Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

The author was born in 1952 to Chinese Communist revolutionary leaders. In this beautifully written and revealing 1991 biography she traces the lives of her grandmother, her mother and herself through the historical period of warlords, Japanese occupation, rightist armies of Chiang Kai-shek, rise of Communism, Cultural Revolution, and beginnings of modern China. This is a must-read book. I don’t know how I missed it earlier. It is good literature and it is important history. The author has created an intimate and loving portrait of a close-knit family of individuals with strong character and ideals living in a world often dominated by petty and vengeful characters – taken to an extreme of horror under Mao’s malevolent Cultural Revolution. Written in a straightforward, highly observant and detailed style, it creates a powerful history of that period. The theme of surviving in a petty and jealous environment shows up early on. The grandmother grew up with bound feet as her father schemed to marry her to a warlord general. As the warlord’s concubine “wife” she rarely saw him, but bore him a daughter, and was later hounded by jealous other wives and concubines. After his death she married the well-respected Dr. Xia. To escape his jealous family, they moved away with her daughter leaving all his property and money behind. Living simply, they sheltered others in the threatening climate of the Japanese occupation and then the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-Shek. The mother grew up sensitive and outspoken. Chang carefully sets the stage for her parents’ engagement in Communism, and she delicately paints the picture of her well-educated father’s stubborn adherence to ideals and the difficulties experienced from it. They had five children (the author being second). As Communist values prevailed, the children were sent to live in nurseries, but eventually as elite revolutionary leaders they were allowed to live as a family and for a few years the children had schooling and relative security. But the mother’s past history of helping the wrong people and the father’s defiance brought downfall. Along with millions, they became victims of the Cultural Revolution. Chang provides a detailed account of this horrifying period in history and how the pettiness and jealousy of people was turned into a weapon. Mao’s programs had plunged the country into poverty and famine. Corrective measures taken by other Communist leaders helped end the famine, but then Mao took revenge and solidified his leadership by removing all former party members and arranging for their detention and torture. Gangs of youth (Red Guard) were formed to attack the enemies of the people and ran rampant through the streets. People were encouraged to inform on each other. Family histories were examined for any previous links contrary to Mao. Books were burned, schools were closed, and Mao propaganda was pushed through loudspeakers and reading material. Her parents were imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured. It was largely through her mother’s courage and resourcefulness that the family was held together and able to avoid the worst tortures, navigating through those who would turn on them and those who would help. This is also a story of Jung awakening. She describes herself as an unquestioning follower of Mao, as one of many who saw the leader as almost a god, while being distraught at the events around her. And then she relates how her eyes and mind began to open, to see and to question. To me this book has tremendous value in that it renders in intimate detail what it was like living in China under Mao, recording a history of how people of all classes suffered and died needlessly during his regime. And further, it has the literary value of relating delicate intricacies of living under such a regime and managing to maintain dignity and live one’s values.

Good read but so filled with details you lose story parts. I struggled thru the excessive amount of details. Their lives had encompassed many events and brought information and impressions of what was really happening in their world.

"Wild Swans", by Jung Chang, is a sophisticated and substantive biographical-historical novel about life and events in China during 1909-1978. The story centers on Chang's parents' lives, her own life, and those of her siblings; and it is told against the backdrop of significant historical events: the Sino-Japanese war, the Russian occupation of China, Koumintang rule (under Chiang Kai-shek), the civil war between the Koumintang and the Communists, The Long March, and Communist rule (under Mao Tse-tung). Chang indicates that the names of the public figures as well as the members of her family are real; but the names of other figures have been changed. [Note: Speaking of names, Chang's older sister's name is Xiao-hong---`hong' means `Wild Swan'. Also, Chang's birth name is Er-hong which means `2nd Wild Swan'. They also have three younger brothers named, Jin-ming, Xiao-hei, and Xiao-fang]. According the Chang, during each of aforementioned periods the `rulers' committed numerous atrocities against the Chinese people. The Japanese were extremely cruel, particularly, to the Manchurians, relegated them to second class status, and committed numerous acts of torture. When the Japanese were eventually ousted, the Russians came in and committed many inhumane acts against the Chinese people. Under Koumintang rule, many Chinese were punished and executed. However, according to Chang, none of the aforementioned cruelties compared to the disaster created by Mao Tse-tung and his reckless policies---Chang describes Mao Tse-tung as a tyrant and a cult leader who suffered from delusions of grandeur, had no regard for human life, and was totally ignorant regarding economic policy. More specifically, according to Chang, Mao's "Great Leap Forward" (which required the entire population, including farmers, to devote their efforts to making steel) led to a great famine which resulted in the deaths of some 30 million people. As a result of the disastrous famine Mao relinquished his position as President of China to Liu Shaoqi, and assumed a lower profile. However, Mao retained the more powerful position of Chairman of China's Communist Party and was still China's supreme leader. Once the famine was over, and under the more pragmatic leadership of Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping (general secretary), both the economy and the society became more liberal. According to Chang, Mao was unhappy with this approach---he wanted the Chinese to live a life based on conflict, struggle and violence, not harmony. Mao began a comeback by promoting his own deification (e.g., issuing propaganda and slogans that glorified himself, further regimenting the population, encouraging people to spy on one another, mandating public self-criticism and denunciation of others, etc.). Then Mao launched the disastrous Cultural Revolution. According to Chang, the Cultural Revolution was essentially a `witch-hunt' and a `reign of terror' carried out (against teachers, intellectuals, `rightists', the `bourgeoisie', Kuomintang sympathizers, and ultimately Communist Party officials) by millions of Red Guards. The Red Guards were essentially teenagers (who typically were children of officials) and kids in their early twenties (who generally were not children of officials). All member of the Red Guard routinely carried copies of Mao's "Little Red Book' which contained slogans that deified Mao. The Red Guards were directed by the Cultural Revolution Authority led by Mao's wife, Chiang Ching. The Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards wreaked havoc on the Chinese society---they persecuted numerous people, conducting `home raids' at will. Mao's reason for launching the Cultural Revolution was to ultimately remove President Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping and to completely revamp China's Communist Party. The Cultural Revolution went on from 1966 to 1976, when Mao died. According to Chang, Mao was a cult leader who desired absolute power and control, "both on earth and in heaven." I was extremely impressed with this work. The book provides deep insight into China's fascinating, but tumultuous history. Chang's presentation is sophisticated, and the material is substantive. She adeptly uses words to `paint a picture' in order to familiarize the reader with the intimate thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the individual characters, and skillfully interweaves the characters' lives with important historical events, thereby bringing these events to life. I was most surprised to learn the extent of Mao's disastrous policies, and the extent of control that he exercised over the Chinese people, including their innermost thoughts. Although I had previously read about the Red Guards in the newspapers, I hadn't previously understood Mao's motives for unleashing such devastation against his own people, or why they would have continued to support him.

Sometimes Kindle editions are a little mysterious. There might be a map inserted before the beginning of the book or a description of characters or a family tree that you never realized was there until you finished reading. So, though I didn't see any photos throughout my reading of the book, I suspected there must be some. I looked in the table of contents, but didn't see them listed. The photos are at the very end of the book, after the book group questions. They are listed in the table of contents, but I didn't see them there, assuming the book group questions were the end. Keep going in the TOC and you will see Photo Insert. The photos are small and some are blurry, but if you have a touch screen, hold your finger over the photo for a couple of seconds, then let go. You will see an icon of a magnifying glass with a plus sign. Tap that and the photo will enlarge. If you don't have a touch screen, you can do the same thing with your cursor. There is also a family tree, a map of China and an index, all at the back of the book. This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I delayed reading it, feeling that it would be somewhat of a slog: dry history or melodrama. Then I got sick of seeing it on my home page, so decided to give it a try. I really liked it. Jung Chang does a good job of helping a Westerner to understand Chinese culture. While she does explain the history of the Communist takeover and philosophy at times in a didactic manner, these deviations from narrative are pretty short, and most of the book is filled with stories and anecdotes that are fascinating. There are descriptions of torture that are very disturbing (I skipped over them) and the lives of the Chinese people at this time is agonizing, but I never found the book depressing. Chang's writing is straightforward and plain, easy to follow, and very aware of what Western readers might have difficulty understanding. She explains it all, which I really appreciated. She writes with dignity, but without becoming aloof. You definitely care about her and her family. I feel I have a much greater understanding of Chinese culture and history now without having had to read a dry and boring account. What the Chinese people went through during this period is horrific and unfair. There is nothing we can do about it. But Jung Chang wrote a book about it, gave them a voice, and we can read. In this way, at least they will not be forgotten.

Irony, hypocrisy, suffering, famine, a multitude of tragedy, and a touch of insanity. No, it's not Desperate Housewives re-runs--it's Jung Chang's Wild Swans. The only thing missing is sex, and the reason why is of course a story in itself. If you're looking to kick-off your China reading experience with an essential novel, Wild Swans is for you. First published in Britain in 1991, the novel provides an eye-opening look at China's cultural history between 1900 and 1990 so truthful and thorough that censors have not yet approved it for publication in its original form in mainland China. That alone should make you want to pick up a copy. In seeking to ameliorate the past and to make sense of her life, Chang delves into her family history, providing a brutally honest portrait of three generations of women. What is truly amazing about Chang's family chronicles are the wealth of hardships Chinese women have had to endure. The book begins in the early 1900s, with her grandmother's (Yu Fang's) marriage at age 15 to a warlord general. She battled bound feet, loneliness, and the challenges of managing her reputation against conniving servants while isolated in a gilded prison awaiting a husband who might show up for only a few days or a week, once in six years. Once she was required to reside with the general's wife and other concubines, her and her daughter's--Bao Qin's--fates were in the hands of the first wife. Yu Fang had to struggle through the pecking order of the household's women. The details of the customs and rituals of well-to-do lives are quite interesting. Her second marriage was as the second wife of a well-regarded Manchu doctor. He re-names Bao Qin as De Hong, meaning wild swan of virtue. De Hong, Chang's mother, grew up during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, during the 1930s and 1940s. She refused to marry a man she did not love and could not respect, so she left home to study at a teacher's college, where she developed communist sympathies. In stark contrast to the pomp and circumstance of her mother's arranged marriage, De Hong had to apply to the party for approval to marry a fellow communist in a binding that didn't even include a real ceremony and had minimal refreshments. They had no honeymoon, but returned to work. De Hong endured terrible emotional and sometimes cruel physical hardship as a result of her husband's party ideals and ambitions. Though she eventually had four children, she was tragically required to give all her time and attention to the party, which persecuted her despite her loyalty. Becoming a communist, she noted, was an "agonizing process." De Hong had little choice but to suffer in silence, as leaving the party would cause her family terrible problems and complaining would bring its own share of woe. Eventually her husband was unfairly and illogically destroyed and betrayed by the system he worked so hard to help create. Jung, born in 1952, grew up with the privileges of party officers' children. But these privileges brought with them contradictions, confusion, and emotional challenges. Jung attempts to survive, fulfill her dreams, and make sense of the destruction of the topsy-turvy world of the Cultural Revolution and still emerge with something to live for. When the schools are closed in 1966, Jung is sent into the countryside to learn how to be a peasant. While there, she is assigned work as a doctor and later an electrician--without any training, she was expected to learn by doing. Her first love is destroyed by revolutionary ideals. Despite her lack of formal education, Jung is accepted into university in 1973 to study the English language. Oddly, after university, students were not given degrees and were supposed to return to whatever jobs they had previously held! Her mother's guanxi helps Jung to secure a job for which she was far better suited--a teacher. As time goes on, she grows more disillusioned with the government and its leader and begins to question all that she has been taught to think all her life. After Mao's death, she enters an academic competition for which the prize is funding to study in the West. In 1978, she goes to London to get a Ph.D., where she remains teaching and writing to this day. A "wild" life, indeed. Having completed making peace with family history by writing Wild Swans, Chang's next project was of course her myth-busting biography of Mao, published in 2005.

I enjoyed the vivid, objective writing detailing the particulars of living under communism. It's an easy if somewhat long read. The book helps clarify a turbulent period of history in a place that is very foreign to me, identifying the reasons behind certain Chinese superstitions, behaviors, and cultural attitudes. When the narrator talks about her own life, the book mysteriously drags. But the mother's life is very interesting and the grandmother's life (the shortest early part) is even more so. I visited China in 1987 and this book helped me to understand some of the people I met then, and their attitudes toward me and their actions. I am giving this book 3 stars only because I don't particularly enjoy the inevitable uneven quality of the memoir format (at times there is too much detail and repetition, at times important things are left unexplained, and the people who most drive events are given the least attention). That's not the author's fault, but it does affect how much I would recommend the book. The author does avoid condemning communism explicitly, which I think weakens the book.

Not a comfortable read by any means, but a fascinating picture of life in China during its modern war years.

“Wild Swans” is one of the most memorable and significant books that I have read in my life. I first read the book just after it was published in 1991 and was amazed. Having just finished re-reading it after an absence of some thirty years, I am no less amazed. This is an extraordinary book. The author, Jung Chang, tells the story of three generations of women in her family. It begins with her grandmother who was born in 1909 in the last days of the Manchu dynasty. She was forced to have her feet bound as a child and as a young adult was a concubine to a warlord. She subsequently escaped to marry a doctor. Her mother was a Communist who, after marrying another Communist official, subsequently fell from grace and was a tragic victim of the Cultural Revolution and the madness that it generated. Jung Chang herself eventually left China and became a linguist in London. These three women were incredible in their own right. Together, the story becomes even more powerful. Beyond the power of the narrative, several other events are worthy of mention: 1. “The Great Leap Forward”. This is covered in some detail. What a piece of economic insanity! Famine ensued and millions died. 2. “The Cultural Revolution”. Tens of millions of lives were ruined as Mao strived to maintain power whilst destroying the Chinese economy. 3. The Myth of Mao. By any reasonable account, Mao was one of the most destructive forces of the 20th century. He may have been responsible for the loss of more lives than any other human ever born. Jung Chang has written one of the great memoirs. She covers all of the history of modern China. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

For those of us in the West it is difficult to understand what it was really like to live through the Chinese cultural revolution. Was it the oppressive regime our news media portrayed? Or did it liberate women and the working poor? This book provides some answers. Wild Swans is the tale of three generations of Chinese women, starting with a village beauty who has her feet bound to make her more marketable. Thanks to her crushed foot bones she attracts a wealthy suitor who makes her one of his concubines. The next daughter is a brave revolutionary who risks her life to fight the cruelty of the Japanese invaders. She and her husband are loyal communists set on liberating peasants and women from oppression. At first this daughter is rewarded for her loyalty, but the communist party ends up turning on her and her family. In the third generation is the storyteller Jung Chang. Surprisingly her story is the least vivid. Was it harder for the author to bring her own story to life? Even so, this is lucid, insightful and incredibly readable. I am so grateful to the author for giving me Chinese history in such a riveting story. Brilliant reading.

I was young and politically active during the 60es and 70es, yet I had no idea of what happened in China during those years. This book has moved me a lot, and I can't stop talking about it. And I am truly upset with the intellectual elite of that time who strongly supported the events in China and who saw China as the model for the western world I truly recommend the book to anyone interested in history and how it relates to our world today

Fascinating read! Don’t be put off by the length, because it goes very quickly. It’s a good mirror of what is happening in the US toady as well.

Classical great book unraveling a family saga against the backdrop of 1930s-1970s China, featuring beautiful family relations between the author and her mother and grandmother

Considero que es el mejor libro que se puede leer para conocer la historia de China desde alguien que la vivió desde dentro durante un largo periodo que abarca tres generaciones. Es un libro muy emotivo y excelentemente escrito.