The Golden Mountain - Beyond the American Dream

The Mail Tribune, April 2, 2004
"Golden Mountain" is a story of empowerment, courage and forgiveness, lessons that transcend even those influences that would isolate us.


Book Description
Its a gripping tale of four generations of Chinese women who live and die under the restrictions of their culture. Read the story of the author growing up in Hong Kong and New York where she struggled to meld the American Dream with her ethnic background. She finally understands the true nature of dreams and what it means to live.


From the Author
I was inspired to write the Golden Mountain: Beyond the American Dream to encourage others to create their own destiny and live the life of their dreams. Born in Hong Kong, I moved to New York City at age fifteen and was plunged into the tumultuous world of sex and drugs that characterized America in the 1960s. Struggling to reconcile my roles as a dutiful Chinese daughter and a modern American woman, I rebelled against many of the cultural dictates handed down from my family. I defied Chinese convention in my relationships, education and attitude; I earned degrees in art, traveled extensively, married, opened a successful business and, 30 years later, found myself in Los Angeles at the pinnacle of worldly success. But I wasn't happy. I felt miserable, physically and emotionally exhausted. It was only through intense meditation that I finally discovered the courage to forgive my family for all the years of abuse and to let go of an unhappy marriage. I discovered that I didn't have to simply "accept" my fate as my mother and grandmother had done. I could create my own destiny, a destiny filled with passion, vision and light.


About the Author
Irene Kai was born in Hong Kong and graduated from the School of Visual Arts, NYC and the Royal College of Art, London. Formerly a professor at Penn State University, Irene has traveled extensively and now makes her home in Ashland, Oregon.


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In Golden Mountain, Irene Kai tells a deeply personal story of how she overcame cultural bias and a difficult mother to move from China to America and become an independent woman. The child of a loveless arranged marriage, Kai was born into a culture where women were told to accept their fate and not question authority. Beginning with her great-grandmother, Wong Oi, who was humiliated by her husband's concubine, Kai traces the lives of women in her family through three generations until she reaches her own childhood. As a teen, Kai was brought to America with her family and began to rebel against her physically and psychologically abusive mother. In New York City she discovered art, sexuality, and herself. Finding the strength to prosper in the "Golden Mountain," Kai made her own life and became truly independent. Still, she could not forget from where she came-in a poignant finale, Kai comes to terms with the family she left behind. An uplifting, unpredictable story, Golden Mountain is a book about overcoming, and coming to terms with, one's culture.


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