The Strength of Water

<p><strong>Water is fluid soft yielding. But water will wear away rock... what is soft is strong. -Lao Tzu</strong></p><p></p><p>In 1920s Detroit King Ying lives in a small apartment behind her parents' laundry business where she stands on a box to iron clothes endures taunts of Ching-Ching Chinaman on the playground and tries to reconcile what passes for normal in Jazz Age America with her father's vastly different cultural values.</p><p></p><p>She dreams of a real home the elegance of her Jane Arden paper dolls and winning her stern father's affection. But when Ba incurs steep debts during the Great Depression he sends her far from hope<span style=color: rgba(255 0 0 1)> </span>to live in his ancestral village.</p><p></p><p>In remote Tai Ting Pong in the Guangdong Province of China she feels as foreign in the land of her heritage as in the country of her birth. She must survive hunger dangerous superstitions and Japanese invasion as the Sino-Japanese War begins.</p><p></p><p>When guardian angels help her return to the U.S. it's a chance to seize her American dream. In this inspiring and heartfelt memoir Karin K. Jensen records her mother's transpacific quest for identity survival and new world dreams.</p>