Dead Promise::The Book

Posted on 22 April 2010

Title: Dead Promise
Author: Patch Xiong
Release: December 2009
Pages: 171
Publisher: INFINITY Publishing.com
For a simple clip of the book HERE

Dead Promise:: Dead Promise is a riveting and tragic love story of a young couple during the Vietnam War. Inspired by a Hmong folktale, it is a timeless tale of an orphan, Cheng, and his determination to be with the girl of his dreams, Panou, a daughter of a wealthy family.

As we travel with Cheng and Panou, we are reminded that love and pain are two face of the same coin. With the Hmong fighting in the Secret War, Cheng is faced with a life changing decision: Will he fight for his people or stay with the love of his life?

–Credit:: The back of the book (copied word for word)

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Hummm what can I say about this book? Well it was interesting… I enjoy reading so I found joy in reading this book, but as I read the book, I kept making side notes and comments to myself. So to be honest, because I am fully Hmong, while I was reading this book, a book from a Hmong author which is base around the Hmong people, I had to harshly judge this book. I know I am so evil right, but I believe there are some good in it. Again this is constructive criticism and what I thought of the book. So bear with me if you will…

I’ll start out with the bad before the good:::

I found the beginning of the book a bit slow and boring, Patch really portrayed Panou our leading lady as a childish 17 year old who fights with her younger brother of 14. I thought the beginning was a bit dragging from Panou’s fight with her younger brother about who gets to join their parents on their short visit to the nearby village and their walk from her home village to the nearby village… It took him 28 pages just to get pass that part of the book, I was started to drag the book, it must had taken me 3 different times of reading the book before I past that part.

What got me was Patch’s choice of words for his book (just the first few pages). I fell like he could had used other words, I feel like it was a bit choppy with his choice of words when he was indicating their conversations. But I supposed I was translating everything they say from the English written book into the Hmong spoken language, that was a bit hard… It really bothered me when Cheng and Panou called each other “sweetheart”, “honey” and etc.. I couldn’t find any correct term in Hmong to translate such terms.

It also bothered me how Cheng was able to give his step mother horrible names and it was okay, humm I know that in the Hmong community, no matter how much you hate the person, if she is your step mother, you are not allowed to call her any names, especially not to your father and his wife, your step mother. But I supposed it’s only a book.

There was a part in the book where Patch indicated that our main characters should not go any further on their journey to their new life, I did not understand the indication of the snake, yes I know that in the Hmong culture and belief when we see a snake in front of us, we are to turn around and make our trip another day. It is bad luck to cross over a snake, we believe that when we see a snake blocking our way to our journey or wherever we are going, our ancestors had turned into a snake to warn us that what is ahead of us will be bad thus we must turn around and wait for a better moment. Normally when we get this warning, it is something that will happen that day, not anything that will happen a few months from now or etc, at least my parents had never said anything about the snake warning us about our life long future. I felt like Patch should had left out the snake part of the story for it didn’t help to predict the future of the book because the ending of the book is 4 years after when they saw the snake.

I love how Cheng and Panou’s love was very strong, they were able to love and wait for each other no matter how hard things were. Their love was sweet, their romance was playful, their story was very inspiring. Panou was able to love someone who was way under her class, who was penniless and had no one to run to. Panou was able to accept Cheng for who he is, and that is hard to find, of course this is only again a book, but I am glade that Cheng isn’t a “prince charming” figure, yet he is an ordinary Hmong orphan who struggles day in and day out to survive.

This book was a good read, I did rather enjoyed it. This book will help others understand some Hmong belief as Patch does a great job explaining the few myths and belief that the Hmong people live by.

So guys, go out and buy this book and support Patch Xiong!!! Happy Reading!

A reader who goes by the name Lorye had also given me her 2 cents on this book::

Hey mozemoua,

So I finished Dead Promise by Patch Xiong a few days ago and I pretty much agreed with your criticisms. I did not enjoy his usage of descriptive words to describe an image, situation, movements, and characters. I understand, descriptive imagery allows the readers to be able to fully picture the scenes clearer. However, he over elaborated this concept throughout the book. This forced me to find the book difficult, passive, and dull to past by. So some pages I found myself scanning through it than reading word from word. Moreover, I found it hard to accept the fact that both Chang and Pa Nou would call each other “Sweetheart or Honey” because both of these words will connote a strange feeling if said in Hmong. Also, given that this book had only 171 pages, Xiong rushed the development of Chang and Pa Nou’s relationship. Yet, it was good that Xiong was able to construct fine paragraphs of their relationship for the reader to see how the two characters sort of develops their relationship with each other or else it would have been strange for Chang to continue to stalk Pa Nou and suddenly they magically fall in love with each other. The ending could have been better. I found it difficult to understand it and had to read it multiple times before I understood what had happened. It was because of his descriptiveness again. On the Pros, I absolutely found Chang and Pa Nou’s relationship to be sweet, amusing, and fun. There were some parts of the books that I couldn’t help but smile and laugh because Chang’s character was very funny. I’m very glad that Xiong did not make Chang a very attractive man but someone who’s rather average or almost average. I liked this aspect because Pa Nou fell in love with Chang’s personality and not his looks. And lastly, the promise made by the two was very strong. Each kept their promise and especially Pa Nou who never let any other man into her life but Chang. Overall, I expected the book to better then what I had anticipated for. For a Hmong author I think his book was well written and constructed.

:::SPOILER:::
::DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT IF YOU GUYS DO NOT WISH TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END OF THE STORY::
Okay so I had talked about the movie Nkuaj Nyab when it came out last year, well lets say towards the end of the book, it was pretty much what had happened in this story. Again they did said this book was inspired by a Hmong folk tale. We’ll let’s say Cheng isn’t as lucky as Poj Zeb. The ending, Patch left us with a big fat question mark, I say with this ending, Cheng ends up dying and when he woke up to Panou, well that’s their afterlife together.