This is a book I could read more than once; I think it's his best, although Pyongyang really is...something it's really important to record, I guess. And Burma taught me things I didn't know at all, and just a couple of days after I read it, The Lady's house arrest sentence was extended again, and I didn't just hear about it and think, "gosh, a human rights violation in a place that's unfamiliar to me," but really felt it, felt for her, felt for the people of Burma. I wanted to cry. For whatever that's worth.
Her presence-by-absence in the book really haunted me--because it haunted Delisle, I guess.
Gosh, I hope that Shenzhen did predate Pyongyang. He seemed much more interested in exploring an understanding in Pyongyang then in Shenzhen, and given what a fascinating place Shenzhen is, it felt like some massive backsliding, you know? (I've been reading elysesewell's LJ, and my god, it is amazing to see bits of China through her eyes--she makes me want to travel and see those cities and people myself. I love it) To react to those two places as if they were exactly the same, as if Shenzhen was no better than the Orwellian nightmare of Pyongyang--I finished Shenzhen thinking that he went on these jobs looking for any reason to dislike Asia, not just reacting to the bad stuff that's actually there.
I liked all the samples he gave of local comics, particularly the stuff he liked--he is hella sophisticated, like me! :D
and then it got to Cambodia and was basically like "the modern comics scene here is limited because the artists who would've grown up to become influential Cambodian mangaka got slaughtered instead."
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This is a book I could read more than once; I think it's his best, although Pyongyang really is...something it's really important to record, I guess. And Burma taught me things I didn't know at all, and just a couple of days after I read it, The Lady's house arrest sentence was extended again, and I didn't just hear about it and think, "gosh, a human rights violation in a place that's unfamiliar to me," but really felt it, felt for her, felt for the people of Burma. I wanted to cry. For whatever that's worth.
Her presence-by-absence in the book really haunted me--because it haunted Delisle, I guess.
Gosh, I hope that Shenzhen did predate Pyongyang. He seemed much more interested in exploring an understanding in Pyongyang then in Shenzhen, and given what a fascinating place Shenzhen is, it felt like some massive backsliding, you know? (I've been reading
I liked all the samples he gave of local comics, particularly the stuff he liked--he is hella sophisticated, like me! :D
and then it got to Cambodia and was basically like "the modern comics scene here is limited because the artists who would've grown up to become influential Cambodian mangaka got slaughtered instead."
God. That's heartbreaking.