Under the Phoenix Tree(鳳凰樹下)

The beautiful and dreamy Jin Hsiao-hwa is pursued by the strident intellectual Fan Lin-yu, but is infatuated with the otherworldly Buddhist scholar, the elderly Professor Bai. The love triangle is set in a society in transition, between the quickly disappearing cultural richness of traditional China and the increasingly attractive freedoms of modern Taiwanese society. At the same time, the country is undergoing major political changes that embroil the trio.

Hsiao-hwa\’s younger sister, an Olympic hopeful, belongs to a wholly modern generation, while her mother adheres to only the narrowest definition of traditional norms--wanting her daughters to make good marriages. Sibling rivalry, generational misunderstanding, and private personal aspirations both bind and isolate the three women.

Encompassing the religious, educational, mercantile, and agricultural life of Taiwan, Under the Phoenix Tree is an evocative account of a family struggling with the foreign concept of individual pursuit. Lyric fantasy combines with the ironic dismantling of intellectual and cultural pretensions to create a comic poignant world of forbidden love and failed dreams.

Catherine Dai has published two collections of short stories with Bookman Press-- Bound Feet: Stories of Contemporary Taiwan and Sringara Tales, stories of the dancers in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. She is a dancer and theatre reporter.