"Daughters of Shandong," a young girl's 1000-mile journey to escape Communist China in 1948 скачать в хорошем качестве

"Daughters of Shandong," a young girl's 1000-mile journey to escape Communist China in 1948

Hi! Welcome to Episode 120 of Pink’s Picks Book Recs: commentary from a retired HS English teacher. Although we’ll continue throughout the school year to traverse the globe transported by books, we conclude our summer vacation travel today to the second most-populated country in the world: China (India is #1; the US is #3). “Daughters of Shandong” is historical fiction by Eve J. Chung, “a NYC based Taiwanese American human rights lawyer who focuses on gender equality and human rights” (back cover). She is also the granddaughter of the novel’s protagonist, Hai. “Daughters” begins with a mid-20th Century map of China, followed by a Prologue where the main character is nostalgically remembering her homeland. Chapter 1 then flashes back to Hai’s birthplace, Zhucheng, during China’s Civil War in 1948 when Hai was eleven years-old. Her bound-footed, rich, but miserly grandmother has just kicked Hai’s pregnant mother out of the house saying, “whores [aren’t] allowed in” (5). What transgression had Hai’s mother committed to deserve such wrath? She’d given birth to all daughters in a land where men are valued and women are belittled. Matters get much worse when the Communist army arrives “asking people about the landowners and wealthy families, so they can make a list of enemies” (29). As a result, the prosperous Ang family decides to escape, but Hai, her sisters and mother are left behind to fend for themselves. “Without an Ang male to punish…for her family’s crimes” the land-seizing cadres” (front flap) torture Hai nearly to death. “Starving and penniless but resourceful, [mother and daughters] forge travel permits and embark on a thousand-mile journey… [f]rom the countryside to the bustling city of Qingdao, [] to British Hong Kong and eventually Taiwan” (front flap). The beauty for me of reading historical fiction is that I always learn something. As embarrassing as it may be to admit, I knew little to nothing about China’s Civil War. That it followed so closely on the coattails of WW2 was news to me. It included “one of the largest battles in the entire world in the twentieth century”…“with nearly six hundred thousand troops on both sides” (27) during one conflict. Also, “the population of Hong Kong had been about six hundred thousand” (210) after WW2. “By the end of 1950, [the population would balloon to two million” (210) and “many of the refugees [who fled Communist China] who used to be lawyers, scholars, and doctors were [] fighting for jobs as industrial laborers” (240). I was shocked and saddened to learn that “human trafficking” (120) was not uncommon at that time. Two scenes remind me of war as depicted in other literature. In one, “the cadres beat a character to death…then forbade the people of Zhucheng from burying his body” (358). This evokes thoughts of Creon’s edict that Polynices be denied a proper burial, an order that Antigone famously defies. In another scene, Chung writes that in “the past there had been stray dogs and cats roaming the city streets, but starving beggars had eaten them all. People were even trapping rats and eating vermin” (135-136). Though likely a somewhat frequent sight during war, it conjures the Paris landscape in Guy de Maupassant’s short story, “Two Friends,” set during the Franco-Prussian War when “the sparrows on the roofs and the rats in the sewer were growing scarce.” I enjoyed Chung’s pervasive use of personification, alliteration, parallelism, and metaphor. For example, “The sun became lazier, hiding behind clouds and retiring earlier each day” (177) to describe the onset of winter. Their arduous journey by foot was “shin splintering, spine shattering” (98). After being malnourished, “Food was joy. Food was love” (243). Hai’s neglectful, absent father “rarely took a stand for anything; he was a jellyfish, floating along with whatever current captured him” (320). What I love most about “Daughters” is Chung’s juxtaposition of the kindness and compassion of people -some who were barely better off than Hai, her mother and sisters – who were willing to help, or share what little they did have vs. the pure evil and parsimony of Nai Nai, Hai’s grandmother, toward her daughter-in-law and granddaughters. Pink’s Picks author Kate Quinn calls “Daughters” a “powerhouse debut.” Writer Jamie Ford says that it “entertains, educates, and inspires.” I agree with both and call it an “A.”