Non-fiction/Memoir
Days Like Floating Water
A Story of Modern China
Susan Edwards McKee
Oak Leaf Impressions Press
415 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9799306-0-7

Beautiful is the word that repeatedly came to mind as I read Susan Edwards McKee’s memoir, Days Like Floating Water. From the detailed descriptions of the town where the author and her husband, Robert, taught English, to the pictures of the college students and the author’s own artwork featured throughout, it is indeed beautiful. The book, which takes its title from a line in an essay written by one of the author’s Chinese students, is a lovely example of altruism. 

“Rob and I’ve been in mainland China for two weeks, the start of a year-and-a-half contract to teach English. We’re in our sixties, and have been cautioned by the people who sponsor us not to discuss politics or religion in China (3).” 

In 1999, McKee and her husband began a teaching assignment in which they received no payment for their services, supplied their own books for teaching, and invested time outside of the classroom working with students.  The couple lived and worked on the Zhejiang Sunli College campus located in Ningbo, China. Their devotion to the work is evident in the McKee’s creative teaching techniques, their commitment to keeping themselves healthy, and the openness in which they received their students.  

After only six weeks of English as a Second Language training and Mandarin Chinese lessons, the brave couple, having lived the military life and raised three children, embarked on an adventure that taught them to adjust to living conditions that were severe compared to Western standards and to negotiate open markets for food that would not bring on illness. Even before leaving for China, the author wrestled with personal fears about being in away from her family and living in a country where her freedom of speech would be restricted: “I look directly into the scowling face of each fear and decide that “I wish I had…” are some of the saddest words in life (26).” Ultimately, the couple successfully managed life in China and contributed greatly to the lives of their students. 

The book reads like a journal that readers have been generously given permission to share. McKee’s writing is impressive: informative, enlightening, and often poetic. Landscape is vividly described and emotions are expressed without a filter. The author not only offers the reader an open invitation to experience modern day China, but to know some of the country’s eager and ambitious young people who wish to expand their lives beyond the villages where they were born and to become a source of pride for their families and their country. 

Days Like Floating Water is a fantastic read. It is beautiful. I highly recommend it. 

Melissa Levine
For  Independent Professional Book Reviewers
www.bookreviewers.org
August 11, 2009