The Wild Swans Group Read

[Niledaughter]

I see Anne and Judy already finished it , I checked the discussion and wooow , I need long time to read the comments !

I hope I will be able to catch up soon , but I think this one may stay with me until the end of April !

[Sue]

I'm not half way into it yet, ND, and I know Asmah is still reading it too. So there are people to discuss with you.

[Betty]

Yes, working on it daily. The first part is almost cheery by contrast with the awful famine and the unpredictable intrigues midway and after.

[Sue]

I've reached chapter 11 now, which covers 1956 to 1958 according to the chapter heading. The intrigues of the Party are certainly getting worse. What they require from their members is so harsh. I imagine it's much as North Korea is still. Though it certainly is not fast reading, I am finding it fascinating in the details of such an alien way of life to everything I've known.

I recall seeing Anchee Min at an author's night discussing some of her life. The more I read about China under Mao, the more possible it is for me to really see people living those lives.

[Niledaughter]

I am glad that it is still available for me to join you , I can see it is a heavy read , so I need time to be able to catch up , I have also several good reads in the same time!. hope my reading will be more organised during tnext week .

[Anne]

Asmah wrote: "Yes, working on it daily. The first part is almost cheery by contrast with the awful famine and the unpredictable intrigues midway and after."

I agree, Asmah. I love the way you put it. Compared to what comes later, the first part is cheery.

[Anne]

Judy wrote: The cool thing about this book, is that it is written in a way that regardless of how depressing the events, the way she relates the story doesn't make it feel like a depressing book. "

For me, it's not a depressing book, but one that angers, horrifies and appalls. I think the main reason that it is not depressing, for me, is that we already know from the beginning of the book, that the author escapes to England. She gets off fairly lightly, compared to how much others suffer. I think the other reason that it's not depressing is that the horrors of what her own family members suffer is told in the third person. That distance helps a lot.

[Sylvia]

Your comments have made sure that I place this book on my list. I will read it at a later time, because I am currently busy with other books.

[Mikki]

Sylvia wrote: "Your comments have made sure that I place this book on my list. I will read it at a later time, because I am currently busy with other books."

Sylvia, they've piqued my curiosity too!

[Sue]

Judy and Anne, I agree with your points. I think that Chang really achieves something being able to present this history without emotion, with facts. The emotion actually seems to come through the presentation of the facts. And to think that all of this suffering and pain is multiplied by the millions.

[Anne]

Yes, Sue. When you think how many millions of people suffered it's mind-boggling.

[Sue]

Judy wrote: "You all bring up a good point about the lack of visible emotion, etc.

Don't you think it is the Chinese culture, especially for women to hide their feelings. She did talk a bit about how as ladies..."

Absolutely a huge cultural difference which seems magnified under Communism where the politics of every question and/or statement had to be considered too. Under communism, it was not only the women who had to perform this perilous feat of caution with all language. Men did too. Everything and anything could become suspect and did.

[Anne]

What a perilous time and place to live in. Nothing a person did or said was safe. One moment it was the right thing; the next moment it wasn't and it could cost you your life. I wouldn't have lasted long in such a world.

[Sue]

Judy wrote: "Did you all notice how many suicides occurred throughout the book?
What a perilous time and place to live in. Nothing a person did or said was safe. One moment it was the right thing; the next mom..."

I recall when Chang's mother was in detention and was upset and frustrated but didn't dare cry when in bed at night because there were too many ways that could be interpreted by the watcher sleeping in the same bed---all of which would get her in trouble.

[Sue]

Judy wrote: "You are so right, Sue, about the communism. I was thinking of the old cultural customs she mentioned throughout the book. They followed these even before Mao. She talked about they weren't supposed..."

I do remember this Judy. If I recall correctly Chang's mother and grandmother had some difficulty with this and were called on it by their relatives.

[Sue]

That's what I'm thinking also Judy. Chang's grandmother of course was in trouble early on for leaving her place as a concubine and for then marrying. Many people let her know it throughout her life. It was her fault---not her husband's.

[Sue]

Let's see...unwanted pregnancies, rapes (and I'm not saying that women contribute at all though how many men have blamed rape on women's clothes!!), spousal abuse -- she made me do it. In many events, women don't contribute at all and still get the blame from some. (And that's in our "enlightened" culture).

I guess we need a matriarchal culture. There don't seem to have been many of them.

[Sue]

The truly strange thing about Mao is that he didn't actually say what people wanted to hear. Chinese people altered their thoughts to agree with him. He had developed such a cult-like hold over the country (or at least enough of it to count) that he could accomplish what he wanted in spite of all his errors and personal mistakes that were well known at high levels. This book is really eye opening.

I do believe that most women harbor different instincts than men. Of course that important word is most. There will always be Madame Mao's or Margaret Thatchers who have no difficulty sacrificing public good for their husband's cult, in the first case, or the purported national good in the second.

[Sue]

Mao was so strange. He offered them daily food but for some of the time the only people actually getting daily food were the city dwellers who were forced to eat in the canteens. I recall that during the famine, the country people, who actually had food, were forced, physically to give it up so it could be sent to the cities. The result: millions upon millions dead across the country. Of course the blame was never laid at Mao's feet for the people to see and those high up in the Party who knew the truth were largely outed as Rightists later on.

Mao could do no wrong even when he did. Then he got credit for curing the problem he created. Smarmy situation wasn't it.

[Anne]

Judy wrote: "Throughout the reading of this book, I was trying to decide if Mao was really crafty and smart or if he was bumbling his way through when he "solved" the problems he created."

I think he was smart and crafty.

[Sue]

I think he was smart and crafty in how he used people but he got in over his head at times in the practical tasks of growing the economy. He was a master at using scare tactics and using his citizens against themselves and each other. Each one was a watch dog of a sort or at least too afraid to oppose him.

[Anne]

That was one of the worst things about Mao's tactics. He allowed "the people" to take over and to inflict punishment on people with whom they'd have rivalries or were jealous of in the past. He wanted the people to terrorize each other and they did.

[Sue]

Sort of Lord of the Flies on a national scale.

I am so glad I'm finally reading this book. Did anyone else chuckle when she read about the starving children in the United States. I remember that line from when I was young, only of course related to Chinese children.

[Anne]

Sue wrote: "Sort of Lord of the Flies on a national scale.

I am so glad I'm finally reading this book. Did anyone else chuckle when she read about the starving children in the United States. I remember that ..."

I chuckled when I read that. I even quoted it in my updates and said it was my favorite line in the book.

[Betty]

Your mention of Chang's being told about the misery and hunger in the United States in contrast to plenty in China caught my eye as well. Another stunning pause in my reading was Chang's mother's disbelief, after she and others were subjected to denunciation meetings and worse, that Mao must surely be magnanimous as he had demonstrated in the past.

The book mentions China's isolation both from the world at large and from the other Chinese provinces. People in general did not know the extent of starvation, only knowing its local effect. Later there is the injustice by Mme. Mao, the Tings, and Mrs. Shau, who possessed almost unlimited power; while Mao himself wanted to eradicate the Communist Party and its ideals to be a feudal emperor. In that vein he and his cronies destabilized society.

[Sue]

Interesting how Chang's father denounced some of the Cultural Revolution's trappings and said Mao couldn't really want them because they were too much like the obeisance paid to the emperors in the past. In fact, Mao was building a personal cult where he was god-like in much the same way as past emperors. But as you said Asmah, he completely destabilized the country and its social structure in doing so as he trusted no one --- except his wife I suppose.

At least under emperors there might have been times of benign neglect where peasants could work the land and shopowners could earn a living. Under Mao, no one was safe.

[Betty]

Sue wrote: "...At least under emperors there might have been times of benign neglect where peasants could work the land and shopowners could earn a living. Under Mao, no one was safe..."

You're right, Sue. From who could marry to how individual/family activities were forbidden and to how indoctrination and reform were carried out, it's a wonder that Chang's mother and father were self-confident and principled, though they eventually realized that the founding Communist principles were being reversed in practice. The People's Party came out of the end of the civil war, but after an optimistic lull became a nightmarish conflict of disorganization and of dire disasters without a process for grievances or criticism .