Beautiful Country: A Memoir

“My story begins decades before my birth.”

Qian’s story is intrinsically connected to the story of her parents. Wang indicates this by making her father’s early childhood memories dovetail into her own childhood experiences. Her family is an integral part of who she is, and her story is tied to theirs.

“Half a century and a migration across the world later, it would take therapy’s slow and arduous unraveling for me to see that the thread of trauma was woven into every fiber of my family, my childhood.”

Generational trauma is an important theme in the book. This section of the book shows where and how that trauma began and the influence it had on Qian’s life.

“Six months later, I awoke to a somber and funereal New York, mourning for a nation that chose to elect a president on a platform of xenophobia and intolerance. It was then that I dug up my voice.”

Throughout the memoir, we see loss of voice as a recurring motif. Qian is silenced often, and she is told repeatedly to avoid talking to people. This memoir is Wang’s journey to rediscovering that voice and putting it to use.