep in mind that it offers only a glimpse of some of the past century’s worst atrocities.
Pingru’s intimate, illustrated memoir of a life shared with his wife, Meitang, offers a touching portrait of marriage. The story is driven by rich memories of everyday life, from the perfect bowl of congee on a trip to Liuzhou to nights in the 1950s spent at dance halls with friends ... Paired with Pingru’s expressive ink drawings, which appear on nearly every page, and an appendix with letters Meitang wrote him when they were apart, Our Story makes a compelling case for love’s power.
Captions describe the images, but Rao also pens longer narrative pieces that will deepen readers' understanding of his life and compel them to wonder about what is not included. For example, Rao is sent to a rural reeducation camp for 17 years, but we never learn why. Filling the gaps, in part, of these years are letters from his wife ... A fascinating intersection of personal, cultural, and political history.
Rao Pingru had dabbled in watercolors after his retirement from a Shanghai gear factory, but when his wife of 60 years, Meitang, died in 2008, he began to paint, at age 87, picture after picture of their lives together, as a way to capture his recollections and cope with his loss ... For all of their suffering, however, this couple represents an exemplar of lifelong companionship. Meitang’s letters to her husband, which serve as a coda to the book, are quotidian treasures. Rao’s plain, charming stories, and especially his witty, evocative, beautiful illustrations—handmade by a nonagenarian—are testament to the resilience and endurance of love.
A graphic memoir recounts a quiet life amid cultural upheaval. Pingru, 95, makes his literary debut with a charming memoir illustrated with his own evocative watercolors, chronicling his life in China from 1923 to 2008, the year his beloved wife died ... A graceful, gently told narrative of contentment and resilience.
Using spare prose and stunning, full-color illustrations, Pingru reveal his struggles, joys, and enduring love for his wife over the course of their lives in a dramatically changing China ... Pingru’s exquisite, visually dazzling memoir reveals an ordinary life lived in extraordinary times.
