A Thousand Miles of Dreams: The Journeys of Two Chinese Sisters

by Sasha Su-Ling Welland

A Thousand Miles of Dreams is the fascinating biography of two intensely rivalrous Chinese sisters whose eventful lives took very different paths in their quest to be independent women. They were Chinese modern girls who sought to forge their own way during a period of social revolution that unsettled relations between men and women, even among nations. Daughters of an imperial scholar-official and a concubine, the two sisters followed professional trajectories unimaginable to their parents' generation.

Genres: China, History, Biography, Biography Memoir

392 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2006

About the author

Sasha Su-Ling Welland grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. As an undergraduate at Stanford University, she began recording her grandmother's oral history and investigating her great-aunt's career as a writer. She discovered that the two sisters told widely divergent stories about their family's past. The mystery of that discrepancy lies at the heart of her first book, A Thousand Miles of Dreams: The Journeys of Two Chinese Sisters . She has continued to conduct research in China, most recently on Beijing's contemporary art world. She received a PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is currently assistant professor of anthropology and women studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her writing has appeared in Chain, ColorLines: Race, Culture, Action, Flyway Literary Review, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, as well as in Pacific News Service. The Artist Trust, Blue Mountain Center, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Hedgebrook Retreat for Women Writers, and Millay Colony for the Arts have supported her work."

Reviews

[Camelia Rose]

A Thousand Miles of Dreams is a double biography of two Chinese sisters, Ling Shuhua and Ling Shuhao. It follows the two sisters' footprints in China, England and United States, which span the entire 20th century.

The book is meticulously researched. The author, the granddaughter of Ling Shuhao, conducted interviews, read letters, magazines and newspapers, traveled to China and England.

Ling Shuhua (凌叔华) was one of the Talented Women of Republic of China (民国才女), a May Fourth Movement participant and an early Chinese feminist. The art scene of May Fourth Movement and New Crescent Society is documented nicely, as well as the impact of The New Life Movement and the anti-Japanese war on Chinese intellectuals. Very little mention of communism sentiments. The author does a great job in analyzing Ling Shuhua's fictions in Chinese and Ancient Melodies, her autobiography published in English. As to the love affair between Ling Shuhua and Julian Bell (Virginia Wolfe's nephew), the author constructs a plausible speculation of the event from Julian's letters, Chen Xiying's letters and Shuhua's literature work. However, since very little information can be found from Shuhua's point of view because she had destroyed all letters and memorabilia before she died, we can't know for sure why she did what she did.

What strikes me most is Ling Shuhua’s struggle of making a new life as a writer and artist in the postwar England. As a middle-aged woman in an alien country adopting a new language, it's not easy even though she had great connections (members of Bloomsbury circle; "this hint of Vanessa's pity and patience worn thin colors my understanding of the latter half of Shuhua's life"). Shuhua wrote:


"People in this country, most of them are unwilling to accept new ideas and new kind of arts unless they are something like their own. Most Chinese pictures sold here are a mixture of the East and West. The subjects or pictures must suit the taste of the Westerners. In an artist neglects this pint, his picture would be no market. I hate to think of this unavoidable failure but what can I do?"


Another tragedy is the relationship between Ling Shuhua and her only daughter. There seemed no emotional warmth between them, at least from the daughter's point of view.

There was the high publicity court case between Chen Xiaoying(陈小滢, daughter of Ling Shuhua and Chen Xiying) and Hong Ying, a Chinese-British writer of a pornographic Asian-fetish fiction.

The life of Ling Shuhao (凌淑浩), the youngest and most modern girl of the Ling family, took a completely different trajectory. The bicycle-riding, horse-loving, tennis-playing tomboy who disliked sentimental movies and interested only in rational things such as science and medicine looked like a heroine straight out of a contemporary fiction. Upon arriving in America, she was disappointed to find out American women were not as liberated as she had thought (in 1920s). I enjoy very much the stories during the time she studied medicine in Cleveland--devilishly shaking off her shoes to show off her natural feet, the fun she had with a rebellious and volatile white classmate. The advice Shuhao gave to her granddaughter shatters all the Asian grandmother/mother stereotypes. I also love the stories of how K.K. Chen, Shuhao’s husband and the research director of a major pharmaceutical company, fought against discriminations.

However, Shuhao was not a stereotypical heroine after all. She was a first-generation Chinese American with a lot of contradictions. In another word, she was human. She and her husband paid price for their successful middle class life. They carefully censored their own "Chinese-ness", displayed only a limited, somewhat staged "exotic" facade that they believed acceptable by their white neighbors. Furthermore, the author writes:


"There are times I find it extremely difficult to write about my grandmother for I feel shame as well as pride, not because she is too Chinese but because she too perfectly adopted the racism attitudes of middle-class white American. She played the assimilation trick of too many immigrants, who blend in and make their way up the ladder of success by adopting mainstream, white supremacist ideas."


What a book. I've learned a lot.

[Susan Ferguson]

Two sisters, one is the author’s grandmother. Their mother was one of their father’s concubines (basically, as far as I can tell, another wife) - she was Third Mother or Third Wife. The children were mostly raised by amahs. Each wife had her own area within the compound but they often visited, quarreled, etc. Their father wanted his daughters to be educated, so they shared their brothers’ tutors. The author’s grandmother was the youngest daughter, Shuhuo (who adopted the name Amy when learning English). Her great-aunt was Shuhua. Amy was more adventurous , wearing boys clothing at times and exploring on her bike. They were born at the end of the Chinese empire, during the reign of the last Empress. Amy was interested in science and wanted to be a doctor and open a women’s clinic in China. Shuhua was interested in art and writing. Amy often referred to her as ‘the Artist’. Researching their stories, the author was enmeshed in the conflicting stories the sisters told. Amy studied medicine in the US and became a doctor. Her husband was a doctor also and researched medicines. Shuhua finally emigrated to England because her husband was a UNESCO director with the guomindang(?) and could not return to China.
This book briefly covers a lot of events at the end of the Empire and during the revolutions that followed. Helped me understand what was happening in China at that time - not in-depth, but a general idea of events and happenings.
Very informative and interesting.

[katie]

"They'd flown from Scotland and the United States, waiting while her body slowly betrayed the wandering poet still trapped inside. The last sentence she spoke was, 'I won't die.'"

A graceful analysis of gender construction as expressed through subjective narration, how such narratives twist and bend in conversation with social, political, and historical contexts. One central motif in Welland’s novel is deception––lies, and all that rests beneath. Falsities within a narrative seem shallow at the surface, but upon further analysis one discovers that such indications of dishonesty carry many implications. For instance, Welland’s grandmother Amy chooses to not disclose her father’s myriad wives. Amy’s silence reflects the choice to adhere to American norms, in which multiple wives are frowned upon. Further, such an example depicts the act of conforming to place-specific gender norms by way of silence rather than discussion. In this way, both narrative and its absence are paramount to the ways in which an individual may express constructions of gender.

[Holly]

The author read letters, takes trips, and interviews people throughout China and the U.S. to piece together the lives of her grandmother and her grandmother's sister. Her grandmother was an accomplished scientist and her great aunt a writer. Their lives were extraordinary despite political and social turmoils. I find the author's insight into how and why her great aunt blurred the lines between truth and fiction particularly fascinating.

[Wendy]

It's been a joy to watch this book come to life -- an elegant, important biography.

[Patricia]

Fruit of many years of research, this is a richly detailed and fascinating biography. The author's personal relationship to her subjects adds to the power and interest.