The Red Sandals Audiobook By Jing Li cover art

The Red Sandals

A Memoir

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The Red Sandals

By: Jing Li
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
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This title uses virtual voice narration

Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.

About this listen

 The true-grit story of a young woman's drive to prove herself worthy. Born in a back-water area of China, raised by an angry grandmother and later the servant to her brothers, THE RED SANDALS tells how Jing Li survived severe abuses of childhood and became an accomplished English teacher. It’s a remarkable journey of human resilience and courage. Cultural & Regional
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The author has written thoroughly about her life experiences, and does not end abruptly with her departure from China, as many memoirs do. I like that. She has saved up her experiences for 20 years and then added them together with some interesting retrospective reflection. I enjoyed the parallels she sometimes offered; such as comparing the shouting of Moaist announcements in the streets back in 1970s China to the intrusive morning announcements given over the loudspeaker in the San Francisco high school where she taught. That made me laugh. And I agree. When I was a high school student in the States, these announcement were loud and obnoxious and interrupted my work. I appreciate her politically incorrect yet heartfelt remarks about the ambivalence her students showed to study; she wanted them to work hard, as she had done, to get ahead. But the kids in her classes didn't buy it. It's clear she values the American economic model. I would have liked to hear more about that. I'd have liked to hear why she values success, and not just to presume that getting ahead is its own best ends. Not everyone cares about success, and many people prefer to put other things first.

She is candid about her relationship struggles and the "enemies" she made along the way; I would have liked more "objectivity" or maybe quotes from those people about what they thought of the same experiences the author reflects on. She writes honestly and does not hide the pain, when she and her family members struggle or lash out. The events of her stories come across as heartfelt. But the result is a black and white picture, without the subtle shades of grey that are the reality of human relationships. No one can be all write or all wrong: all evil or all good. But the book often paints that way. The result is a sort of "Cinderella story", because you rarely hear much about the people she is grateful to her or who did really help her or support her.

I can see she cares a lot about teaching, even though she, sadly, lost her job. I would have liked her to ask her students and their parents, and look into the question of whether or not her American students believed in "The American Dream" as she did. Did they think they could actually "succeed"? What were their actual goals for themselves? Could she have made a bridge to them, by telling her story to them? Did she try to do that? Maybe she could have gotten the kids to simply think through goals before encouraging them to study for its own sake? I am not saying this would have worked with her kids. I just think, it would have been a first step for American kids, who don't always go for "success" as their first goal. Some just "want to be their own people" in life. Or have other goals. and even if the kids wanted "success", did they think if they studied hard like she did, would they actually find success? I don't know the answers to these questions, myself. But her descriptions of life as a teacher, and her rich life working hard to get so many of her own dreams fulfilled, all lend themselves to even further reflection on these particular questions. The book, while mainly about her experiences in China, strikes me as touching upon the most important questions in the American elementary and secondary education system. I appreciate all her efforts in telling her story.

Despite the Cinderella nature of this story, it offers important insight. I wish the author had found at least some success reaching into the hearts of the kids she teaches in the USA. I hope she gets another chance and has the desire to make the effort. And if not, I hope her story highlights the options any student has: to (1) work hard and work through the system, or to (2) consciously choose another path. I hope no one who is young simply opts to be blind to the choices they are making. I think this would make excellent reading for high school students and not the highly outdated, "Catcher in the Rye" or "Room with a View" or even the Jane Austen and Shakespeare that kids usually get. Good books, but not until a high school student cares about and consciously acknowledges their own autonomy. The questions merely touched upon in this book are deeply relevant to American life, the immigrant experience, and modern life in general.

(The Virtual Voice system is very weird. It's a far better narration than many "real" narrators. But this virtual narrator has a hoarse voice which comes out from time to time. How is that even possible with a virtual system? There must be a misspelling at one place in the book, because "girl" is read in a way a human being would never do. Making the realization from time to time that there is no real person behind the voice, even though there is a hint of emotional feeling in the voice, is a bit creepy. But because the narration is so good compared to many books, I will gladly continue with Virtual Voice.)

Touches well, upon the American Education System

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Many mistakes unsure if this is due to virtual voice or errors in the actual text but they aren’t just heteronyms. Some sentences don’t make sense and sometimes it’s just one word like the narration says my but that doesn’t make sense and it should be me.

Mistakes

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