Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Chengdu was the largest city in Sichuan Province and the provincial capital. Chang’s parents moved the family to Chengdu from Yibin in 1953, and Chang spent most of her childhood and teenage years in the city. During the Cultural Revolution, the city’s Rebels split into two factions, “26 August” and “Red Chengdu.”

A concubine was “a kind of institutionalized mistress” (11). For centuries, powerful Chinese men took girls and young women as sexual servants, offering them “protection” in exchange for complete submission. In 1924, at the age of 15, Chang’s grandmother became a concubine to General Xue Zhi-heng. He was not cruel to her in the ordinary sense, but her feelings and interests counted for nothing, and she belonged to him in much the same way that slaves belong to their masters.

A seismic social upheaval that began in 1966, the Cultural Revolution amounted to a torrent of destruction that swept away much of China’s intellectual and institutional heritage. Having indoctrinated China’s youth, Mao called on them—his “Red Guards”—to rise against anyone in a position of authority whom they suspected of being “class enemies.” This included teachers, professionals, and especially Party officials deemed insufficiently loyal to Mao. Red Guards became “Rebels,” and Rebels split into rival factions. The Cultural Revolution was so loosely organized, and Mao’s instructions were so vague, that even marauding bands of hooligans could claim to be acting under Mao’s authority. Cultural Revolutionaries burned books, toppled statues, and attacked everything “old.” They also destroyed lives through denunciation meetings and outright violence. Some of their victims were Party officials, as Mao intended, but many people fell victim to pettiness and the settling of scores. Mao used the Cultural Revolution to purge the ranks of Party officials and consolidate his power. Chang’s parents spent years in detention camps. The Cultural Revolution’s madness did not begin to wane until late 1971 when persecuted officials were permitted to return home. 

Foot-binding was an ancient Chinese practice by which infant girls had their feet broken and bound to prevent growth. The idea was that bound feet, called “three-inch golden lilies” made a girl more attractive to men, who considered the deformity erotic and thus would be more likely to marry the girl (4). Chang’s grandmother had her feet bound at the age of 2 and suffered excruciating pain for most of her life.

In 1958, Mao ordered the nation to concentrate all its energies on steel production. Meanwhile, farming was shifted to Party-controlled communes. A strange psychological phenomenon ensued. Mao wanted China to catch up to the West and eventually surpass it as a global superpower, so he set unrealistic production goals in both industry and agriculture. Rather than disappoint Mao, factory and commune bosses made false reports of spectacular output and unprecedented yields. Wild exaggerations became practically mandatory. Those who refused to lie about doing the impossible were denounced and, in some cases, subjected to physical violence. In truth, because of Mao’s narrow insistence on steel production, the 1958 harvest was effectively neglected. Tens of millions of Chinese people starved to death.

Jinzhou was the capital city of one of Manchuria’s nine provinces. Dr. Xia moved there in 1936 with Chang’s grandmother and mother. At the time, Japanese forces occupied the city. In 1945, four different armies occupied Jinzhou in four months. Chang’s mother carried out several reconnaissance missions for the Communists in advance of their successful 1948 offensive against Jinzhou.

The Kuomintang were Chinese nationalists who, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, unified much of China in the late 1920s. During the Second World War, the Kuomintang fought the Japanese invaders. After the war, the Kuomintang fought the Communists for control of China. The Communists prevailed in 1949, and the remnants of the Kuomintang army fled to Taiwan. Chang’s mother remembers the Kuomintang in Jinzhou as corrupt and decadent. Some of her relatives joined the Kuomintang and became disillusioned.

In 1966, Mao called on his “Red Guards,” young people indoctrinated into worshiping Mao, to carry out his Cultural Revolution. Millions of Red Guards answered the call. Although the Cultural Revolution threatened everything she loved and championed everything she detested, 14-year-old Chang did not fully understand what was happening, got swept up in the enthusiasm, and became a Red Guard. She even made a pilgrimage to Peking in hopes of seeing Mao. In 1967, the Red Guards began calling themselves Rebels, and the Rebels split into factions, but by then Mao had achieved his purpose.