Authors:
Aukštakalnytė-Hansen, Eglė Published in: Vilnius
Published on: 2015
Publisher: Tyto alba
The book “Mama Afrika” writer Eglė Aukštakalnytė-Hansen that had to move form Kenia to Sanhay, so she could wrote a book “Mamahuhu, Šešeri metai Kinijoje”, where she told her experience. The author Eglė Aukštakalnytė-Hansen tries to show the boundless (so much geographycal area, so much cultural meaning) China as a huge colage, that every detail is distinctive, immpresive and worth attention.
At first the reader is suprised and intreaged by the book title „Mamahuhu“. This lingvistic crossword meaning is expalined by the author in the book, but the reader can interpret it on their own way. Also there is many photographs, that are captured by the author from various China regions. Photos and signatures helps you understand what kind of different country it is on people, environment and traditions point of view. It helps you to know this boundless country more efficient. We need to take point that he book does not consist just on Eglės Aukštakalnytės-Hansen point of view, there are many statictical and geopolitical insights. Reading this book you won‘t just find about experienced cultural shock, countries urbanization, the freedom of world and control, traditional Chiness food and medical secrets, but you will come along with countries history where are explained facts that had an influence on current nation character. The author tells the miths that prevails in the country, historical heroes, the importance of believing and folk moral.
The reader is astonished by the writers capability to tell the story about the land in the unbelievably atractive way, where she had been not for a few days but for a few months, and to be a person who lives in the country where you have to come across with major contects of problems that you need to acknowladge more detailed. China is different, wide, contrastic, capricious, and thats why the author has so much of information flow. The book creator decribes the country as a monster, that she want to tell about so much but its hard to find the right point of view. Magnificient country in the book looks like contraversial and very diverse and at this point, we can‘t grade or tell a final diagnosis: what kind of country this is?
Vivid China image: many different people, culture and traditions. Sometimes insane or even crue. For example, openly showed chiness people hatred for „white“ people, vulgar behaviour and distinctive standpint about hygiene. But China is not a sociaty that has an overall main look, in the country there are many ethnic groups, there are more than 56: ones that has faith and the other faithless. The author visiting etnic groups homes, gives a reader a chance to meet extraordinary people, different traditions and a system of family values. Reader will know not only the facts about China and its meaning but will learn about world center mentality, that shows up and dominates in every daily situation. The observations of Eglės Aukštakalnytės-Hansen will suprise everybody: will make you laught and shock.
Yakaterinburg, (Ural), Moscow, Nairobi (Kenia), Maputu (Mozambique), Shanghai (China) – this is lithuanian author, traveller, photographer, writer Eglės Aukštakalnytės-Hansen, sixteen year life, away Lithuania, geographical map.