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Chinese Women: 'Those Who Hold Up Half the Sky'
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19604 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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10 / 1991 |
3,310 Words |
| Author
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Scarlet Cheng
Scarlet Cheng, based in Los Angeles, is a contributing editor
to the arts section of The World & I. |
"How sad it is to be a woman!" wrote a Chinese poet of the third century B.C. "Nothing on earth is held so cheap."
By the Song dynasty (960-1279), this devaluation of women was reinforced by state Confucianism and by the rise of the practice of foot binding. As Confucius had said, "It is the law of nature that woman should be held under the domination of man." He believed that "the woman with no talents is one who has merit."
Under such doctrines a feudal society of pronounced misogyny endured for a thousand years. The misery of women in traditional Chinese society is a tale we are familiar with. Around the turn of the country, stories of forced marriages, the enduring and cruel practice of binding feet, and the virtual enslavement of women were brought back by American missionaries who served in China.
Later, the widely popular novels of Pearl S. Buck--herself raised in China as the daughter of American missionaries--reached the masses. Her book The Good Earth won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1937 it was made into a movie starring Louise Rainer, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her sentimental portrayal of a long-suffering Chinese woman who would sacrifice anything for her husband and children.
Only in our times has China emerged from feudalism. In Jung Chang's Wild Swans we get an intimate and closely detailed portrayal of three generations of Chinese women and how they survived the tumultuous social and political change of this century. Chang's grandmother, born in 1909, was the first female of the line to actually have her own name; Chang's mother grew up during wartime China and flouted convention by speaking her mind, taking up politics, and choosing her own husband. Finally, there is Chang herself, who endured the battering of the Cultural Revolution and of the communist system, and managed to escape with her humanity and sanity intact.
Under the most arduous and even perverse circumstances these women's strength of character and will to endure shine through, accomplishments that elicit both astonishment and admiration.
Grandmother: The last of feudal China
It is notable that Chang's great-grandmother, a child from a simple working-class family, had no name other than "No. 2 Girl" (er ya tou). But her first-born, a daughter, was
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