Customer Reviews

The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Riveting anecdotes from ordinary women in China who usually go unheard or supressed in the public forum and unnoticed in history. Their experiences are all the more shocking because they're not intended to be--the pain, waste, sadness and sacrifice in their lives underscore the turmoil of China's recent past and volatile present. For students of China, and anyone visiting or doing business with China, as well as for avid readers of all persuasions, READ THIS BOOK NOW, and keep a watchful eye on developments in China. I had frankly decided to read no more of the 'my-family-suffered-in-China-and-I-survived' books (of which there are so many excellent ones), but when I heard Xinran in a TV interview describe how she came to write this book, I became curious. When I started reading it, I couldn't put it down except to dry my tears.

I would also recommend: Kristof and Wudunn's CHINA WAKES; Anchee Min's RED AZALEA; Adeline Yen Mah's FALLING LEAVES; Jung Chang's WILD SWANS; Mo Yan's RED SORGHUM; Dai Sijie's BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS; and anything by Ha Jin.

This startling collection of stories offers a remarkable insight into the lives of women in the country that threatens to become the most powerful in the world in the 21st century. Communism promised equality for all in China, but like all political systems it is no match for traditions and customs that have lasted for thousands of years. These stories painfully explore what happens when the modern and the traditional collide, crushing women in the middle.

Living in a culture where revealing the most personal aspects of our lives on TV is a daily occurance, it is hard to envision how revolutionary Xinran's radio show "Words on the Night Breeze" was in China. For the first time, women had an anonymous way to tell their stories to the world, and what spilled out was heartbreaking. There were stories of true disaster, like the mothers who suffered through a devastating earthquake and watched their families swallowed up whole. But these things happen in every country. Much more disturbing to me were the stories of arranged marriages by party officials--in this nation of "comrades," a woman still has no choice but to stay with a husband who is lord and master, and treats her much as her female ancestors must have been treated long ago. Or the story of the young girl who is abused for years by her father--when her mother finds out about it she is told to put up with it to avoid angering him! Stories about the massive cruelties of the Cultural Revolution abound--I never cease being surprised and shocked at the pain this country visited on itself during the rule of Mao in the 1960's.

Surely things are changing, one asks. But after reading about the university student I wasn't so sure. Women in university are the cream of the crop. But Xinran is shocked to learn that many choose what sounds like a new twist on an ancient tradition--they become "personal secretaries" to high powered businessmen, some foreigners, who need help navigating the Chinese system. They are totally cynical and businesslike, and view these relationships as a way to earn money and security. Woe to the woman who falls in love with her boss, however--she is cut off as cleanly as a concubine might have been abandoned in ancient times.

This is a painful, sobering book. Progress and freedom are elusive concepts, and again and again after reading of other parts of the world, I realize how lucky Americans are that we got to "start fresh" a mere 200+ years ago. This is a wonderfully written book, well deserving of 5 stars.

What struck me the most with The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices is the unpretentious way the stories are presented. No where does Xinran leave me with the impression that she is 'milking' the stories for all they are worth in order to gather sympathy from the reader. Instead she leaves me with the impression that she is almost reluctant and embarrassed to tell the stories she presents. Stories that each have in common that they are equally heartbreaking.

Speaking for myself I can only say that every one of those stories touched the fibbers of my heart..

Undoubtedly no one in the Western World is unaware of the suffering that comes with being a woman on most continents, yet it is a whole different story to be confronted with actual reports of the fate that befell a number of woman simply because they possessed a number of xx chromosomes; a reminder that to this day having a set of xy chromosomes makes you into an instant winner and a set of xx chromosomes into an instant victim on most continents.

To me these stories made me realize how privileged men are in not only China but in most parts of the world, and as such made me realise the long way we have to go before women are treated as equals.

It is because of the unpretentious presentation of the stories and the content of those stories, which I found to be without flaw, that I rate The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices with five stars. And warmly recommend it to those interested in hearing what being a woman in China can get you in some very unfortunate but not rare cases.

Once I started reading, I could not stop until I finished it. The true stories of the lives, experiences, pain and suffering of the women described by the author are unforgettable. I am a second generation Chinese American, raised in Chinatown in Los Angeles. I was raised watching movies from China and Hong Kong where the stories were always about the suffering of unnoticed, unappreciated women. I have always been grateful that I was not born in China. Members of my family had to live through the nightmare of the "Cultural Revolution" and my aunt who was persecuted and sent to the countryside for "reeducation" because she was the daughter of a merchant, died as a result of starvation and neglect.
The only criticism I have of the book is the relentlessness of the sadness and misery of these women's lives. It makes the reading hard work. I hope the author is encouraged to share more true stories that are not always so tragic and depressing.

"The Good Women of China" is undoubtedly an invaluable source for scholars of women's history and modern China. But to reduce it to a mere document would be to miss its greatest achievements. Xinran Xue is the rare nonfiction writer whose literary gifts make her work of interest far beyond her specific subject matter. On its face, the book is a description of the terrible hardships endured by women in China over the last 50 years. But it is also a study of a universal theme: how do different people respond to adversity? Some of the women described, such as the earthquake survivors who begin group homes for the surviving children, are heroic almost beyond our understanding. Others are tragic heroines, such as the "woman who kept a fly for a pet", who defy their abusers even at the price of self-destruction. Others respond pathetically, refusing easy opportunities to leave abusive situations. Most disturbing are the young university women who choose to become, in effect, high class prostitutes, providing both sex and business service to foreigners.

The author's simple, spare prose lets the stories speak for themselves. The author's refusal to reduce her subject to a simple morality tale adds immeasurably to its power. I cannot recommend this book too highly.

These gut-wrenching stories of womens lives in China were gathered by Xinran during the 1990s when she hosted a nightly radio show featuring calls and letters from women who had never before had an outlet. Not all of the stories come directly from the show  two of the most powerful involve research that Xinran did herself. A visit to an orphanage run by mothers who had lost children during the 1976 Tangshan earthquake relates the unbearably painful memories of women whose tragedies arose not only out of natural disaster but also mans inhumanity to women. And the final story, the one that was one too many for her radio career, takes her to a remote desert village of almost unimaginable poverty where the womens only relief from isolation and hardship is the bowl of egg and water given them on the birth of a son.

The story of Xinrans own traumatic childhood during the Cultural Revolution (she was born in 1958) comes out during an interview with a woman imprisoned for loose morals, whose childhood was one of serial rape and blackmail. Another woman, brought up as a boy, and gang-raped when the masquerade was discovered in puberty, causes a ruckus at the station when she begins discussing a forbidden subject  lesbianism  on the air. This woman attaches herself to Xinran, becoming obsessed, a stalker. But there is no real menace in her, only a pitiful loneliness, and Xinran is able to defuse her with sympathy and firmness.

Sexual repression and ignorance was for so long an official tenet of Chinese society that even Xinran, an educated city girl, says she refused to hold hands with a boy at age 22 for fear of getting pregnant. Many of the letters she receives ask naïve sexual questions or confide long-secret (shameful) rapes. Sexual abuse is at the root of many of her stories.

Relating the genesis of her program, the author quotes a letter from a peasant boy describing the plight of a 12-year-old girl, kidnapped and sold into marriage. To prevent her from fleeing, her elderly husband keeps her in chains. The boy asks Xinrans help, but when she calls the police they shrug and tell her its a common occurrence. The policeman quotes a Chinese proverb to her:  In the countryside the heavens are high and the emperor is far away.  The villagers, he says, are not afraid of the police and would torch our cars and beat up our officers. But, faced with her determination, he relents and gets the local agricultural authorities to threaten witholding of fertilizer. In Xinrans presence, the girl is freed and returned to her frantic parents on the other side of the country. But Xinran is not praised for her efforts, only criticized for  moving the troops about and stirring up the people.  Shaken, she begins to wonder, Just what was a womans life worth in China? Not much, the reader will come to answer, as Xinran does. This first story is one of the few with a happy ending.

Many of these stories are rooted in the past  in the Revolution itself or the Cultural Revolution of her own childhood  and come to Xinran from outside. But others involve the circumstances of todays Chinese women, observed by the author in her daily life  homeless women, discarded women, bitter, successful women, impoverished, ignorant women, mothers, sisters, wives, daughters. Her struggles to make the program more open  to take calls on the air, for instance  illustrate the combination of fear and excitement that accompanies increments of loosening in China. Xinrans heartfelt writing, peppered with Chinese proverbs and imbued with ancient Chinese culture, brings these stories to life in all their terrible strength. A sad, powerful, inspiring book.

I am a 22-year-old Chinese American woman. This book was a gift from my boyfriend, and at first, I was almost skeptical about reading it on a brief glance of the blurb. It seemed like one of those read-about-someone's-horrible -experiences and find it "good" in a morbid curiosity kind of way. The experiences Xinran writes about are horrifying interesting to read that I find myself half the time questioning whether they are true and the other half hoping they weren't true. Halfway through it, I finally remember that my own mother was a child during the Cultural Revolution. Remembering that she mentioned something about those times in China, I went home to ask her about her story of struggles.

I have to thank my boyfriend and the author of this book for enabling me to communicate with my own mother, learn more about my own cultural and family history, and help bridge the divide between the Chinese and American identities inside me. For this last bit, it deserves 5 stars and beyond.

This story is perhaps of the most touching I've ever had the privlege to read. It remarks the heartbreaking stories of women who suffered from tragic love, rape, lost hopes, and unreciprocation of feelings. I've never felt more touched than when I read this book. For the feminist who wants to learn more about the Eastern culture, for men who want to understand women better, or for anyone who is intrigued by the Cultural Revolution; I highly recommend that you read this book. As you read this, you can actually feel the pain of those women who have suffered so much just so they could survive in a cruel world like ours. You'll be moved and changed forever after you turn the last page of this compelling piece of work.

This book is a real eye-opener to the treatment many Chinese women recieve from their husbands (and fathers).

Xinran does a good job of telling the stories without letter her emotions surface and take over.

I'd like to note: somebody else made it sound like these women are treated this way because China is communist, or because Chinese people aren't "free" (I would go into detail on what freedom really is, but that would take up too much space). It isn't the government but rather the men and the culture that are responsible for these women's hardships. In the US (and most other Western countries as well), rape does occur, sometimes often, as do spousal abuse, etc etc, but generally this isn't because the people of these countries aren't free. One may also note that none of these countries are communist, yet many of their women suffer.

If you are not moved by this collection of true stories, check your pulse and your breathing. Our author was the first ever woman radio talk show host in China. She piloted a first ever late-night "live" call-in program dedicated only to women's issues (a subject that was more or less ignored in China prior to the 1990's).

Each chapter is a separate true story of the pain and suffering of life for women, under the dictatorship of the "beloved Chairman Mao". Most are from letters written in by listeners or calls made into the live broadcast. One chapter is on the author's own reflections of her life.

Written after getting out of China (she now lives in England) in a frank, simple, open and honest style (translated brilliantly from Chinese) each chapter opens up layer upon layer of sexual abuse, torment and feminine tragedy. Easy to read, hard to put down and impossible to forget... I hope all my children will read this book to better understand this truly foreign culture and what they have gone through to get to where they are now. Reading this book has helped me better understand some of the complexities of the Chinese culture, at least from a "recent historical" point of view, both masculine and feminine.

Great stories by a brave author. I'm sure this book is not available in any bookstore in China! Maybe one day....