OLD MADAM YIN: A MEMOIR OF PEKING LIFE

Book ID/图书代码： 12347013B63121

English Summary/英文概要： His book is a personal account of friendship that developed between an American woman raised and working in China and a Chinese woman raised in the pre-cultural revolution period. Madame Yin is a strong, intelligent person who is an individual of her time. Ida describes Madame Yin with a great respect and love as well as the curiosity of one culture for another. I came away from the book with a much greater appreciation for Chinese family values and traditions. This is a quick but very informative read. Ida writes in he first person narrative and, although her writing is only occasionally stilted (a product of its time as well), she is an excellent story teller.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 作者透过细腻独特的女性视角，以第一人称的口吻详述了她和朋友殷老太太之间的友谊。以“中国人民的美国女儿” 自诩的IDA PRUITT女士是一对美国传教士的女儿，她于1888年在中国出生，此后曾赴美求学，学成回国后一直留在中国工作、生活。在1926-1938年期间，时任北京协和医院社服科科长的PRUITT女士在一次偶然的机会中，认识了她的朋友殷老太太。 殷老太太是一位内心强大，聪慧过人的老太太。她操持着大家庭里的各种事务，但是在那个年代，女人是没有话语权的。PRUITT女士在与她的交往中，也深入剖析了中国家庭观念和传统文化对女性的影响。虽然本书只有129页，但是简洁明净的文字里流露出的思想内涵却牢牢抓住了读者的内心。(Susie)

Awards/获奖情况：I always feel suspicious of books that contain such sentences as----"The cook poured my second cup of coffee. I had never been able to get him to leave the coffee pot on the table. He seemed to feel that would lessen his dignity." The reason for my hesitation is the slightly wry humor aimed at someone the speaker might have asked, but didn’t. However, on finishing OLD MADAM YIN, I have to conclude that it has some excellent points. I chose to read it thinking that it was an autobiography or an edited life story by an anthropologist. No, it is more the story of contact between an American hospital worker in pre-revolutionary China and a Chinese woman from an upper class family of the old school, Old Madam Yin. The Chinese lady has no voice, the whole book being the summary of Ida Pruitt’s observations. As she, the author, spoke Chinese and knew China well, we find an interesting picture of a certain style of life, the manners and innuendoes of a bygone age in Beijing, family dynamics before Mao. It makes for fascinating reading, a useful source of social history, and is a book which makes you ponder how much of Chinese culture survives into the present even if somewhat overshadowed by the decaying but still-powerful Communist Party, the Internet, vast movements of labor, the cementing over of vast areas, in a noisier age of nightclubs and cars. I would guess a lot does survive. It seems to me that a reader who wants to know what Chinese think would be wiser to look elsewhere, but if you are looking for acute observations by an old-style American lady, this is definitely the book. At 129 pages of non-academic prose, you can read OLD MADAM YIN quickly, but the atmosphere will remain with you for a long time.

About the Author/作者介绍： 十九世纪末期，Ida Pruitt女士出生于中国的一个小乡村里，在那里她度过了自己的童年时光。她的一生几乎见证了中国一个世纪以来的革命性巨变。她是北京协和医院的第一任社服科科长，之后又担任中国工合国际委员会的高级秘书，(中国工合国际委员会（International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives），简称工合国际（ICCIC），是国内现存历史最悠久的国际性民间组织和合作社民间促进组织之一。当年为支援中国人民抗日战争，争取海外援助，促进中国工业合作社运动，宋庆龄与国际友人发起，1939年在香港成立中国工合国际委员会。1952年因全国合作总社成立，工合国际停止活动。1987年为配合国家改革开放发展战略而恢复，在中华人民共和国民政部注册为全国性社会团体，主要从事促进合作社发展、扶贫、妇女培训等社会公益事业。) 。她把毕生的时间和精力都奉献给了中国的社会公益事业，她的名字将永远被我们——中华民族的儿女们铭记。

Ida Pruitt (1888-1985), born of American missionaries and raised in a rural Chinese village at the end of the nineteenth century, witnessed almost a century of China’s revolutionary upheavals. She was the first Director of Social Service at Peking Union Medical College, where she established social casework in China, and later served as the executive secretary of the American Committee in Support of the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, the only U.S. aid agency to support both Nationalist and Communist regions during the Chinese Civil War. She was also one of the early advocates for U.S. diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China.

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