Over the past 20 years, we’ve loved connecting curious travelers to the people and stories that encapsulate the real China – the one where a village shaman blesses our travels through Yunnan and a local Beijing resident guides us through traditional hutong alleyways. While we can’t welcome you to China in person right now, we are finding ways to still deliver those authentic insights and narratives straight to your home. And one of those ways is with our new WildChina Book Club.
At the beginning of every month, from now until July, we’ll handpick a new book we’re reading (related to China, of course), and invite you to join us in reading it. Later in the month, WildChina founder Mei Zhang will host a live chat and Q&A session with the author.
Join us for a suspenseful novel, a captivating memoir, and more, over the next few months. But first, check out our May book below before RSVPing to the talk here.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
“This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.” — Amy Chua
If you’ve ever heard the term Tiger Mother or Tiger Mom, then get ready to read the memoir that inspired its popularity. Amy Chua’s brutally honest, charming, and yet rather provocative insight into raising two girls in a traditionally ‘Chinese’ way highlights the benefits, struggles, rewards, heartbreak, and love that come with parenting and contrasting cultures.
Join us this May to read her bestselling work before we sit down with the author herself. We’re also thrilled to announce that Wendy Perrin, travel industry veteran and Editor in Chief of wendyperrin.com, will be joining Mei and Amy to co-host the discussion.
You can purchase Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother here. Or, if you’ve already read it, you can purchase Amy’s latest book, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, here.
RSVP for the talk and get the link to the live session here.
About Amy Chua
The daughter of Chinese immigrants from Fujian province, Amy Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School and a bestselling author. In 2011, Amy was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, one of the Atlantic Monthly’s Brave Thinkers, and one of Foreign Policy’s Global Thinkers. She also received the Yale Law School’s “Best Teaching” award.
Amy Chua’s written works include World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2002), which was selected by both The Economist and the U.K.’s Guardian as a Best Book of 2003 and Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance – and Why They Fall (2007). This month, we’ll be reading Amy Chua’s 2011 memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a provocative international bestseller that has been translated into 30 languages.
Find out more about Amy Chua’s life and work here.
About Wendy Perrin
This month, we’re very lucky to be joined by the founder of wendyperrin.com, Wendy Perrin! With 25 years of experience as a travel journalist, Wendy amassed quite the knowledge base about the best places to travel, ways to travel, and everything else travel related. She began her eponymous website and travel guide back in 2014, and has since become a household name for travelers and travel advisors around the world looking to find that extra-special journey.
With two sons and a wealth of family travel experience, Wendy seemed like the best person to join us this month as we chat with Amy Chua about parenting and contrasting cultures. Join us on Thursday to hear from these incredible women.
Live Chat With the Author
When: Thursday, May 14 from 5-6 pm (PT, GMT -8) / 8-9pm (ET, GMT –5)
Where: Online live chat and Q&A on Zoom and Facebook
To RSVP and submit your questions, please click here or connect with us on Facebook here.
About WildChina On-Air
The WildChina Book Club is one of two new complimentary knowledge-sharing series that make up WildChina On-Air. Throughout this series, we want to offer you fun and interactive ways to learn about China at your own pace. Because we can’t bring you to the Middle Kingdom at the moment, we think it’s more important than ever to connect people from around the world with topics and themes they feel passionately about and to share the real stories of real people that are so often missed.
So, this month, we’re launching two new sharing series. WildChina founder Mei Zhang will be sitting down with some of our expert hosts to talk about travel, China, history, art, and more for our series In Conversation With… She’ll also be hosting the WildChina Book Club, where we’ll read a book together before talking to the author.
We hope you can join us for these series as we share insights from our people into the China we know and love. All these sessions will be available for free, but in case you would like to contribute, we’ll be putting any donations into a fund to support our guides around the country. For more information and upcoming events, subscribe to our newsletter here.
