Striking a common chord

Q: In Wild Swans you mention that when you were little you thought that life in the West was like the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale "The Little Match Girl," a world full of poverty and misery. After going to college, you were angered by articles everywhere describing the Chinese as people who enjoyed "self-improvement" through hard labor. Now that you have already lived in the West for many years, do you think that Westerners have misconceptions about China because they are so far removed from it? When you write in English do you think about the typical ideas Westerners have about the Chinese?

A: Basically, very few Westerners truly understand China. Most of my friends in England aren't experts on China, and I often answer their questions about it. For many years, they have been asking me questions in a logical and rational manner, making me clearly explain these issues step by step. This has been of great assistance in writing this book.

Before I began writing, I had already signed a contract with an American publishing house, which gave me an excellent editor. Originally the book was much longer, but from the perspective of an outside observer he suggested that I cut away some discussion of side issues. Now it's a better book because of the trimming. Happily, after the book was published, many readers, including intellectuals and people very much in the know about international events, told me that this book was a real eye-opener for them, changing the way they thought about China.

I think one of the reasons my book was well received in the West was that I smashed many of the common stereotypes that people have about China. I wrote about a bunch of real people instead of trying to please Westerners by playing to their misconceptions and stereotypes. Because there are too few Chinese stories, foreigners don't understand the Chinese, and so I hope that many more works describing the lives of Chinese people will appear.

From a strait jacket to a net:

Q: In this book you describe three generations of Chinese women: your grandmother, your mother and yourself. You went back to the mainland several times in the eighties to collect materials. Did you detect any changes there? Just what roads have mainland women paved for themselves there?

A: From the process of writing the book, I have a much better understanding of the histories of my maternal grandmother and mother, and I have a deeper love for them. And I have much more confidence about the future of Chinese women in general--because society is definitely making progress. I am not pessimistic about social development. Although I have seen my share of ugliness, there are rays of good in even the worst environments. Even when pushed, many people are still unwilling to do evil. I have not lost my faith in people, despite the Cultural Revolution. There is hope in the basic trend of human development, and it's the same for women.

Before the incident in Tiananmen Square, I had gone back and felt that the changes were great --the Chinese people were not as terrorized as they had been before. Every time I went back I discovered that this terror had greatly diminished. With the massacre, the terror returned a bit, but it was nothing like before. Before it was like a strait jacket; now it's just like a net that's full of holes--all of China has changed so much.

Along with the economic reforms and the raising of educational levels, Chinese women can only walk a road to greater freedom. This is for certain.

Held together by their parents' love

Q: Why did you ask your brother Chang Pu to translate Wild Swans into Chinese? In the process of translation, did you and he have further discussions of family stories? Were there any difficulties?

A: Chang Pu is a reporter and he writes well, so I thought I'd let him translate the book.

Actually my brother didn't know much about our family stories. In translating the book, he was often moved to tears. Before. He felt that what a mother did for her children was just a matter of course, but after he translated the book he realized that one can't take a mother's love and sacrifices for granted. Understanding Mother, he loved her more. The second time my mother came to England, she said that she thought my brother had become much gentler.

Regarding problems with the translation, we had many discussions about some English words and phrases that are very difficult to translate, such as "self-pity." It's a difficult word to explain in Chinese, and the Chinese word that is usually used in translation doesn't get it quite right. I discovered that there are many psychological terms that have similar terms in Chinese but no exact equivalents. When you use the term in Chinese, the meaning changes a bit - though not entirely. In such circumstances, it's best to go ahead and just use the Chinese term.

Considering the view of Westerners

Q: Your husband was presumably the book's first reader. Did he give you any suggestions from the perspective of a Westerner?

A: As a Westerner with no understanding of China, my husband continually asked me questions about Wild Swans' content. These made me think more clearly about these issues in the course of writing the book, allowing me to take the thoughts of Westerners into deeper consideration.

For example, in the first chapter I mention that my grandmother's feet were first bound when she was two. My husband originally thought that when feet were bound, a cloth was simply wrapped around them. He never had expected that to get the most desirable of small feet ("three inch golden lotuses"), a mother would first bend all of the toes, save the big toe, back to the sole of the foot and then tightly wrap the foot with a cloth. Then she would press a grind stone weighing tens of pounds on the feet to break the bones in the toes. This excruciatingly painful process would go on for several years until it was certain that the bone would not start growing again.

Later I wrote of my maternal great grandfather who was the deputy chief of police in Yi County. As soon as he took the job, the chief of police gave him his own concubine, a Mongolian woman. Such acts were common among the officials of that day. The purpose was to win over the loyalty of their subordinates. The first time my husband read this he was shocked.

A forgetful people?

Q: Now you and your husband are preparing to write a biography of Mao Tse-tung. It is said that in the mainland Mao has been making a comeback in the last couple of years. What does this reflect upon?

A: This is a very complicated phenomenon, and there are still no set theories about Mao. Although one can talk about Mao in the mainland nowadays, comprehensive discussions are still not allowed. Mao has been "in" mainly with the young, which reflects that they don't have sufficient understanding of Mao's rule. Many young people hear about what happened during the Cultural Revolution, and they regard it as if it were something out of The Arabian Nights, but in reality it was only 20 years ago.

The Chinese are people who easily forget. With so much in life that is tragic, it is hard to go on without forgetting. But as a review in Time said, we should still practice the art of remembering.

Secondly, the Chinese are a people who revere gods, but the communists suppressed all religion when they took power. The desire to worship gods resurfaced in later decades. With no gods remaining, Mao was taken to sit in their place. This is a manifestation of ignorance and meaninglessness. Nowadays, many people worship Mao, hoping that he will help them make a fortune. They don't know that Mao lead the attack against capitalism--it's so very superficial.

What's most important is that this craze for Mao doesn't mean that people wistfully remember life under his rule.

Q: Since China began to open up in the eighties, the West has had several "China crazes," including one for books written by Chinese overseas, by Western writers of Chinese origin and by Western scholars. How do you view their descriptions of China?

A: I have read Cheng Nien's Life and Death in Shanghai. I was deeply moved by it and greatly respect her courage. I feel that both our books are memoirs - taking one person's experiences to reflect on the age, a drop of water to reflect on the sea.

As for the great number of books published by Westerners on China, I haven't read many of them, because after I left mainland China I suddenly discovered a great big world. There were too many things I was interested in, and so I decided that I didn't want to spend all of my time on China. Most of my friends didn't have any connection to China, and besides books related to writing, I tried as much as possible to read English literature in my spare time.

I have also read such second generation writers as Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston, and I feel that they both have their own unique styles.

Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston's works are novels, whereas mine is an autobiographical history of three generations, reflecting on the transformations of China in the 20th century. If there are great stories in my book, it is not because I am a gifted writer but because Chinese people's lives are full of stories. All I did was to match the stories with their historical background. When people read the stories they can't help but subconsciously absorb some understanding of Chinese history.

Unlike some second-generation Chinese overseas, I don't need to find my roots. I was born and raised in China. But I have a qualification that most Chinese do not. I have lived in the West for 14 years, and so I have been affected by international culture and been able to establish a little distance between myself and China. In the past I was too close to the trees, but now from a perspective one can get with distance, I have a chance to see the whole forest.

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(photo by Diago Chiu)

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(photo by Diago Chiu)