Summary

Welcome to my blog. This is a work in progress.. An up coming memoir by Irene Eng.

Heathen Son is a colorful and highly readable history written for a general audience. It is relevant to today’s reader because it tells the age-old story of how east meets west. What happens when modern industry is thrust upon an agrarian peasant society? When Protestant and Catholic missionaries descend upon a godless world known for ghost worship and superstition? My book touches on sensitive topics such as race, religion, culture and politics, and shows how the inevitable clash of these elements leads to tragedy and bloodshed. Xenophobia, and racism run rampant, issues that continue to heat up the front pages of global current events. The Chinese generals and viceroys that resisted an overwhelming Western influence may be likened to the Islamic clerics and radicals of today’s Middle Eastern conflict. Fundamentalist groups like the Taliban have fought hard to preserve their ways, forever railing against American style capitalism and its modern entrapments. Are these men, reviled as terrorists who have declared holy war on the American marauders, any different from a so-called ‘anti-westerner’ as Liu? Are the Chinese Boxers who slit the throats of German missionaries any different from the masked Al-Qaeda who slit the throat of an American journalist?

And yet, the story is not quite so simple. My account will show that he had complex socio-political motives outside of any pure hatred for the invading white man.

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