I believe this was the first Taiwanese book I've ever read, and in many ways a lot of the anecdotes (at the end it's almost a collection of anecdotes tied together by the search for a bicycle/family heirloom) reminded me of the touching stories by Mo Yan.
The "technical" sections on the mechanics of bicycles and their evolution were in all honesty fairly boring, even for someone who enjoys his own bike and can look after it reasonably well.
One thing that I found curious was the lasting legacy (and presence) of the Sino-Japanese war throughout the novel, much like for many Italian authors the impact of Fascism remains a constant (and again, much like Mo Yan goes back to the Sino-Japanese war time and again, with all the obvious disclaimers about the differences between mainland China and Taiwan).
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