Panda Not Dragon | Book Review

★★★

Interesting and skewed

​The author is obviously well-educated, which made this book a decent read; however, there was the obvious slant and not-well-veiled skew against the western power, the United States

​ I am the first to admit that the US has its issues, including an inability to accept each others' differences in culture, religion, race. This is not anything new, nor is it solely an American issue. Wars, pettiness, division, fear...this is a human condition found on every continent, in every country in the world since the beginning of man--including China and other Asian countries. Look at how many times Japan invaded China in an attempt to gain power over the people and or its resources. And are you really going to try to make me believe that there is no animosity from people in China against other cultures, religions, countries? That they hold no ill-will or prejudice against other races? I am certainly not naïve enough to believe that America is the only flawed country in the world.

​There was also a statement made by the author that demonstrated a bit of his ability to mind-read. After all, for an academic to make a sweeping assessment of intent without supporting evidence must mean he is omniscient. He stated that only two movies with an all-Asian cast were made in a 100 years of Hollywood film-making. He then retorts sarcastically that "it does not mean that Asian people do not watch movies" which led to his flawed conclusion that "either seeing Asian faces on screen make people uncomfortable or Hollywood simply does not like Asians." Or perhaps there wasn't a script that came across their desk that they felt would earn them enough money or any other number of reasons that didn't make sense monetarily to an industry where the bottom line is more important than making a racial or political statement.

​This is also the same country in which equal rights were only just granted in the 60s and rarely were there any all-African-American films made. And just how many all-white films have been made in China? The door swings both ways.

​Overall, the book was written well, mechanically, but this particular academic needs to revisit his work to determine how often his own prejudices were included.