I recently purchased this 2nd copy, for Bookcrossing. This is one of my favorite books from college, read for a Medical Anthropology class.

A description, from Amazon.com:

"Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction

When three-month-old Lia Lee Arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia's pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his wife, Peggy Philip, cleaved just as strongly to another tradition: that of Western medicine. When Lia Lee Entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication.

Parents and doctors both wanted the best for Lia, but their ideas about the causes of her illness and its treatment could hardly have been more different. The Hmong see illness aand healing as spiritual matters linked to virtually everything in the universe, while medical community marks a division between body and soul, and concerns itself almost exclusively with the former. Lia's doctors ascribed her seizures to the misfiring of her cerebral neurons; her parents called her illness, qaug dab peg--the spirit catches you and you fall down--and ascribed it to the wandering of her soul. The doctors prescribed anticonvulsants; her parents preferred animal sacrifices."

Released on Thursday, December 30, 2004 at about 2:00:00 PM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at Controlled Release in Long Beach, California Controlled Releases.

RELEASE NOTES:

Although I had considered sending this out as a bookring, I really just want to send it as a RABCK to BlueAmazon, so off it goes! Suzanne, I hope this book fits your tastes (I think it will) and that you love it as much as I do! :)

What a great surprise! Thanks, C, I look forward to it. I am considering holding onto it for my bookclub selection, but I don't know if I can hold out that long...

It reminds me [at first glance] of We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With our Families.

hadn't read it yet, and have had a request for it from Alabama, so it's going off on Monday. Thought I might as well read it now.

So, I began the book and asked my partner if she'd heard of it. She had, but couldn't remember *what* she heard. She asked if it was good. My response was something like this : "well, maybe the hmong really are quaint, backwards, animal-sacrificing idiots.... but I don't know." Find this book to be extremely patronizing for at least the first 50 pages, though it gets better. Parts on war in Laos invaluable!

Then I got to page 228. This is supposedly a work of non-fiction about culture clash, where I would think that this author just MIGHT be attuned to the language that she uses. And yet she tells of one of the most poetic Hmong musical instruments, the ncas, a "brass Jew's harp". written in 1997??!?!?!? You have GOT to be kidding. Feeling rather vindicated in thinking of her as a well-meaning twit at this point, though I haven't yet finished the book.

The story of Lia itself is tragic. So understandable, from the far outside vantage point that I have, and so hard to prevent....

the book gets steadily better as it goes on, with a wonderful ending. it seems almost as if Fadiman felt that she had to 'shock' readers at the beginning with the descriptions of the Hmong and how 'backwards' they would seem to Americans. it works, of course, it just seems a bit cheap to me.

Off to Wareagle78. I believe all of her university if reading htis book. anyway, it's going....

Thank you, BlueAmazon! You were right in noting that all of my university (University of Alabama at Birmingham) will be reading this book during the upcoming year. I appreciate your willingness to let me have your copy. It will be carefully read and discussed, I can assure you. I'll journal again when read.

And you added a RABCK in the package as well! I'm overwhelmed. Thank you again.

Well I finally finished this book. Not that it was hard to read, but it made me so ANGRY that I had to put it down and cool off about midway. As a country we can motivate ourselves to communicate well enough with a people that we can make successful pilots out of men who didn't know what a plane was. (Picture the old story of the blind men and the elephant.) Yes, when it was to OUR government's benefit, we could communicate just fine.

But bring the Hmong over here, and we can't make it worth our while to understand the first thing about them - to the point that we can't treat them medically, can't provide a coherent existance for them... ARGHHHHH!!!!

Fadiman does seem pretty manipulative of the readers in her presentation of the Lees. We are frustrated by them until we are brought around to affectionate admiration. I wonder if the author is reflecting the way her own emotions wrapped around the story?

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the movie about the Hmong shaman on campus last night, but I'm looking forward to hearing Fadiman when she comes, early next month I believe. I understand the discussion groups have been very well attended and quite interesting so far. The book has been a frequent topic of conversation among administrators and faculty wherever I've been this fall. A far more engaging choice campus-wide than I initially thought.

Thanks again, BlueAmazon, for sharing this one with me.

RELEASE NOTES:

In mail to rootmartin as a selection in the 2006 Almost Anything Goes Virtual Bookbox

Caught as part of WarEagle78's Almost Anything Goes Virtual Bookbox 2006. Sounded like a fantastic book. I look forward to reading it.

Mailed to Ri today as she chose it out of Round 1 of the Passport to the World VBB on bookobsessed.com

Enjoy!

Arrived safe and sound! Thanks, Root!