The Ginger Tree

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My only criticism is that some times the time lapse were too large and I was left wondering about the missing years. It's a story of a young girl from Edinburgh who goes to China shortly after the Taiping Rebellion to marry a British military attaché, then has an affair with a Japanese aristocrat, is ostracized by the fellow foreigners, loses this and that (don't want to make spoilers), goes to live in Japan, then leaves Japan in the middle of the Pacific War. The end.

The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd | Waterstones

The New York Times wrote of the series "Despite several fine performances, The Ginger Tree turns out to be unabsorbing. The East-meets-West aspects of the story are handled intelligently. The on-location effects are often splendid. But the overall production is plodding and curiously sluggish.". [2] Howard Rosenberg, writing for the Los Angeles Times, agreed and wrote the series "is a slow-evolving come-on with a disappointing payoff." While he praised the first two episodes, the production, and Samantha Bond's performance, he wrote of the final episodes: "As Mary gains assurance, the drop-off in intensity is dramatic. There is simply never any doubt where this part of the story is taking you or how it will arrive there. It's an unsatisfying resolution to a drama that begins so promisingly." [3] Media releases [ edit ]

O'connor, John J. (13 October 1990). "Review/Television; In Which an Unhappy Wife Is Unhappier as a Concubine". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 10 April 2016. There's always something extra delightful about coming across a novel you've never heard of by chance and then finding out you love it. I grabbed this one from my Little Free Library in the early days of the pandemic, when the public library was closed, but for some reason, just got around to reading it now. The island is called the Great Natuna and belongs to the Dutch. The Dutch seem to have a huge empire in these parts that stretches for thousands of miles and includes thousands of island, some very big like Sumatra. At school we always thought there was only one really big empire and that was our, on which the sun will never set. I was looking at the island with the silly idea in my mind that it would be nice to be queen of such a place and never leave it when suddenlyI remembered Mrs. Carswell being carried down the gangplank at Penang looking already dead. I shivered. Mrs. B came up behind me then and asked what was the matter? I told her what I been thinking about and she said something I will always remember; 'Child, you are traveling towards the lands of sudden death.' She told me about a huge flood in China near a place called Wuhan in which some say as many as two and a half million people drowned, which is half of all the people in Scotland. Many of the bodies came floating down river to near Shanghai where Mrs. B was at the time." So why did I give this book four stars? Remember: four stars in Goodreads equals "I really liked it." I really liked Mary. She was strong but not ridiculously so -- in fact, there were times when I wished she were even stronger. Or at least more vocal. I liked the setting / atmosphere -- I found myself looking up the places she lived or traveled as well as re-reading books (Boxers and Saints!) and reading up on historical events to gather insights into what was going on in that part of the world. I liked the connection to the view of an expat (the foreign connection mentioned at the start of this review about a ginger tree). I am not an "expat" in the conventional sense of the word (in fact, I consider myself a "lifer"... :-) ), and yet, I have expatriated from my birth country. I can do many things to try and fit in and yet I am an outsider, a foreigner. While having said THAT, I no longer fit in as seamlessly in my home country -- as Mary cannot go home to Scotland, it would be hard for me to return to the USA. I also liked how Oswald Wynd, a man, captured the character of a woman. Men writing about women in 3rd person, is do-able. Writing first person in journal entries... hmm... a bit more challenging. He does it well. Finally, I very much enjoyed our book club discussion. Fascinating takes and insights on the book! This is the kind of book that unfolds like a delectable seven-course meal. Not too rich and everything cooked to perfection. The characters are well-drawn, and sense of place is unforgettable.

The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd | Goodreads The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd | Goodreads

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:O0kDl4AXVMoJ:www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-ADOPT.PDF+japanese+adoption+yoshi&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 the ginger tree-- I think she kept this in her garden because it was out of place just like she was.

a b O'Connor, John J. (13 October 1990). "In Which an Unhappy Wife Is Unhappier as a Concubine". The New York Times . Retrieved 2 April 2018. He attended schools in Japan where he grew up speaking both English and Japanese. In 1932 he returned with his parents to Scotland, and studied at the University of Edinburgh and began to write novels. When World War II came he joined the Scots Guards but was then commissioned into the Intelligence Corps and sent to Malaya. At the time of the Japanese invasion, he was attached to the Indian Army on the east coast of Malaya, and his brigade covered the final withdrawal to Singapore. Cut off by the Japanese advance, he was lost alone for a week in the Johor jungle. Eventually he was captured and spent more than three years as a prisoner of war, during which time he was mentioned in dispatches for his work as an interpreter for prisoners. The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like having a well-read friend than a subscription to a literary review. Mary is incredibly observant and this is one of her saving graces, something that allows her to know how to interact with various people. She doesn't pity herself (not much, anyhow), accepting the consequences of her decisions, but she does harden, somewhat. As she says in a letter to a friend, she made her bed and she must lie in it, but eventually she is determined to have a better bed. Oswald Morris Wynd (1913–1998) was a Scottish writer. He is best known for his novel The Ginger Tree, which was adapted into a BBC televised mini-series in 1989.

The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd | Goodreads

The story of Mary, a rather innocent young woman, travelling by ship to China to marry a man she barely knows, pulled me in right from the first paragraph and held me in its thrall right to the end. While the story is billed as a romance (young woman falls madly in love with the wrong man and almost loses everything) it was so much more than that. Mary is no ordinary romantic heroine but instead a brave adventurer who learns to trust her instincts and use her intelligence to create a life for herself, even in the face of unbearable loss.Mary was betrothed in Scotland to a man she only met briefly and then he was stationed in China. She voyage across the sea to China were she married him to find her husband distant and in a distant land. Mary had a girl. She met a Japanese soldier and then was abandoned by her husband when it was found out that she was pregnant again but it couldn't have been by husband. The husband took her daughter, Jane. She made her way to Japan where her lover took care of her until her son, Tomo was born and then he took the son because he was of Kurihama blood and she was left on her own again. She eventually started a dress shop to support herself.