Her only option appears to be a daring escape and a life on the run.Ĭhang’s mother, De-hong (‘De’ meaning ‘virtue’, ‘hong’ meaning ‘wild swan’), grew up in a China that was now controlled by a nationalist government fighting Japanese invasion and in a city (Jinzhou) that was Japanese-occupied. Though she has a daughter, the General is getting old and ill and, as a concubine, Yu-Fang has few rights and may lose her daughter and all financial support. While she has a life of relative luxury, prolonged boredom and loneliness take a psychological toll. It was to the general of one of these warlords, influential enough to play a role in the overthrow of a Chinese President, that Yu-Fang was offered by her father as a concubine.
China faced invasion by Japan, and possibly Russia, as well as growing internal conflict between rival warlords. The Emperor was overthrown and a fragile republic formed.
China’s isolationism, its Confucianist bureaucracy, which had kept it relatively safe and stable for centuries, was crumbling. Through them we have a front row seat to the events and can appreciate them, understand what they meant, at a very personal level.Ĭhang’s grandmother, Yu-fang, was born into a China in turmoil. The lives of these three women, of three successive generations, became entwined with these events. Despite this, it remains banned in China.Īs appealing as a remarkable family story is, what makes Wild Swans important is that it serves as a microcosm for some of the twentieth century’s biggest events. Though I could not find confirmation, it is by some accounts the highest-selling memoir of all time with sales variously reported as being between 10-15 million copies. It is a memoir of three generations of author Jung Chang’s family, principally told around the lives of her grandmother, mother and herself. Wild Swans is, simply put, a masterpiece.
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