China Mao and the Cultural Revolution

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Wild Swans is the story of three generations of women in China in the 20th century. The author is Jung Chang: her autobiography comprises the last third section of the book; the first two sections are devoted to telling the story of her grandmother Yu-Fang and her mother Bao Qin. Instead of writing a straight autobiography, Chang chose to begin her story two generations back—the purpose being to provide not only personal historical context but also a sense of the cultural historical context in which her family came into being. By beginning the book with the statement that her grandmother “became the concubine of a warlord general” at the age of fifteen, Chang immediately gives her story a sweeping, grand epic backdrop: she is no mere commoner of humble origins but rather a figure whose family was right in the heart or thick of the swirling chaos that was China in early half of the 20th century. By situating her book in the past, Chang allows her story to breathe, to come to life, to focus on the real, true life events that represented three distinct periods in China’s history—the pre-Mao period, the Mao period, and the post-Mao period. Mao Zedong had such an enormous impact on China, its culture and its people that the beauty of Chang’s book is that it provides the reader with a long look into the China that immediately preceded Mao’s rise, the China that was ruled by Mao, and the China that was to emerge following Mao’s death. Though the story eventually leads the reader to the West—to England to be exact—where Chang received a scholarship to study, the book represents well three very distinct visions of a China undergoing a considerable change, and the women of Chang’s story—Yu-Fang, Bao Qin and Chang herself—represent well those changes in their very persons and in their experiences.

Including the mother and the grandmother also changes the nature of the book. What might have otherwise been a straight autobiography of Chang’s life is made more compelling by the inclusion of her mother and grandmother’s stories. It gives one a sense of place and of history that would not otherwise have been possible and it also gives the book a very majestic style. Chang shows that the story is not just hers but rather a story of womanhood, a story of China, and also an intimate story of her family. Including the mother and the grandmother in the story also allows the book to focus on the revolutions that really represented the spirit of the times in China in the 20th century, each woman experiencing the revolutions in a unique way that tells a side of the much larger story happening in the East.

The revolutions were made in the family in a number of ways. For Yu-Fang, the revolution occurred all around her as a young girl. Her family was from Manchuria and her father, Chang’s great-grandfather had been a police official. But with the old institutions collapsing, as Chang describes, there was an intense vacuum that was filled by the warlords of the regions. They represented power—a power that the hastily established republican government had attempted and failed to evince on its own. With the overthrow of the child emperor in 1911, the land was ripe for picking, and the warlords picked it for themselves. As a police official, Chang’s great-grandfather had limited influence in society—but he had connections and his connection with the warlord to whom he would offer his daughter as a concubine proved pivotal for it served as the starting point: from that union would come the seed of the next generation—Chang’s mother and ultimately Chang herself. Thus, Yu-Fang was made by the early stages of revolution. Her daughter would be made by the middle stages. As worker for the Communist Party of China and for Mao’s Red Army, Bao Qin was immersed in the world of the Revolution. She rose up through the ranks and met Wang Yu, Chang’s father. After suffering a miscarriage from the grueling manner in which she had to move to her husband’s town after a transfer, Wang Yu became more considerate of his wife even as the Revolution pressed on with its often inhumane approach to creating a new China—particularly through the Cultural Revolution, which Chang herself experienced as a teenager. She was thus made by the Revolution as it fomented a disturbing spirit of cruelty. She had joined the Red Guards but was shocked by the brutality of her peers. Her own father was critical of Mao and suffered persecution as a result. In this manner, Chang saw the full effects of the Revolution come full circle as it began to eat itself and turn into a caricature of a real society, with everyone acting a part—acting their love for Mao and thinking their tears for him upon his death as real.

While Chang willing joined the Red Guards, I don’t believe that I could have—but it is difficult to put myself in that situation. I am looking back on it after all this time and knowing about what it was like. Had I been Chang’s age and unaware of the shocking brutality of the Guards, I myself probably would have willingly joined to show my devotion to the Revolution. When you are young and in that world, it is one thing; when you are removed from it by decades, by time and space, you look at it with different eyes and think to yourself that you could never join such a thing. Yet, at the time, as a young teenager, who can really know? I may very well have joined willingly—but, hopefully, like Chang, I would have seen the tragedy of it all.

Coping with tragedy and trauma is not easy. Trauma does definitely influence a person: you carry it around with you, and you can even develop disorders—like post-traumatic stress disorder. It does not really matter who you are because it can impact everyone differently. Gender, age, status may all be variables that help or allow a person to cope with trauma, but there are many other variables that are also factors, like whether or not a person has a support system in place that can help the individual to process the trauma and deal with it.

For Chang, dealing with the trauma of being part of the violent Red Guards and experiencing a gradual disillusionment as her father was persecuted for his beliefs and his opinion of the barbaric way that Mao was going about ruling the country allowed her to process more deeply the sweeping changes that were happening to her country and that, in a micro way, were happening inside her. Mao wanted to recreate life in China in his own Romantic-Revolutionary image; he had little regard for life as it actually or naturally is. Chang began to see this difference, this contrast, and it awakened her to the reality of the terrible experiment that China was undergoing.

As Chang states, “grotesque forms of worshipping Mao had been part of our lives for some time—chanting, wearing Mao badges, waving the Little Red Book” (Chang 414). Her descriptions of this “worship” are narrated well enough for me to empathize with her situation. The Cult of Mao was all around her, growing and swarming like an out of control disease, with people doing nothing but falling over themselves to show how zealous they could be in their worship of the hero of the nation. There was no conscious thought or reflective or honest or truthful expression of feelings—because if you did do that you were immediately seized upon, tortured, ostracized or oppressed, just as Chang’s father was. Her situation as a young person caught up in this movement and its worship of Mao while simultaneously realizing how bogus and unreal it all was is completely empathetic. At times I feel like I am living in the same type of world with so much of life being dictated by unreal politically correct terms that are handed down to us and to which we are expected to bow incessantly as though we were worshiping some politically correct ideal of how life should be instead of recognizing and understanding how life really is and just accepting that.
I think that Chang’s father was truly heroic in his honesty. Her father was honest in his criticism of how Mao’s reforms were harming the Chinese people. He openly and truthfully acknowledged this fact instead of fawning like an idiot over the Little Red Book and over Mao. He had a thinking mind and he had integrity—and though it ultimately cost him his health, his mind, and his life, as the Communists branded him an enemy of the people and tortured him for his criticism, I feel grateful for his moment of candid honesty. One drop of truth at any one moment of time is like a balm that lasts for all time and can be of assistance to all people in all places. So even though I was not personally affected by Wang Yu’s suffering, it has been immortalized by his daughter and the cause of it is something that can fill anyone with heart with pity.

It is hard to say which relationships are strongest. The bond between Chang’s mother and father was certainly heartfelt. After her mother’s first miscarriage following the strain of the relocation and the intense training that she had to undergo for the Party, her father realized how important it was to be considerate of her needs like a real human being. Seeing another person for what he or she was—as though for the first time through the fog of chaos that was Mao’s reign—was the rock for a relationship to last. Chang’s relationships with others were impacted by the madness rising up all around her as her peers engaged in cult-hero worship of Mao. Chang had to deal with this façade of feeling and do it largely on her own. Nonetheless, she had good relationships with her parents—her moral father and her “resourceful” mother, as she describes (Chang 477). It was through the help of her mother, after all, that Chang was permitted to study English at university.

I would describe Mao’s place in Chang’s life as very significant. After all, he was the god of China during the Cultural Revolution, even though he was actually more like a devil, as Chang’s father intimated in his criticism of Mao. Mao was not directly a part of Chang’s life—but he impacted it in every way. She was convinced to enroll in his Red Guards, buying into the vision that he presented the young people of China, the need for a militant step towards his new China. Yet, Mao was full of false promises and his approach to bringing to his vision to life were full of horrible actions that made life unbearable for so many Chinese, again, as Chang’s father pointed out. Yet one was not allowed to point this out because honesty was viewed as treason. Mao’s place in Chang’s life was thus very pivotal in shaping her own development from a young, naïve student to a more well-rounded, free-thinking individual who eventually left China to reflect upon not only her own story but also the stories of her mother and grandmother in order to see how all their lives had been touched by the destabilizing forces that had transformed China in such a dramatic way.

The moral of Chang’s story appears to be that one must persevere. Chang herself demonstrates the need to persevere in all things. She tries very hard at her studies and works very hard in the factory, obeying the rules and doing the work expected of her at all time. Yet she too has her dreams and one of them is to get into school. She shows that as long as one is willing to keep at it and to never give up, good things can finally come for one. Chang’s moral appears to be that personal responsibility is really the most important thing in any society. She highlights how Mao’s policies created a moral wasteland in China, but she also notes that “ordinary people” have a degree of personal responsibility in allowing such a wasteland to be effected (Chang 518).
Those responsible for all the changes and suffering in China were everyone. Everyone played a role in shaping the story of China. However, the level of personal responsibility was different for everyone. Chang’s grandmother took personal responsibility for her daughter, Chang’s mother, when she ran off with the child rather than see her brought up by the warlord’s house. Chang’s mother took personal responsibility for ensuring her daughter’s education. And Chang herself took personal responsibility for her future by trying her hardest to achieve her dreams and finding the support she needed from her mother and her father.
Is anything missing from the story? As more than two decades have passed since the conclusion of the story, it could be said that a lot is missing. A follow-up, or afterward, could be added to this book by Chang: a reflection on how the book was received, why it is banned in China, and what it feels like to be known for being a critic of the past yet still returning to her country to see friends and family.

Two passages that I found to be especially revealing or discussion-worthy can be found on pages 476 and 477—wherein Chang is seeking assistance in getting into university. First she relies upon her father to get her in through the “back door”—but he is too moral to really facilitate this request; then she finds the help she needs from her mother. These two people help to show Chang as who she is—one part moral and one part utilitarian.

Works Cited

Chang, Jung. Wild Swans. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1991.