Book Review - The Porcelain Thief

For BloggingForBooks,com

The Porcelain Thief: Searching the Middle Kingdom for Buried China by Huan Hsu

The book is a mixture of family narrative, personal story and Chinese history, told by an American born Chinese (ABC), Huan Hsu. The main focus of the book is Hsu's attempt to find his great great grandfather's hoard of fine china, buried during the fall of Imperial China. During his journey, he finds out more of his family's story from that point to the present day and narrates some Chinese history, as relates to the porcelain.

First off, I greatly disliked the author. It never becomes clear why he wants his family's china collection - he doesn't appreciate fine porcelain (in fact, he doesn't know the most basic facts about it), he doesn't really care about his family history (he argues with his grandmother, since she is telling him all about her experience and the family's situation, instead of just about the hoard) and is not above using people (like his cousin, from whom he mooches quite a lot). His disdain for China and Chinese people drips off the page and he couldn't care less for the culture. He even sets off on his grand adventure without bothering with the least amount of research, even though he is a journalist!

Having said that, some parts of the book work better than others. The best part is the family narrative and seeing it get pieced together is interesting. Chinese history is fascinating and varied but it is hard to make sense of the splotches of historical facts spread out through the text. The author's own story had me face palming quite frequently because of his obvious social blunders, cultural blindness and self centered views.

My recommendation would be to pass this book and look for better sources about China.