Buch lesen: «Wild Swans»
WILD
SWANS
Three Daughters of China
JUNG CHANG
Copyright
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1991
This 25th anniversary edition published 2016
Copyright © Globalflair 1991, 2003
Jung Chang asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007176151
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007379873
Version: 2018-05-14
Praise
‘Of all the personal histories to have emerged out of China’s twentieth-century nightmare, Wild Swans is the most deeply thoughtful and the most heart-rending I’ve read. It moves, in part, like a ghastly oriental fairytale, but the authority and the reticent passion with which Jung Chang speaks her memories—and those of others—is unmistakable.’
COLIN THUBRON, Spectator
‘Wild Swans is a very unusual masterpiece. Everything about it is extraordinary. Not only has it been a popular bestseller, because it is impossible to put down; it has also received the most serious critical attention. The book arouses all the emotions, such as pity and terror, that great tragedy is supposed to evoke, and also a complex mixture of admiration, despair and delight at seeing a luminous intelligence directed at the heart of darkness.’
MINETTE MARRIN, Sunday Telegraph
‘Mesmerising. Like all great stories of survival, no matter what tragedies and horrors are encountered along the way, Wild Swans is ultimately an uplifting book: it is the courage and spirit of this family which will, I believe, be my abiding impression (even if memories of the horrors endured will take a long time to fade).’
ANTONIA FRASER, The Times
‘A quite exceptional book. Jung Chang is the classic storyteller, describing in measured tones the almost unbelievable.’
PENELOPE FITZGERALD, London Review of Books
‘ Wild Swans has stayed in my mind all year. Quite unforgettable.’
MICHAEL IGNATIEFF, Times Literary Supplement
‘An extraordinary story, popular history at its most compelling. Her readiness to record life’s small pleasures as well as its looming horrors is not only an index of Jung Chang’s honesty and good humour, it is a part of what makes Wild Swans so fascinating. To compare Wild Swans to sagas of the kind that fill the bestseller lists may seem to trivialise the real and deadly seriousness of its subject matter, but the book offers many of the pleasures of good historical fiction.’
LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT, Independent
‘Riveting, an extraordinary epic. A work of true, living history drawing deep on family memories, an unmatchable insight into the making of modern China and the impact of war and totalitarianism on the destinies of a quarter of the human race.’
RICHARD HELLER, Mail on Sunday
‘A huge tour de force.’
DEREK DAVIES, Financial Times
‘Immensely moving and unsettling; an unforgettable portrait of the brain-death of a nation.’
J. G. BALLARD
Dedication
To my grandmother and my fatherwho did not live to see this book
Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright
Praise
Dedication
Family Tree
Chronology
Author’s Note
Map
1 ‘Three-Inch Golden Lilies’
2 ‘Even Plain Cold Water Is Sweet’
3 ‘They All Say What a Happy Place Manchukuo Is’
4 ‘Slaves Who Have No Country of Your Own’
5 ‘Daughter for Sale for 10 Kilos of Rice’
6 ‘Talking about Love’
7 ‘Going through the Five Mountain Passes’
8 ‘Returning Home Robed in Embroidered Silk’
Plates Section 1
9 ‘When a Man Gets Power, Even His Chickens and Dogs Rise to Heaven’
10 ‘Suffering Will Make You a Better Communist’
11 ‘After the Anti-Rightist Campaign No One Opens Their Mouth’
12 ‘Capable Women Can Make a Meal without Food’
13 ‘Thousand-Gold Little Precious’
14 ‘Father Is Close, Mother Is Close, but Neither Is as Close as Chairman Mao’
15 ‘Destroy First, and Construction Will Look After Itself’
16 ‘Soar to Heaven, and Pierce the Earth’
17 ‘Do You Want Our Children to Become “Blacks”?’
18 ‘More Than Gigantic Wonderful News’
19 ‘Where There Is a Will to Condemn, There Is Evidence’
20 ‘I Will Not Sell My Soul’
Plates Section 2
21 ‘Giving Charcoal in Snow’
22 ‘Thought Reform through Labour’
23 ‘The More Books You Read, the More Stupid You Become’
24 ‘Please Accept My Apologies That Come a Lifetime Too Late’
25 ‘The Fragrance of Sweet Wind’
26 ‘Sniffing after Foreigners’ Farts and Calling Them Sweet’
27 ‘If This Is Paradise, What Then Is Hell?’
28 ‘Fighting to Take Wing’
Epilogue
Afterword
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Publisher
Family Tree
Chronology
| Year | Family/Author | General |
|---|---|---|
| 1870 | Dr Xia born. | Manchu empire (1644–1911). |
| 1876 | Xue Zhi-heng (grandfather) born. | |
| 1909 | Grandmother born. | |
| 1911 | Empire overthrown; republic; warlords. | |
| 1921 | Father born. | |
| 1922–24 | General Xue chief of police in warlord government, Peking. | |
| 1924 | Grandmother becomes concubine of General Xue. | |
| General Xue loses power. | ||
| 1927 | Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek unifies most of China. | |
| 1931 | Mother born. | Japan invades Manchuria. |
| 1932 | Japanese occupy Yixian, Jinzhou. | |
| ‘Manchukuo’ established under Pu Yi. | ||
| Grandmother and mother to Lulong. | ||
| 1933 | General Xue dies. | |
| 1934–35 | Long March: Communists to Yan’an. | |
| 1935 | Grandmother marries Dr Xia. | |
| 1936 | Dr Xia, grandmother, and mother move to Jinzhou. | |
| 1937 | Japan attacks deep into China. | |
| Communist-Kuomintang alliance. | ||
| 1938 | Father joins Communist Party. | |
| 1940 | Father walks to Yan’an. | |
| 1945 | Japanese surrender. | |
| Jinzhou occupied by Russians, Chinese Communists, and Kuomintang. | ||
| Father to Chaoyang. | ||
| 1946–48 | Father in guerrilla unit around Chaoyang. | Kuomintang-Communist Civil War (to 1949–50). |
| Mother becomes student leader, joins Communist underground. | ||
| 1948 | Mother arrested. | |
| Siege of Jinzhou. | ||
| Father and mother meet. | ||
| 1949 | Parents marry, leave Jinzhou, march to Nanjing. | |
| Mother’s miscarriage. | ||
| People’s Republic proclaimed. | ||
| Father arrives in Yibin. | Communists take Sichuan. | |
| Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan. | ||
| 1950 | Mother reaches Yibin; food-gathering, fighting bandits. | |
| Land reform. China enters Korean War (to July 1953). | ||
| Xiao-hong born. | ||
| 1951 | Campaign to ‘suppress counter-revolutionaries’ (Hui-ge executed). | |
| Mother head of Yibin Youth League under Mrs Ting; full Party membership. | ||
| Grandmother and Dr Xia to Yibin. | ||
| Three Antis Campaign. | ||
| 1952 | I am born. Dr Xia dies. Father governor of Yibin. | Five Antis Campaign. |
| 1953 | Jin-ming born. Family moves to Chengdu. | |
| Mother head of Public Affairs Department for Eastern District. | ||
| 1954 | Father deputy head of Public Affairs Department for Sichuan. | |
| Xiao-hei born. | ||
| 1955 | Mother detained. | Campaign to ‘uncover hidden counter-revolutionaries’ (Jinzhou friends branded). |
| Children into nurseries. | ||
| Nationalization. | ||
| 1956 | Mother released. | Hundred Flowers. |
| 1957 | Anti-Rightist Campaign. | |
| 1958 | Great Leap Forward: backyard steel furnaces and communes. | |
| I start school. | ||
| 1959 | Famine (to 1961). | |
| Peng Dehuai challenges Mao, condemned. | ||
| Campaign to catch ‘rightist opportunists’. | ||
| 1962 | Xiao-fang born. | |
| 1963 | ‘Learn from Lei Feng’; cult of Mao escalates. | |
| 1966 | Cultural Revolution starts. | |
| Father scapegoated and detained. | ||
| Mother to Peking to Father released. | ||
| Father released. | ||
| I join Red Guards; pilgrimage to Peking. | ||
| I leave Red Guards. | ||
| 1967 | Parents tormented. | |
| Marshals fail to stop Cultural Revolution. | ||
| Tings in power in Sichuan. | ||
| Father writes to Mao; arrested; mental breakdown. | ||
| Mother to Peking, sees Zhou Enlai. | ||
| Parents in on-off detention in Chengdu (to 1969). | ||
| 1968 | Sichuan Revolutionary Committee formed. | |
| Family thrown out of compound. | ||
| 1969 | Father to Miyi camp. | |
| I am exiled to Ningnan. | ||
| IX Congress formalizes Cultural Revolution. | ||
| Grandmother dies. | ||
| I work as a peasant in Deyang. | ||
| Mother to Xichang camp. | ||
| 1970 | Aunt Jun-ying dies. I become a ‘barefoot doctor’. | |
| Tings fired. | ||
| 1971 | Mother very ill; to hospital in Chengdu. | |
| Lin Biao dies. | ||
| Mother rehabilitated. | ||
| I return to Chengdu, become steelworker and electrician. | ||
| 1972 | Nixon visit. | |
| Father released. | ||
| 1973 | Deng Xiaoping reappears. | |
| I enter Sichuan University. | ||
| 1975 | Father dies. I meet my first foreigners. | |
| 1976 | Zhou Enlai dies; Deng ousted. | |
| Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. | ||
| Mao dies; Gang of Four arrested. | ||
| 1977 | I become assistant lecturer; sent to village. | |
| Deng back to power. | ||
| 1978 | I win scholarship to Britain. |
