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WILD SWANS by JUNG CHAN Flamingo 1993 0007176155

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WILD SWANS by JUNG CHAN Flamingo 1993 0007176155 www.harpercollins.com.au WILD SWANS by JUNG CHAN Flamingo 1993 0007176155 TEACHING NOTES Prepared by Dr Neil Bechervaise THE PLOT Focusing on the lives of three women across three generations, the novel charts China’s history from its rule by the feudal warlords to the end of the Cultural revolution in the late 1970s. Forced into marriage to Warlord general Xue, the author’s grandmother, Yu Fang, endures years of concubunage before her release and remarriage to the kindly Manchurian doctor Xia. Dislocated by the rise of the Nationalist Kuomintang under Chiang Kai Shek and its dispute with Mao Tse Tung’s communists, the family moves to Jinzhou. Japanese attacks briefly unite the Nationalists and communists until, at the end of world war 2, the Russians occupy Manchuria and civil war breaks our in China. The daughter, Bao Lin is arrested, meets her future husband Wang Yu and the couple thrive under a strongly revisionary but harsh communist regime. Bao lin’s success maps the development of China to the Cultural revolution as her daughter, Jung Chang [the author] becomes active in the Red Guards. Her father’s arrest and torment leads to a gradual recognition of the weaknesses and cruelty of the regime and an ultimate rejection of communism as Jung comes into contact with non-Chinese and Deng takes power after Mao’s arrest. ISSUES AND THEMES * Family: the importance of family for stability in turbulent times * Faith and political belief: unquestioning loyalty of Mao’s believers * Slogans and propaganda: value of simple messages for controlling an uninformed population * Poverty, promise and power: role of simple promises in claiming power for people who have neither possessions nor power * History and culture: importance of breaking cultural beliefs to establish new and stable forms of popular government * Instability of rule by force: in successive waves against the Japanese, Russians, Koreans and western powers and at a civil level between communists and kuomintang STRUCTURE AND LANGUAGE While the chapter structure marks identifiable events and periods in China’s political history in the twentieth century, the family history across three generations provides a more profound account of the revolutionary social changes and their impact on lives at a personal level. Where history tends to obscure family feelings, photographs capture personal events and provide pictorial evidence of changes the history is making on the people. The inclusion of a family tree, a useful map and a chronology of family events against an historical timeline are essential references at many points in the novel RELATED RESOURCES Contextual Study: Red Scarf Girl by Ji Li Jiang, The Concubine’s Daughter by Denise Chang, Fish of the Seto Inland Sea by Ruri Pilgrim [Haruko’s story in Manchuria], The House by the Dvina [Russian Family]. Film: To Live; Farewell, My Concubine; Raise the Red Lantern; Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker; SBS series on Chinese Cultural Revolution STUDENT ACTIVITIES 1. From Mao’s ‘Long March’ to the travels of Jung Chang’s grandmother, vast distances are covered by many of the characters in the novel. Using available maps and your own research, calculate the distances covered and the methods of transport used. Compare these distances with travel in Australia. Are the distances similar? Use your reading journal to list major reasons for long distance travel within a country and suggest whether the reasons and the modes of transport differ from country to country and over time. 2. The author comments that information about China is not easily available and easily misunderstood in the West (p. 629 ch. 26). In your reading journal, make a list of popular preconceptions that people these days have about China. What sort of news stories do we hear about China? Working in small groups, survey the print and television news for a week, and keep a record of all articles and stories about China. Present your findings to the rest of the group. 3. Jung Chang makes a pledge as a thirteen year old to spread world revolution in order that all may know the benefits of Mao's communism (p.361 end of ch. 4). Working in pairs, create a script in which a young Jung Chang tries to convince a teenager visiting China from Australia of the benefits of communism. Write the Australian teenager's response. 4. When Wang Yu is courting Jung Chang's mother, the author makes the comment that "the communist party was the new patriarch" (p. 170 ch. 6). Working in pairs, make a list of the ways in which this was manifested in the lives of Chinese citizens. 5. Using the resources of the Internet and library, research the central teachings of Communism as they were interpreted by Mao Zedung. How was it meant to benefit the people of China? Present your findings on a poster which contrasts the ideals of Chinese Communism with the realities explored in Wild Swans. 6. Using the resources of the library, find out about Stalin's program of industrialisation in the USSR in the 1930s and the impact of Japanese occupation of Manchuria. Design a chart in which you contrast the methods and results of Chinese industrialisation with those of Stalinist Russia. 7. The film To Live [dir. Zhang Yimou ] explores the life of a family across the cultural revolution. Consider ways in which the film provides a useful window into the events described in Wild Swans without establishing their importance in a historical context. Discuss the importance of the three generational view in establishing how important the reported changes have been in affecting Chinese culture. Is it possible to undo what has been done? Is it desirable? Write an essay using the heading, ‘The past can only be lived forwards’. 8.Ten years after Wild Swans was published, Jung Chang reflects on the ways in which her life has been changed since its publication. It was a best seller; millions of people read about her family, and many things in China have changed since 1991. Write a piece for publication in a major newspaper in which Jung Chang explores how her first book changed her life, and how she feels about the book and its impact now. 9. Jung Chang is entranced by the freedom of the West when she first has access to Western literature (p. 628 ch. 26). Many in the West argue that the Chinese government abuses the human rights of its people. China, however, has long argued that the West, and in particular, America, should deal with its own human rights problems before condemning China. What sorts of human rights violations and abuses have occurred in Australia that the Chinese might condemn? 10. It has been said that History is more powerful when it is explored through the lives of individuals. What other novels and films have brought a period of history into public prominence by their examination of the life of an individual? What are the limitations of 'history through story?" In 2010 it is suggested that all history in schools be taught using novels and films which feature individual stories. Either write the curriculum, showing which films and novels are to be used and why; or write an article for your city's newspaper in which you condemn the suggestion. 11. Reviewer Mary Wesley has said of Wild Swans that "it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this book." To what extent do you agree with her assessment? Write an article for publication in a general interest magazine in which you evaluate what you see as the significance of Jung Chang's story. 12. In her novel Fish of the Seto Inland Sea by Ruri Pilgrim, Haruko is a young Japanese woman in Manchuria at the time when the communist and nationalist forces are fighting for control of China. Her story and her history parallel the stories told in Wild Swans. Use specific examples from Haruko’s experience to discuss how the same events can be interpreted very differently by two people with different interests. Jung Chang was born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China in 1952.She was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen and then worked as a peasant, a ‘barefoot doctor,’ a steelworker and electrician before becoming an English-language student and, later,an assistant lecturer at Sichuan University. She left China for Britain in 1978 and was subsequently awarded a scholarship by York University, where she obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982 – the first person from the People’s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. Jung Chang lives in London and teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. .
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