i just sat in an interesting book discussion, well worth the 30 min or so spent trying to find a parking lot near campus in the rain and another 3 min or so of humiliation and extreme guilt when i finally discovered a spot and then did an illegal turn to secure my spot (holding up traffic for like 2 min or so cos visibility was low and i suck at parallel parking.....)

so. anyway, i thought Jung Chang was an interesting character... and somehow Westernized Asian ladies are especially unpredictable (as in you can never really tell from their looks if they are totally Americanized/"Britainized???" (Since JC lives in London) or still fobbish or in between, just like how i mistook my History Prof for some housewifish figure in my first lecture). hmm ok i've digressed again. back to JC. anyway, when she first stepped in she reminded me of a Chinese version of a local female politician, with her straight, waist-length tresses...ha. the most interesting parts, for me, was how despite moderator Orville Schell's attempts to tease out something new and perhaps more neutral from the authors, I don't think I recall any occasion where they deviated from the argument they made in the book... even when JC was forced to acknowledge that women won more rights under Mao's regime, she had to add that that's cos the ultimate aim was to make them available as laborers... there was also some obvious tension towards the end after the Q&A session started.... and i thought one of Jung Chang's responses really dented her credibility.... i think at some point she really tried to defend her book, and almost insisted that what she presents in the book is "the truth" and that she felt obliged to present the "truth" to the people...just as what the moderator tried to hint at, if her documents are really as authentic as she claims they are, and that all of them lead to the conclusion she and her husband eventually arrives at, perhaps there's no need for them to reiterate the point over and over again? hmm i mean i'm sure not everything in the book is fabricated... but i thought it seemed pretty clear that she has personal grudges against this man...