Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Reviews

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Good Points: Easy to read
Provides insight into Chinese culture
Tells all about life in China under Mao
Ultimately a story about one family
Has a history timeline, map and photos

Bad Points: Occasionally difficult to follow numerous Chinese names

General comments: Wild Swans is an incredible story about one family's struggles in China throughout World War II and the upsurgence of Mao's Communist China. The most incredible aspect of the story is that it is true.

The books begins with the author's grandmother. Her story is almost a classical tale like Amy Tan's fiction; a young girl is set up to be concubine to a powerful warlord by her father so that he may obtain prestige and power by association. Sometimes it feels so other-worldly, so far in an ancient culture's past, that the reader may think the book really is fiction.

That all changes when the Communist Party overthrows the Kuomintang. The Party attempts to destroy evidence of "Old China" and move onto the future, a future where the luxuries of the middle-class are shared with the majority of China; the workers.

From here, we follow her and her daughter to another life. Her daughter's story takes over; a young girl passionate about the Revolution who marries a Communist Official whose loyalty to the Party overrides any other responsibility a man has to his wife and family. They become a couple highly regarded by the Party, until Mao's thirst for direct power over the people labels them, and many other Officials, enemies.

The truly despicable treatment of Communist enemies and the events that occurred in China under Mao are so absurd it is tragic that these things actually happened, and in the last fifty years. Some of the events that will stay with the reader include Mao's ridiculous quest to outdo the States and the UK in producing steel that it led to years of famine, and the start of the Cultural Revolution and its violent witch hunts incited in part by petty personal vendettas.

It is the China that the world never knew about. While people were tortured, killed, starved, brainwashed and separated from their families in China, the rest of the world was enjoying rock 'n roll and the golden age of Hollywood.

While at the start of the book, the reader may be a bit confused by the mass of Chinese names, it is well-written, easy to read, and very absorbing. Not only will the reader learn about Chinese history and culture, and of politics and Communism, they will be moved and stirred to awareness and curiousity about other important world issues that are going on around them.

Theirs is not an original story; many more suffered as they did, but it is a story the world should know about. These kind of atrocities should be known so that people can learn from mistakes made in the past.