The true story about a Chinese man born during the dying days of the Qing Empire and his travel to the West. In 1937, when the Great War started, he had already been a decade abroad already. While abroad, the situation in his country had continued from bad to worse. Impatiently, he waited for the situation to improve to return to his family, but his father told him to find another wife abroad.

The Color of Skin is a story about the difficulties and the unexpected things an immigrant encountered in a foreign environment. It is about his marriage to a foreign woman, his relation to his foreign-born children, his social life, and much more. It is about how terribly wrong a relation can become because of cultural differences between two persons with diametrically opposing backgrounds. It is a story about racial prejudices within a Chinese immigrant's family, East vs. West, ancient vs. immature.

This is a controversial and provocative story about odd couples living together beneath the same roof but not having anything in common besides their children and the business they owned. It is about the unforeseen consequences of putting one's trust and future into the hands of strangers without knowing their background.

Christine Yunn-Yu Sun

Book translations