Book Review
I’m working on the drabbles and they should be done by tonight. In the mean time, I wanted to talk about “The Good Women of China” by Xinran which I finished last night.
I was initially a little hesitant and a little confused, as I think that I was expecting the book to be something other than what it was. I wasn’t expecting fiction, most certainly, but the other biographies of women in China that I have read have generally been autobiographies and done in a very specific style. I was admittedly a little autobiographied out by the time I read this book, as the different women’s experiences had all started to amalgamate themselves into a large pile of suffering. The vast majority had been written by women born during / just after / just before the Cultural Revolution, and told the story of their parents as well as their own attempts to navigate the murky waters of revolutionary China. All these women eventually had some sort of prolonged contact with the West and this enabled them to write their autobiographies. Sometimes, we’d even have some information on the grandparents, and there would be reflections on the changes in customs and traditions and women’s place in Chinese society. There would invariably be mentions of Chinese boot-binding.
The problem was, whilst these experiences were all very individualised and clearly very traumatic for the people involved, the more books I read, the more everybody blurred together. Everyone, it seemed, had been persecuted by the Red Guards for one reason or another. Everyone had been accused of being counter-revolutionaries at some point. Everybody had a grandmother or great-grandmother whose feet had been bound. Everybody had a mother who had lost her childhood during the Cultural Revolution. Everybody suffered in some way, and because these women all seemed to have some sort of contact with the West, their suffering had come from similar sources and had been inflicted for similar reasons.
Reading about the Cultural Revolution and its effects was never going to be very easy, but after a while I began to feel that I had simply been reading about one tiny cross-section of society. These were all educated, articulate women who had suffered because they had ties to the West, or because their parents had been well-off. Not a single one of them was a peasant girl who grew up to be a Red Guard and work in a prison. Not a single one of them had had no contact with the West, or had not been persecuted because of it. Was it really the case that all several billion Chinese women had been educated by Americans and wore their hair in braids? Did they all really favour Japanese food?
I had high hopes for “The Good Women of China”, as it was a biography of several women. Surely, I thought, this would give me a different look at the lives of women in China in the last half a century. Surely this would be more rounded - and, look, the author is a radio presenter who hosted a women’s hour and heard countless women’s stories. Yet the volume (I had a copy of the paperback) was quite slim, and only had a few chapters. These must be representative of different sections of society, I thought. Sure enough, there was the Guomingang general’s daughter, the foreigner, the political activist, the lesbian, the star-crossed lover, even the radio presenter herself had a story.
These stories started off horrible and upsetting - the radio presenter saves a twelve year old girl from a life of sexual slavery as an old man’s ‘wife’; a story particularly poignant in light of the increase in kidnappings of young girls due to a male/female imbalance in the countryside - and got steadily worse. There was the girl who was sexually abused by her father. The Japanese girl who was repeatedly raped by red Guards and thrown in prison. The political activist kept as a virtual slave in her own home, raped and forcibly married to a military commander. The star-crossed lover who was horribly abused and never married when she was parted from her lover. The Guomingang general’s daughter who had been so horribly abused that she had gone into a virtually comatose state and never moved until she died. The tomboy lesbian who was gang raped and became a frighteningly predatory stalker.
All of these women’s stories were tragic and horrible and made my stomach clench. They also made me wonder if they were, in fact, representative in any way shape or form, as I had assumed that they would be. Were all women in China this horribly abused and mentally damaged? Xinran stressed their childlike qualities, and lingered over the sexual abuse experienced by them as children. I was rather uncomfortable with the narrative, as, oddly, I felt that I had been deceived by the narrator. I had started the book with the promise that Xinran would be bringing these different women’s stories out of the countless ones she had heard and that she had thought about why she was doing this. Doubtless, I thought, there would be some general essays, or some concluding thoughts in each narrative. Instead, the narrative lurched from a paraphrase of the women’s words to Xinran’s questions and her incredulity. I, too, was incredulous. Xinran could not believe that such terrible things had befallen each of these women. Her horror was understandable at first, but as the book progressed, I started to wonder just what kind of cognitive dissonance Xinran had suffered whilst writing this book. As account after account came pouring in, similar in content if not in context, why didn’t her perceptions change?
The conclusion I came to was that she was not encountering these narratives - and similar ones - one after the other. Otherwise, she was resetting her moral barometer to its starting position every time she picked up her pen. She must have heard other stories that doubtless chronicled equal suffering, but somehow chose not to include them. I’m forced to ask why this was the case. Why did we not hear about the woman who never married and never regretted it? Why did we not hear about the women who were simply beaten, rather than systematically raped and abused?
After a while, I began to wonder as to the purpose of choosing these particular narratives. I came to the unnerving conclusion that shock value must have played at least some part in their selection for this book. Several times I felt physically sick whilst reading. Xinran says that she was not able to broadcast some of these stories because of political problems. What, then, of the other countless political stories that did not make it into the book? Why choose the ones that were guaranteed to elicit a physical reaction, if not for that reaction?
The book started off promising the narratives of different women in China, who would not have had contact with the West or have had the opportunity to write their own stories. Instead, it delivered a made-for-tv serial, easily subtitled, “and their courageous fight against X, Y and Z”. The most sensational stories were chosen. I admit that expecting the stories to be representative was probably unrealistic on my part, but the relentless fixation on sexual abuse made my hackles rise. I am, after all, writing my dissertation on the obsession with sexual abuse as the only gender-specific crime. It’s interesting - but depressing - to observe the general tendency to view it as such.
I could not read “The Rape of Nanking” for the sick feeling in my stomach. I had to go find a park in order to clear my head, and sit down and try again and again until I could finish it. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
I believe that this was the sort of reaction that Xinran was aiming for in her choice of stories. However, her preoccupation with sexual abuse as the only sort of abuse worth documenting was hugely detrimental to the book. Ultimately, it served to numb the reader. Just like made-for-tv heart-wrenchers, you could have it on in the background whilst you ate your dinner.
I was initially a little hesitant and a little confused, as I think that I was expecting the book to be something other than what it was. I wasn’t expecting fiction, most certainly, but the other biographies of women in China that I have read have generally been autobiographies and done in a very specific style. I was admittedly a little autobiographied out by the time I read this book, as the different women’s experiences had all started to amalgamate themselves into a large pile of suffering. The vast majority had been written by women born during / just after / just before the Cultural Revolution, and told the story of their parents as well as their own attempts to navigate the murky waters of revolutionary China. All these women eventually had some sort of prolonged contact with the West and this enabled them to write their autobiographies. Sometimes, we’d even have some information on the grandparents, and there would be reflections on the changes in customs and traditions and women’s place in Chinese society. There would invariably be mentions of Chinese boot-binding.
The problem was, whilst these experiences were all very individualised and clearly very traumatic for the people involved, the more books I read, the more everybody blurred together. Everyone, it seemed, had been persecuted by the Red Guards for one reason or another. Everyone had been accused of being counter-revolutionaries at some point. Everybody had a grandmother or great-grandmother whose feet had been bound. Everybody had a mother who had lost her childhood during the Cultural Revolution. Everybody suffered in some way, and because these women all seemed to have some sort of contact with the West, their suffering had come from similar sources and had been inflicted for similar reasons.
Reading about the Cultural Revolution and its effects was never going to be very easy, but after a while I began to feel that I had simply been reading about one tiny cross-section of society. These were all educated, articulate women who had suffered because they had ties to the West, or because their parents had been well-off. Not a single one of them was a peasant girl who grew up to be a Red Guard and work in a prison. Not a single one of them had had no contact with the West, or had not been persecuted because of it. Was it really the case that all several billion Chinese women had been educated by Americans and wore their hair in braids? Did they all really favour Japanese food?
I had high hopes for “The Good Women of China”, as it was a biography of several women. Surely, I thought, this would give me a different look at the lives of women in China in the last half a century. Surely this would be more rounded - and, look, the author is a radio presenter who hosted a women’s hour and heard countless women’s stories. Yet the volume (I had a copy of the paperback) was quite slim, and only had a few chapters. These must be representative of different sections of society, I thought. Sure enough, there was the Guomingang general’s daughter, the foreigner, the political activist, the lesbian, the star-crossed lover, even the radio presenter herself had a story.
These stories started off horrible and upsetting - the radio presenter saves a twelve year old girl from a life of sexual slavery as an old man’s ‘wife’; a story particularly poignant in light of the increase in kidnappings of young girls due to a male/female imbalance in the countryside - and got steadily worse. There was the girl who was sexually abused by her father. The Japanese girl who was repeatedly raped by red Guards and thrown in prison. The political activist kept as a virtual slave in her own home, raped and forcibly married to a military commander. The star-crossed lover who was horribly abused and never married when she was parted from her lover. The Guomingang general’s daughter who had been so horribly abused that she had gone into a virtually comatose state and never moved until she died. The tomboy lesbian who was gang raped and became a frighteningly predatory stalker.
All of these women’s stories were tragic and horrible and made my stomach clench. They also made me wonder if they were, in fact, representative in any way shape or form, as I had assumed that they would be. Were all women in China this horribly abused and mentally damaged? Xinran stressed their childlike qualities, and lingered over the sexual abuse experienced by them as children. I was rather uncomfortable with the narrative, as, oddly, I felt that I had been deceived by the narrator. I had started the book with the promise that Xinran would be bringing these different women’s stories out of the countless ones she had heard and that she had thought about why she was doing this. Doubtless, I thought, there would be some general essays, or some concluding thoughts in each narrative. Instead, the narrative lurched from a paraphrase of the women’s words to Xinran’s questions and her incredulity. I, too, was incredulous. Xinran could not believe that such terrible things had befallen each of these women. Her horror was understandable at first, but as the book progressed, I started to wonder just what kind of cognitive dissonance Xinran had suffered whilst writing this book. As account after account came pouring in, similar in content if not in context, why didn’t her perceptions change?
The conclusion I came to was that she was not encountering these narratives - and similar ones - one after the other. Otherwise, she was resetting her moral barometer to its starting position every time she picked up her pen. She must have heard other stories that doubtless chronicled equal suffering, but somehow chose not to include them. I’m forced to ask why this was the case. Why did we not hear about the woman who never married and never regretted it? Why did we not hear about the women who were simply beaten, rather than systematically raped and abused?
After a while, I began to wonder as to the purpose of choosing these particular narratives. I came to the unnerving conclusion that shock value must have played at least some part in their selection for this book. Several times I felt physically sick whilst reading. Xinran says that she was not able to broadcast some of these stories because of political problems. What, then, of the other countless political stories that did not make it into the book? Why choose the ones that were guaranteed to elicit a physical reaction, if not for that reaction?
The book started off promising the narratives of different women in China, who would not have had contact with the West or have had the opportunity to write their own stories. Instead, it delivered a made-for-tv serial, easily subtitled, “and their courageous fight against X, Y and Z”. The most sensational stories were chosen. I admit that expecting the stories to be representative was probably unrealistic on my part, but the relentless fixation on sexual abuse made my hackles rise. I am, after all, writing my dissertation on the obsession with sexual abuse as the only gender-specific crime. It’s interesting - but depressing - to observe the general tendency to view it as such.
I could not read “The Rape of Nanking” for the sick feeling in my stomach. I had to go find a park in order to clear my head, and sit down and try again and again until I could finish it. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
I believe that this was the sort of reaction that Xinran was aiming for in her choice of stories. However, her preoccupation with sexual abuse as the only sort of abuse worth documenting was hugely detrimental to the book. Ultimately, it served to numb the reader. Just like made-for-tv heart-wrenchers, you could have it on in the background whilst you ate your dinner.