Book Review: Home is a Roof Over a Pig

Aminta Arrington’s Home is a Roof Over a Pig: An American Family’s Journey in China (The Overlook Press, NY: 2012) chronicles the multi-year transition and adaptation of her American suburban family (consisting of the author, her husband, and three young children--including a daughter adopted from China) to life in the small town of Tai’an in Shandong, China.

I love this book because of its many interwoven themes. It is, simultaneously, an adoption tale, a tale about encountering, engaging, and ultimately embracing another culture, and a tale about the Chinese language.

Adoption: The author relates how she and her husband decided to adopt their daughter Grace. She tells about their first trip to China to bring Grace home, and their decision to return to China--to, as a family, learn about the country and language of their daughter’s birth and to give their daughter a sense of pride about who she was and where she came from. 

I'm impressed by the dedication of Arrington and her husband in not only providing their adopted daughter with this experience, but also her American-born brother and sister. 

Cultural Encounter: The author highlights instances when her family is, at first, distanced from the local culture due to a language barrier, but also how they are slowly drawn into a local community, through their children’s involvement at a local preschool (as well as their own teaching experience at local colleges).

I find it refreshing that Arrington openly struggles, at times, with apparent cultural difference (e.g. her students’ necessity to think and sometimes believe only the facts as they are presented in their textbook vs. the American value of critical thinking).

Chinese Language: Each chapter is organized around one Chinese character or phrase (e.g. lei 累, or “tired”). The author talks about the different elements/radicals that make up the character (e.g. “field” 田 and “silk” 丝) and the overall meaning when the elements are combined. This is a really technique effective in terms of storytelling and it also makes the reader feel like they’re really learning something about the Chinese language.

Final take-away:  There are not very many books about American families with children living in China, and fewer yet about American families living in a small Chinese town. Arrington's book provides an entertaining and informative window into that world: we see the ups and downs, the challenges, and (best yet!) the successes as her family adapts to and embraces the Chinese language and culture.