Wild Swans: Three Daughters of ChinaSimon and Schuster, 2008 M06 20 - 544 pages The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history. |
Contents
25 | |
They All Say What a Happy Place | 46 |
Slaves Who Have No Country | 60 |
Daughter for Sale for 10 Kilos of Rice | 80 |
Talking About Love | 103 |
Going Through the Five Mountain Passes | 130 |
When a Man Gets Power Even His | 163 |
Suffering Will Make You a Better Communist | 186 |
Do You Want Our Children to | 303 |
Where There Is a Will to Condemn | 331 |
Giving Charcoal in Snow | 373 |
Thought Reform Through Labor | 392 |
The More Books You Read the More | 422 |
Please Accept My Apologies That Come | 447 |
The Fragrance of Sweet Wind | 463 |
Sniffing after Foreigners Farts and Calling | 478 |
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Common terms and phrases
army asked became boys called camp campaign capitalist-roaders Chairman Mao Chiang Chiang Kai-shek China Chinese class enemies Communists concubine countryside Cultural Revolution daughter death Deng Deng Xiaoping denunciation meetings Deyang doctor eyes factory father father’s feel felt friends girls grandmother grandmother’s hand head heard hospital Hui-ge husband Japanese Jin-ming Jinzhou knew Kuomintang leaders Lei Feng Lin Biao Liu Shaoqi living looked Lulong Manchukuo Manchuria Mao’s married mother mountains never night Ningnan officials one’s parents Party peasants Peking people’s political Rebels Red Chengdu Red Guards revolutionary rightist sent Sichuan sister sitting soon started stay stop street teachers things thought Tings told took trying turned walk wall wanted wife Wild Swans woman women Xia’s Xiao-fang Xiao-hei Yan’an Yibin Yixian young Zhou Zhou Enlai