Book Review—-An Immigrant’s Journey to the West: Confucianism and Americanism

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A stunning capture of the essential elements of American and Chinese culture. Yu-long Ling manages to not only expertly detail the ideals of Chinese society but also provide further insight on American culture that was originally imperceptible. The book is divided into Iive sections: Chinese and American individual culture, their cross-cultural interactions, their impacts on the modern world, and the changes the two have been experiencing. Each chapter is a speciIic topic that extensively analyzing the two seemingly unrelated cultures, Iinding similarities between the two or individually investigating the one. All in all, Ling brilliantly compiled a book that has delved into the depths of the Confucian sea of knowledge and Iished out an American gem.
Particularly, the Section on Confucianism appealed to me in that it awoke in me a sense of my own culture. Being an American citizen with a Chinese heritage, I am fully aware of the ramiIications of my former culture but signiIicantly lacking in the latter. Ling’s account and personal opinion conveyed through the passages the niches of Chinese culture that were previously unknown. The book, overall, is a well-written, thoroughly-analyzed account of a cultural fusion as per the result of globalization.