China, History: Wild Swans by Jung Chang

The book I chose for China was quite different from the other histories I had chosen for the other countries in this project. My preference going in was to see if there was not a good biography of the person who “made modern China”. That seemed like a good approach to Turkey (Atatürk) and Russia (Lenin) and I was disappointed I had not found a suitable book for Cuba (Castro). With China, the obvious person is Mao. I started my search there - but in looking for a book, I kept coming to the conclusion that maybe I had already read the best book out there about Mao, Stanley Karnow’s ‘Mao and China’. I started to wonder if looking at Mao was really going to shed a lot of light on the question I was most interested in: What China's past has to say about China's future.

In my exploration for a possible book on Mao, one of the books I considered was by Jung Chang: ‘Mao, the Unknown Story’. As I endeavored to learn about Chang, I discovered one of her other books ‘Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China’. It is a personal history of Chang, her mother and grandmother. I think it was the perfect choice.

One of the most striking things about China is the extraordinary pace of change Chinese people are experiencing. I have always thought Americans of my grandmother’s generation had experienced dramatic change. Born in the 19th century when horses were the dominant mode of transportation, she lived to experience the Internet. In comparative terms, next to three generations in China, those changes seem modest.

Chang’s grandmother, Yu Fang, is born in a China ruled by an Emperor and warlords. Women are chattle and subject to foot binding. That is the fate of Yu Fang. She becomes a warlord's concubine. Eventually that China decays into chaos and Yu Fang is able to escape. She later remarries a doctor with whom she has a child, Bao Qin, Chang’s mother.

Jung Chang's parents

Bao Qin is a revolutionary, fighting the Japanese, then the Nationalists and distinguishing herself in the process. She marries a Red Army commander and as true believers they commit to Mao’s path. It is not long before chaos once again engulfs the family. With the Cultural Revolution the communist regime begins to eat its own. Chang’s family crashes from lofty office to become political prisoners, while she is a member of the Red Guard - the very agents of her father's destruction. Meanwhile Chang herself is gaining an education.  She excels in English and wins a scholarship to Oxford. She does not go back.

Wild Swans is a fascinating look at how a Chinese woman's life has changed. It is my sense that China's period of rapid change and perhaps even relative chaos is by no means at an end. The fact that Chinese women now see themselves as Jung Chang, rather than Yu Fang sets the stage for more dramatic change. The more I learn, the more convinced I am that China is more like us, than not.