Women in China

If anyone is interested in understanding women in China, I encourage you to read Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang. This traces the lives of three generations of women in China, ending with someone about my age who grew up during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Another book I recently finished is emotionally difficult to read and comprehend. It is The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, by Xue Xinran. She is just a bit older than Jung Chang, the author of the previous book, and was a radio journalist in China. She had a talk show that became very important right after the Cultural Revolution and ended up getting very interested in women's lives. In the book she tells the stories of a variety of women that she interviewed and her own. It is hard for me to comprehend the total vulnerability and psychological and physical suffering that women have had to confront. You get the sense that there is a lost generation, or perhaps a lost several generations. Xue Xinran has a new book out called Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother that confronts the issue of enfantacide against daughters and the incredible pain that lies underneath society and mothers over this issue. I have not yet been able to get a copy. She is a "truth-teller" that does not let the pain be covered over.

It is hard to find any book about China that is comforting.