China Lake is a nickname for Silent Lake residential neighborhood which locates in the suburban city of Wo-Cun (Homonym: "the Village of a fictional city" or "Our Village" in short in Chinese). The nickname was spread out jokingly in the Chinese community because there is a high ratio of Chinese inhabitants living in the neighborhood. Dudu's "China Lake" is an epic drawing from life of the contemporary Chinese immigrants in their new homeland - Canada. As an immigrant herself, Dudu explores to set her focus on what happened in a couple of Chinese immigrant families, who had different background and went through the different paths to become well-off middle-class. Unlike the uneasy and bitter life of the immigrants which was described in most of the immigration fictions popular in China, the characters in her book already passed the preliminary period of struggle for easing off the cultural shock, ridding of the language obstacles, and repositioning themselves in the new society with a profession that they proudly pursued like in their motherland. In her book, she conglomerated and intersected many stories of which many are based on incidents happened in local Chinese community during her over 20 years' living in Ottawa - the national capital city, for instance, the high-tech engineer's sudden death in exercise, the domestic violence, the extramarital love affairs, the suicidal case of a senior, transgender people's marriage and teenager's death of hit by a bus etc. Instead of a simple facade of storytelling, Dudu has opened our eyes to look into the characters' life by furnishing them with flesh and blood, and to touch their internal worlds. The conflicts in this book cover various aspects of politics, relationship, religion, morality and meaning of life, embodying the well-off middle-class Canadian Chineses' happiness, sorrow, and perplexity of their feelings and stress in life.
About the Author: Zhanqing Du, well-known for her pen name "Dudu," is a female Chinese Canadian writer. She has been a longtime serialized novel writer in two Chinese newspapers "Ottawa China News" and "Ottawa Weekend." She possesses a wide prospective and deeper understanding of diversity and connections on culture between the East and the West. Her published books in Chinese include: The Grassland, collected proses and short fictions, Dudu from the End of the World, a collection of proses, (in Taobao.com, dangdang.com and etc) The Song of Four Seasons Behind the Glass Wall, a poetry anthology, Days without Potatoes, a collection of novels, (Amazon.com, Amazon.ca & etc) Emma in Rose, a collection of short stories, (Amazon.com, Amazon.ca & etc) The Chess of God, a collection of poems, (Amazon.com, Amazon.ca & etc) A Road Heading to Sky, a collection of proses(Amazon.com, Amazon.ca & etc) When a poem speaks, a collection of English poems(Amazon.com, Amazon.ca & etc) A leaf of bookmark, a collection of poems(Amazon.com, Amazon.ca & etc) Dudu is a member of Association of Overseas Female Writers in Chinese Literature, a member of Canadian Chinese Writers' Association, and a member of Chinese Pen Society of Canada (CPSC). Dudu has won various honors and awards in Chinese literature over the years, including: First Place in Fiction, American Hanxin Literature Award; First Place in Fiction, Taiwan Lin Yu-Tang Literature Award; First Place in Poetry, Canadian Chinese Writer's Award; Second Place in non-fiction(prose), American Hanxin Literature Award; Second Place in non-fiction(prose), Overseas Chinese Creative Writing Award And many other literature awards Dudu holds a Bachelor degree of Laws from Shanxi University, China. She also studied Social Psychology at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and Software Program Design, at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Besides a writer, Dudu is also an owner of a beauty salon, and aqua fit instructor. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Enthusiastic and optimistic, Dudu is a writer who believes in that love is the basis of life. She values her family in the first place. Apart from a wide range of hobbies, such as sports, singing, culinary art, knitting, apparel design, gardening, and painting etc, she also enjoys volunteering in community activities and events. Down-to-earth attitude gives her strength to face anything in life. She regards the free spirit as the tip of hierarchy in life.