"If this is Paradise, what then is Hell?" (Wild Swans - Jung Chang)

Member Name: saucy_molecule

Product:	Wild Swans - Jung Chang
Date:	30/03/04 (1259 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Strong characters, fascinating story

Disadvantages: unimaginable oppression

Within the last few days, I have realised that when it comes to certain things I am completely ignorant about what is going on in the world around me. This realisation has come about after finishing ?Wild Swans? and becoming aware of that fact that an entire country deceived the world for a number of years about what was actually happening within it - suppression, unnecessary punishment, dictatorship and complete control of thinking. It has astounded me that this could possibly have happened within a country with a population of around 1,260,000,000.

Before the actual review, I?ll outline some of the (very!) basic ideas behind the Communist Party. This might not be correct, as this is only what I have gained from reading this book, but hopefully it?ll help to explain the behaviour of various people within the book. The initial stages of the Communist Party in China promised equality for everybody in every shape and form. To Western thinking, it might seem extreme for it to be considered right that everyone should wear exactly the same clothes, eat the same things and work towards one single goal of elevating the country?s ?position? but in China, when the Party arrived it was a welcome relief after the years of fighting with one army or another. The Chinese people were supposed to have complete allegiance to and even total love for their Chairman, Mao. They were expected to report whether they thought a person was enjoying more privileges than they were entitled to at someone else?s expense or if they had negative thoughts about Mao or the Party. This was just one way of preventing people losing out and to ensure that everyone had exactly the same as the next person. Unfortunately, human nature and a strong dose of dictatorship meant this just didn?t work and eventually the whole country existed under the suspicion of being denounced as a ?class enemy? while most of the higher officials enjoyed all sorts of privileges that the lower classes could onl
y dream of.

?Wild Swans? is the story of three women of China who survive under this regime. Jung Chang?s grandmother had her feet bound at the age of two; became the lonely concubine of a warlord and bearing his child, Jung?s mother, before marrying a respected doctor. Their area of Jinzhou is occupied by first the Kuomintang army and is then invaded by Japan before the Communists take over. The Communist Party is appealing to Jung?s mother as it comes as a breath of fresh air compared to how they lived before. She joins the Party willingly and it is here that she meets Jung?s father. He is also an extremely keen member of the Party and completely holds its strongest beliefs in equality for all. Jung?s mother finds out exactly how firm her husband?s belief is in this when he refuses her certain allowances on occasions when she really needs it.

Jung herself is born before the Party reaches its extremes. She remembers her very early years as quite fun and she was a well-liked child. Initially, she joins the party as a Red Guard as the Party?s doctrine is ingrained into her and she thinks that she can make a difference. As she gets older however, she begins to realise more and more what the Party is truly like and begins to resent the oppressive regime in which she lives. She has to watch and wait as her parents are slowly persecuted for holding onto their beliefs in the true meaning of the Party - the Party?s values changed from being focused on the people of China to demanding a complete willingness to do anything that Mao asks of them. All the while, she herself is inwardly rebelling but feels unable to do anything about her situation for fear of anybody denouncing her to the Party officials and ruining any chance she might have in the future of any career or possible happiness.

The book runs chronologically throughout their lives and how they deal with the different kinds of oppression they experience. This ranges from the tr
aditional Chinese view of what a Chinese woman should and shouldn?t do i.e., she should display complete concurrence with her husband at all times and should never be seen in public with a man alone without some kind of ?agreement? to the extreme Party oppression that the existence of any newspaper displaying the face of Mao could be asked to be proven at any time to show the love for the Chairman. Some aspects of their lives are focused on more than others - their family life is given little area compared to the amount that work receives. However, this only highlights the fact that under the regime the emphasis was on work - families were not important, love and respect for Mao and your comrades were.

The book is so effective as the voice of Jung is strong throughout it - her language is incredibly precise and correct in the words it uses to describe the happenings that you don?t doubt for one second that every word she has written is completely and utterly true and horrifying. The pace is actually slowed down as the book progresses. The first part of the book deals with the early years of her grandmother?s life, taking in nearly fifty years in five chapters. This year-to-chapters ratio gets progressively smaller; twenty years of her mother?s life takes thirteen chapters and the 1960s alone takes ten. This is an incredibly effective way to organize the story, as it is the later years that are the most shocking and revealing about their lives. The early part does well in describing the grandmother?s spirit and determination and this character seems to filter down through the females and help them to make the best of a bad situation.

The saddest thing that I found, apart from the persecution of the Chinese people as a whole, was to imagine how the character of Jung?s father was slowly but surely eroded down over the years until he is nothing but a shell of the man he used to be. This is a man so firm in his beliefs that he refused to allow h
is wife to be driven after a particularly dangerous birth as he thinks it would be unfair to people who are unable to afford such luxuries. He is finally reduced to mental illness after he is persecuted for sticking to these original values and refusing to pretend to believe in something he doesn?t, when eventually all the Party stands for is complete control under Mao. It is a hard thing to imagine how much this must affect a person, but Jung describes it perfectly without an abundance of emotion or sugar-coating.

Although I wasn?t old enough at the time to know about it, apparently there was media frenzy when the book was released in 1993. After reading it, I can well imagine there was. The situation it describes and the hardships people had to endure for fear of making it worse is almost unbelievable, but the fact that is real and completely true is what makes it so compelling to read.

It is no surprise to know that Jung does eventually leave China - this is evident from the mere fact that the book has been written never mind published. To have even attempted to write a book like this under the regime would have been punishable by imprisonment, if not death. It shows how far she has come since her younger days in the country that she is even able to think about writing the book.

I would recommend this to anybody, even if you don?t know anything about the Communist Party and the happenings in China. It all becomes clear by the end but personally I think that I?ve benefited from my previous lack of knowledge. As I honestly had no idea what had happened, the shock that I felt when I realised exactly what these people went through was incredibly sharp. I just cannot imagine what it must have been like to exist in a constant state of fear of being dragged off by officials and being beaten to a confession of crimes such as thinking negative thoughts about Mao. I?m just glad that I had a chance to read this book - I have a much stron
ger appreciation for my way of living for doing so.

ISBN: 0-00-637492-1

Available from Amazon for £7.99 or WHSmith online for £6.99

676 Pages - The book is indexed and has a choronology and family tree to help to understand the interaction between characters and timing of events. It also has quite a few photographs of Jung's family.

The title of the review comes from Ch. 27, P.632 of the book.

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