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Jung Chang

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China Paperback – August 12, 2003

by Jung Chang (Author)

4.4 9,031 ratings

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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.

Print length

538 pages
Language

English
Publication date

August 12, 2003
Dimensions

5.5 x 1.5 x 8.44 inches
ISBN-10

0743246985
ISBN-13

978-0743246989
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Wild Swans is riveting. It's blindingly good: a mad adventure story, a fairy tale of courage, and a tale of atrocities. You can't, as they say, put it down." ― Newsday

"Her family chronicle resembles a popular novel that stars strong, beautiful women and provides cameo roles for famous men....But Wild Swans is no romance. It's a story...about the survival of a Chinese family through a century of disaster." ― The New Yorker

"A mesmerizing memoir." ― Time

"An inspiring tale of women who survived every kind of hardship, deprivation and political upheaval with their humanity intact." --Hillary Clinton, O, The Oprah Magazine

"An inspiring tale of women who survived every kind of hardship, deprivation and political upheaval with their humanity intact." ― Hillary Clinton, O, The Oprah Magazine

About the Author

Jung Chang was born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of York in 1982, the first person from the People’s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. She lives in London with her husband, Jon Halliday, with whom she wrote Mao: The Unknown Story.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (August 12, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 538 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0743246985
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0743246989
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.08 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.5 x 8.44 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #21,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12 in Chinese History (Books)
- #215 in Women's Biographies
- #690 in Memoirs (Books)

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4.4 9,031 ratings

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Jung Chang

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Jung Chang (simplified Chinese: 张戎; traditional Chinese: 張戎; pinyin: Zhāng Róng; Wade–Giles: Chang Jung, Mandarin pronunciation: [tʂɑ́ŋ ɻʊ̌ŋ], born 25 March 1952) is a Chinese-born British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in the People's Republic of China.

Her 832-page biography of Mao Zedong, Mao: The Unknown Story, written with her husband, the Irish historian Jon Halliday, was published in June 2005.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Guy Aitchison from London, UK (Names not numbers Uploaded by Snowmanradio) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Emma

What the United States is becoming

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2023

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This book is so well written. Not sure how anyone survives in China. So many wars; so many ruthless leaders. The crime and brutality is unreal. Crazy propaganda; lack of freedom. Reading this book is a little scary because it reminds me of what’s currently going on in the United States and where we are heading

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Litr8r

For Real, Chinese Desperate Housewives!

Reviewed in the United States on February 29, 2008

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Irony, hypocrisy, suffering, famine, a multitude of tragedy, and a touch of insanity. No, it's not Desperate Housewives re-runs--it's Jung Chang's Wild Swans. The only thing missing is sex, and the reason why is of course a story in itself. If you're looking to kick-off your China reading experience with an essential novel, Wild Swans is for you. First published in Britain in 1991, the novel provides an eye-opening look at China's cultural history between 1900 and 1990 so truthful and thorough that censors have not yet approved it for publication in its original form in mainland China. That alone should make you want to pick up a copy.

In seeking to ameliorate the past and to make sense of her life, Chang delves into her family history, providing a brutally honest portrait of three generations of women. What is truly amazing about Chang's family chronicles are the wealth of hardships Chinese women have had to endure.

The book begins in the early 1900s, with her grandmother's (Yu Fang's) marriage at age 15 to a warlord general. She battled bound feet, loneliness, and the challenges of managing her reputation against conniving servants while isolated in a gilded prison awaiting a husband who might show up for only a few days or a week, once in six years. Once she was required to reside with the general's wife and other concubines, her and her daughter's--Bao Qin's--fates were in the hands of the first wife. Yu Fang had to struggle through the pecking order of the household's women. The details of the customs and rituals of well-to-do lives are quite interesting. Her second marriage was as the second wife of a well-regarded Manchu doctor. He re-names Bao Qin as De Hong, meaning wild swan of virtue.

De Hong, Chang's mother, grew up during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, during the 1930s and 1940s. She refused to marry a man she did not love and could not respect, so she left home to study at a teacher's college, where she developed communist sympathies. In stark contrast to the pomp and circumstance of her mother's arranged marriage, De Hong had to apply to the party for approval to marry a fellow communist in a binding that didn't even include a real ceremony and had minimal refreshments. They had no honeymoon, but returned to work. De Hong endured terrible emotional and sometimes cruel physical hardship as a result of her husband's party ideals and ambitions. Though she eventually had four children, she was tragically required to give all her time and attention to the party, which persecuted her despite her loyalty. Becoming a communist, she noted, was an "agonizing process." De Hong had little choice but to suffer in silence, as leaving the party would cause her family terrible problems and complaining would bring its own share of woe. Eventually her husband was unfairly and illogically destroyed and betrayed by the system he worked so hard to help create.

Jung, born in 1952, grew up with the privileges of party officers' children. But these privileges brought with them contradictions, confusion, and emotional challenges. Jung attempts to survive, fulfill her dreams, and make sense of the destruction of the topsy-turvy world of the Cultural Revolution and still emerge with something to live for.
When the schools are closed in 1966, Jung is sent into the countryside to learn how to be a peasant. While there, she is assigned work as a doctor and later an electrician--without any training, she was expected to learn by doing. Her first love is destroyed by revolutionary ideals. Despite her lack of formal education, Jung is accepted into university in 1973 to study the English language. Oddly, after university, students were not given degrees and were supposed to return to whatever jobs they had previously held! Her mother's guanxi helps Jung to secure a job for which she was far better suited--a teacher. As time goes on, she grows more disillusioned with the government and its leader and begins to question all that she has been taught to think all her life. After Mao's death, she enters an academic competition for which the prize is funding to study in the West. In 1978, she goes to London to get a Ph.D., where she remains teaching and writing to this day. A "wild" life, indeed.

Having completed making peace with family history by writing Wild Swans, Chang's next project was of course her myth-busting biography of Mao, published in 2005.

17 people found this helpful

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Baseball Fan

A View into China's Fascinating, but Tumultuous History.

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2011

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"Wild Swans", by Jung Chang, is a sophisticated and substantive biographical-historical novel about life and events in China during 1909-1978. The story centers on Chang's parents' lives, her own life, and those of her siblings; and it is told against the backdrop of significant historical events: the Sino-Japanese war, the Russian occupation of China, Koumintang rule (under Chiang Kai-shek), the civil war between the Koumintang and the Communists, The Long March, and Communist rule (under Mao Tse-tung). Chang indicates that the names of the public figures as well as the members of her family are real; but the names of other figures have been changed. [Note: Speaking of names, Chang's older sister's name is Xiao-hong---`hong' means `Wild Swan'. Also, Chang's birth name is Er-hong which means `2nd Wild Swan'. They also have three younger brothers named, Jin-ming, Xiao-hei, and Xiao-fang].

According the Chang, during each of aforementioned periods the `rulers' committed numerous atrocities against the Chinese people. The Japanese were extremely cruel, particularly, to the Manchurians, relegated them to second class status, and committed numerous acts of torture. When the Japanese were eventually ousted, the Russians came in and committed many inhumane acts against the Chinese people. Under Koumintang rule, many Chinese were punished and executed. However, according to Chang, none of the aforementioned cruelties compared to the disaster created by Mao Tse-tung and his reckless policies---Chang describes Mao Tse-tung as a tyrant and a cult leader who suffered from delusions of grandeur, had no regard for human life, and was totally ignorant regarding economic policy.

More specifically, according to Chang, Mao's "Great Leap Forward" (which required the entire population, including farmers, to devote their efforts to making steel) led to a great famine which resulted in the deaths of some 30 million people. As a result of the disastrous famine Mao relinquished his position as President of China to Liu Shaoqi, and assumed a lower profile. However, Mao retained the more powerful position of Chairman of China's Communist Party and was still China's supreme leader. Once the famine was over, and under the more pragmatic leadership of Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping (general secretary), both the economy and the society became more liberal. According to Chang, Mao was unhappy with this approach---he wanted the Chinese to live a life based on conflict, struggle and violence, not harmony.

Mao began a comeback by promoting his own deification (e.g., issuing propaganda and slogans that glorified himself, further regimenting the population, encouraging people to spy on one another, mandating public self-criticism and denunciation of others, etc.). Then Mao launched the disastrous Cultural Revolution. According to Chang, the Cultural Revolution was essentially a `witch-hunt' and a `reign of terror' carried out (against teachers, intellectuals, `rightists', the `bourgeoisie', Kuomintang sympathizers, and ultimately Communist Party officials) by millions of Red Guards. The Red Guards were essentially teenagers (who typically were children of officials) and kids in their early twenties (who generally were not children of officials). All member of the Red Guard routinely carried copies of Mao's "Little Red Book' which contained slogans that deified Mao. The Red Guards were directed by the Cultural Revolution Authority led by Mao's wife, Chiang Ching. The Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards wreaked havoc on the Chinese society---they persecuted numerous people, conducting `home raids' at will. Mao's reason for launching the Cultural Revolution was to ultimately remove President Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping and to completely revamp China's Communist Party. The Cultural Revolution went on from 1966 to 1976, when Mao died. According to Chang, Mao was a cult leader who desired absolute power and control, "both on earth and in heaven."

I was extremely impressed with this work. The book provides deep insight into China's fascinating, but tumultuous history. Chang's presentation is sophisticated, and the material is substantive. She adeptly uses words to `paint a picture' in order to familiarize the reader with the intimate thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the individual characters, and skillfully interweaves the characters' lives with important historical events, thereby bringing these events to life. I was most surprised to learn the extent of Mao's disastrous policies, and the extent of control that he exercised over the Chinese people, including their innermost thoughts. Although I had previously read about the Red Guards in the newspapers, I hadn't previously understood Mao's motives for unleashing such devastation against his own people, or why they would have continued to support him.

7 people found this helpful

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Sue E.

A very thought-provoking book but we'll worth reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 14, 2023

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A book that deserves to be read, it shows how much China suffered under Mao and the courage of they Chinese people..

I R FINDLEY

Brilliant

Reviewed in Germany on July 1, 2023

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Wonderful story. The best under the covers late Chinese history I have read.....

John P. McCann

Great book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 2, 2023

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Really interesting true story of people which reflects China’s history.

Alyssia Cooke

Picks up after the first few dry chapters

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2020

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This certainly can't be classed as a light read by any stretch of the imagination and yet it is both hugely interesting and incredibly educational. China is a culture that I have little knowledge of the history and this book is written in such a way to both educate and draw you into the times and cultures depicted. It's a startlingly dark and depressing read at times and yet the writing style never allows you to become bogged down in the undeniably horrific events that have happened to Jung Chang's family - and so many others in China - over the years. Parts of the book almost left me gasping at the sheer inhumanity of humanity and the ways in which neighbour can be set against neighbour and a culture of fear and paranoia permeate every aspect of life.

This book depicts a journey in several different ways ; a journey through the generations of three women in China and how the political atmosphere of each period influenced the lives they lived and the journeys they took. It's a journey through the political landscape of China across through a tumultuous period of history and it's an individuals journey of being born into a world where Mao is revered as a God and any criticism is to put yourself in danger of being known as a class enemy. Finally, it's a journey of womanhood through the ages in such a vastly different culture, that changes and evolves, yet still manages to find ways to make individuals lives a misery. The deification of Mao is frightening to behold, not least because it is a true story and the depictions of what is undoubtedly a reign of terror are horrifyingly eye-opening.

The bravery of so many individuals within the period rings through the book, as indeed does the eventual disillusionment with Communism and Maoism. The depictions of how family life was warped and twisted in so many ways through propaganda and an insistence that the Party must come first are vivid and yet Jung Chung never allows herself to wallow in pity. Whilst the story closely follows the lives of the three main women across three generations, it is the tale of Jung Chung's father that perhaps hits the hardest and shows the cruelty and random persecution of the Chinese period. Whilst the systematic degradation of women is clear across these three generations, it is in the tale of a moral man living in a land devoid of morality that really strikes hard.

Because Jung Chang's father is an infuriating figure at the beginning of the book; when he first marries her mother, he is so indoctrinated and obsessed with the Communist cause that he will cause his family active grief in trying to avoid a charge of nepotism. I winced at how Jung Chang's mother was treated during pregnancy and childbirth and wanted to hit the man for his insensitivity and lack of care. As the tale progresses however, it is his very inflexibility and refusal to bend the rules for anyone that gets him into so much trouble with the Communist rule. He won't stand for corruption and he won't sit silent in fear of the consequences. My heart bled for him and for his family who were taking so much grief because their husband and father was a moral man, trying to live by his own moral code in a world where this was untenable.

I found the early book rather dry and almost stilting, but this may be because Jung Chang was talking of events long before her birth. The binding of her grandmother's feet for instance, whilst horrific, didn't have the same emotional impact on me as the later book where she is depicting events that are in her own memory or at least of her parents. I think this is purely due to how close to events Jung Chang was and their emotional relevance to her. If you are struggling with the first few chapters I would definitely recommend sticking with it, because this is a book that is both depressing and inspirational by turns and becomes easier to read, if not to bear, in the sections related to Jung Chang's parents.

7 people found this helpful

John Hopper

magnificent family memoir cum history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2019

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This is an epic personal story of life in China over much of the 20th century, told through the stories of three generations of women in one family. The author has lived in Britain since becoming one of the first Chinese students to get a doctorate at a British university since before the communist takeover in 1949. Her grandmother's family came from Manchuria in the extreme north of China, and at the age of 15 in 1924 she was given away as a concubine to one of the warlords vying for control in this part of China in the vacuum created by the overthrow of the last Chinese emperor in 1912. Her mother, the daughter of this union, was one of the early idealistic communists in the years leading up to the 1949 revolution and for the first few heady years of the new regime when there seemed to be a genuine attempt to create a better society and reduce the oppressive and miserable life of the majority of the population, especially in rural areas. The book covers in depth the dramatic and horrific events that followed: the initially promising but quickly aborted attempt at liberalisation that was the Hundred Flowers campaign; the "Great Leap Forward", where much of the country was forced to produce steel to boost industry, to such an extent that agriculture collapsed and famine ensued, in which some 30 million people died, including the author's uncle and great-aunt; then, after a brief period of reform, the appalling "Cultural Revolution", Mao's attempt to create a personal rule, overthrowing much of his own communist apparatus, which dislocated society and economy, destroying much of the country's cultural and historical infrastructure, effectively abolishing education, burning nearly all books, banning films, theatre and sport, seriously blighting the author's teenage years and adult adulthood; and which, despite some relaxation after 1972, didn't fully end until after Mao's death and the overthrow of the Gang of Four, led by his wife, in autumn 1976.

Despite this litany of catastrophe, there is hope in the love and closeness of the family, centred here around the three eponymous amazing and strong-minded women. After the death of her warlord "husband", who treated her fairly decently by the standards of the time, the grandmother found happiness married to a much older man; the mother found love with a fellow communist and, despite strains caused by her husband's principled but rigid puritanism, their marriage survived their vicious denunciations by Red Guards and others at the appalling mass meetings, and their imprisonment in labour camps until the early 1970s. The physical and mental strains of years of humiliation and subjection to forced labour and psychological pressures, killed the author's father at the age of only 54 in 1975. In the relatively more relaxed atmosphere of the later 1970s, especially after the restoration to power of Deng Xiaoping, the future paramount leader in the 80s and 90s, the author was able to study abroad and the lives of her mother and other family members, as well as that of hundreds of millions of other Chinese, improved dramatically, albeit within the framework of what remains of course a one party communist state. The afterword recounts in brief the author's life in Britain and the original publication of this book in 1991 (what I have read is the 25th anniversary edition). One thing I would like to have heard a bit more about, though, was how she was able to defect to Britain after gaining her doctorate in 1982. This is a magnificent and absorbing book, with much to say about human nature at its best and worse, and the horrors that blind adherence to an ideology can bring about.

11 people found this helpful

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