Critics have described Wild Swans Three Daughters of China as “mesmerizing “, “ riveting, an extraordinary epic “, and “ a very unusual masterpiece “. This heart-rending story of three generations of women introduces the reader to the dramatic history of China’s 20th century. And this family memoir reveals the lives of the writer’s own family, grandmother, mother and daughter.
The author, Jung Chang, always dreamed to be a writer but writing was not encouraged and even considered dangerous during the Cultural Revolution. In 1978, she was one of the first students to receive a scholarship to study abroad on academic and not political grounds. Chang’s decision to remain in the United Kingdom four years later was still unusual at the time.
During her first ten years in Britain, she couldn’t get herself to write, she was unable to dig deep in her memory: “In fact the last thing I wished to do was write. To me it would have meant to turn inward, and dwell on a life and a time that I hated to think about. I was trying to forget China” she explains.
During her mother’s first trip abroad to visit her in London, Chang discovers that her mother wants to open her heart and mind, something she was never able to do in China. By the time her mother left, she had taped 60 hours of recordings. Encouraged by her mother, Jung Chang is inspired to Wild Swans, the enthralling story of her grandmother, her mother and herself during the turbulent years of 20th-century China.
The first chapter acquaints us with life in pre-communist China. We learn that in 1924 her grandmother becomes the concubine of a warlord general at the age of 15 in Manchuria. She was a beauty with her oval face, rosy cheeks, lustrous skin and her long, shiny black hair. But her greatest assets were her bound feet. In the old days, a woman was not supposed to have feet longer than four inches if she wanted to be married. To stop the feet from growing, girls as young as two years had to have their feet wrapped in a 20 feet cloth to bend the toes and then the bones were crushed under a big stone. Even after the bones had been broken, the feet had to be bound because as soon as there were uncovered they would start growing again. The women with bound feet would endure pain during their whole lives.
If Westerners view this habit as barbaric, Chinese men delighted to see women teetering on bound feet, it was supposed to have a sensuous effect on men “partly because her vulnerability induced a feeling of protectiveness in the onlooker” explains the author.
The Wild Swans most memorable passages concern life during the Maoist era especially the misnamed Cultural Revolution. During those disturbing times precious antiques in private collections were destroyed, museums were raided, palaces, ancient tombs, pagodas, city walls and anything old was pillaged. Furthermore, the ‘intellectuals’ which included nurses, students, actors, engineers, technicians, writers, teachers, doctors and scientists were considered useless and sent to camps to be reformed.
Jung Chang gives us a fascinating insight into how people felt and thought about what was happening around them. Her personal assessment is frightening because it shows how a normal person can suddenly cease to be human: “It never occurred to me to question the Cultural Revolution or the Red Guards explicitly. They were Mao’s creations, and Mao was beyond contemplation. Like many Chinese, I was incapable of rational thinking in those days. We were so cowed and contorted by fear and indoctrination that to deviate from the path laid down by Mao would have been inconceivable. Besides, we had been overwhelmed by deceptive rhetoric, disinformation, and hypocrisy, which made it virtually impossible to see through the situation and to from an intelligent judgment “says Chang.
The author’s mother who joined the underground communist party at the age of 15 went through insufferable times. During one of her many detentions when she was denounced as a ‘counter-revolutionary’, she was constantly accompanied by women who had to report about her behavior:
“At night, she learned not to shed tears. She could not even toss and turn, as her companion was sleeping in the bed with her...Tears would be interpreted as meaning she was feeling wounded by the party or losing confidence in it. Both were unacceptable, and could have a negative effect on the final verdict,” writes Chang.
Eventually gentleness was considered ‘bourgeois’. The author witnessed people being reprimanded for saying ‘thank you’ too often. Politeness and humanitarian considerations were condemned by Mao as ‘bourgeois hypocrisy’.
In the 1950s, a communist was to sacrifice himself for the revolution and anyone showing affection to their children were criticized for not putting the party first. In 1958, the regime forbade eating at home as Mao defined communism as ‘public canteens with free meals ‘
Up until the mid-seventies, even a woman’s looks were determined by the party. The author tells us in a humorous way how young girls tried to look attractive and different when long hair was permissible again but only in two plaits. She would spend hours deciding whether the plaits should be close together or far apart, straight, or curved a little at the end and the plaited part longer than the loose part or vice versa.
Jung Chang confesses that writing Wild Swans has aroused her feelings toward China. She no longer wants to erase the past. “The place, so old and yet so energetically young, having experienced so much tragedy and yet remaining so raw and optimistic, is under my skin,” she says.
Today’s China is benefiting from the economic reforms implemented in the 80s and although the country is still ruled by the Communist Party, the Chinese are no longer living in the state of fear they used to during the Maoist era. However, China seems to be turning into a mega shopping mall within a concrete jungle. A gigantic industrialization is threatening some of China’s most beautiful scenery and causing severe pollution. Hordes of tourists are pressed into buying cheap goods. Yet this ancient country has so much more to offer than these consumer trappings. Jung Chang’s beautiful description of a traditional Sichuan teahouse nestled in a bamboo grove with low square wooden tables and its “bamboo armchairs which give out a faint aroma even after years of use” makes us dream of another China, a country with a great past: during the T’ang dynasty China was the most civilized country in the world.
