Jung Chang - Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

When thinking about the past, it is very easy to forget that it was experienced by people. Actual human people who felt and suffered and acted and reacted to the world in which they found themselves. Much post-modern history writing seeks to address this issue and to find a place for personal experience and memory within grand historical narratives. As I understand it, this issue is particularly difficult for historians of modern China dealing with both the official histories sanctioned by the Chinese government and the unofficial histories of the long twentieth century in China. And all this before one starts to think about issues of memory and personal experiences. Indeed, a quick Google search of the words 'history and memory China' produces some 134,000,000 results of, I'm sure, varying quality and content. I raise this point in relation to Jung Chang’s now classic book, Wild Swans, not to sound pretentious, although, let’s face it, that ship has sailed, but because I think that her account of China during this period does an excellent job of reminding us that history was—is—inhabited by people. The key word, here, is ‘experience’.

In essence, this book does what it says on the tin—or blurb, to be more precise—insofar as it is an 'epic history of China's twentieth century.' Really, though, this description does not do the book justice, nor does it entirely convey its contents. People looking for an accessible and personal narrative of post-imperial China could do much worse than to begin with this book. But this is not a History-with-a-capital-H, as such, and nor does it entirely claim to be. Rather, it is an account of China's twentieth-century as witnessed, experienced, and relayed through its author and her family.

Beginning with her grandmother's experience as the concubine of a warlord in the early twentieth century through to her own departure from China in 1978 and her subsequent reflections on the then-current state of her nation of origin, Chang weaves an intricate and well-considered narrative that balances the personal with the institutional history. Her experiences and those of her family are used as a lens through which twentieth-century China can, on some level, be understood. There is enough exposition to keep anyone who, like me, isn't familiar with Chinese history informed, but these portions of the book never feel laboured or dry. Equally, though, this is an overtly subjective history. Chang does well to distinguish between those events that she and her family witnessed, such as famine between 1959-1961, and those which they directly experienced, such as life under Japanese colonial rule and persecution during the Cultural Revolution. In part because this is a family history, she leaves room for other narratives and other experiences to co-exist with hers. 

On this note, and as I have seen other reviewers of Wild Swans mention, it is important to note that although the book is billed as being the story of ‘three daughters of China,’ it is very much a story of her family as a whole. Without wanting to give the contents of the book away too much, the experience of family as a whole—particularly under Mao—was largely shaped by the author’s father’s role as a senior official within the Communist Party. This is by no means a bad thing, as it allows Chang to chart what it meant to hold power, and lose it, in a supposedly egalitarian state.

This leads me to my next point: this book is vast. When I bought it in my one of my post-Uni ‘oh-my-God-I-can-read-things-that-aren't-about-medieval-Europe-aaaaah' shopping sprees, I hadn't fully appreciated this fact. Coming in at over 650 pages, its physical vastness is matched by its impressive chronological, thematic, and emotional span. This is nothing if not an ambitious piece of non-fiction. Wild Swans touches on issues of history and memory, trauma, culpability, feminism, liberty, and reconciliation between people and the past. For me, this only makes the book more impressive, as Chang deals with these issues with a deft hand. It is also worth stating that as her focus switches from her grandmother, to her mother, to her parents, to herself, the narrative remains seamless and natural. 

I would say that this is an excellent book for anyone with an interest in contemporary China, as well as those with any kind of interest in any of the themes listed above. It’s a beautifully written book and a thoroughly enjoyable read, proving that real life can, indeed, be stranger than fiction.

Next on my list, I'm staying in China with: Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China