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Hamza Nakhoda Laurie Stahle EASC 150g March 12, 2008 Reading Response 3 Jung Chang, the author of wild swans , in her book tells the tale of three Chinese women from three different generations. If I didn't know better I would think that this book is fictional or has been overly exaggerated for the readers. My first impression of the book was that it could easily be adapted for a screenplay because of the events and experiences that could not possibly be part of a normal woman's life. Jung Chang clearly focuses on the fact that she and her family were greatly handicapped because her parents were high Communist party officials. During the power struggle within the Communist party her parents were arrested, tortured and went through a lot of problems. However, I feel that the disadvantages of being part of a former political family were equally matched to the advantages. The fact that her parents were powerful resulted in her and her siblings being better educated and having more opportunities in life. Consider a lower class family who was caught between this power struggle left with no food dying from the "Great Leap Forward". They would probably be dead or imprisoned somewhere under Mao's regime a daughter from this family would definitely not be writing stories about her grandmother and mother sitting in a nice little house in England. One part of the story that jumped out at me the most (probably because Jung focuses on it a lot) is the fact that her pregnant mother was made to walk a treacherous journey while her father, being a higher official, would ride in the jeep. Her father felt that he was fighting "nepotism" but the mother didn't understand this at the time. We also see that Jung respected this and felt there needed to be a class structure in societies, one that England lacked. This class-culture and respect for rank and position still separates Chinese culture from the West. In Lecture, we saw two parts of the documentary China: A Century of Revolution in which the 1911-1976 periods in China were covered. This covered events such as the founding of the Republic of China, founding of the People's Republic of China, Chiang Kai-Shek coming into power, Mao Zedong coming into power, Sino-Japanese war and many other life changing events. This can closely be related to wild swans because Jung also covers these events. However, in Jung's book we get an insight into the lives of three women and how they were influenced by the events that took place in China. I specially like this because Jung's family was political (at least her parents) and hence what they did during different events and how they coped with a changing country brings is very insightful her family was there during the birth of China.

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