Her beauty, and his lust for power, drove the father to sell her to a general in the Emperor’s army as his first concubine. The author’s grandmother, who was born at the end of the Manchu empire, was the daughter of a petty official who wanted his pretty daughter to help him advance in politics. Chung’s story of her life and that of her relatives, told in the first person, reads like a novel, and thus the experiences of three generations of people who move from childhood, to young adulthood, to parenthood, and to death seem real and moving. Though this tremendously active and complex century would seem to be too much for a teen-age reader to grasp, Ms. All of this turbulence forces the family to move, and Wild Swans is set in various places, from northeastern China (Harbin), to Beijing, to the edge of the Himalayas (Xichang). This includes the end of imperial China, the rise of the Kuomintang, the war with Japan, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists, the Cultural Revolution, and the beginnings of a China opening to the West. The book is full of personal experience and story, yet written with exceptional observation of the social and historical events of twentieth-century China. Chang, her great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents. They are the relatives and friends, neighbors and political figures surrounding Ms. Wild Swans is a book with an appealing cast of real characters who bring twentieth-century China to life with drama, romance, adventure, and historical information.
And, while students might be fascinated with its mystery and language, how do they approach the immense amount of history that represents China? How can the teacher, who must cover the world in nine-month semesters, make China relevant to the teenager? Curious yet critical, the average high school student knows little more about China than what he or she has seen in Chinese restaurants or a few square blocks of Chinatown. Jung Chang’s autobiographical history, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, contains enough romance and adventure to interest a high school student, and enough historical and cultural detail to satisfy a history or literature teacher’s pedagogical needs. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY SIMON & SCHUSTER, 1991 NEW YORK: ANCHOR BOOKS PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY, 1992 Re-envisioning Asia: Contestations and Struggles in the Visual Arts.Distinguished Service to the Association for Asian Studies Award.Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies Award.Striving for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Asian Studies: Humanities Grants for Asian Studies Scholars.Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellowship in Southeast Asian Studies.Cultivating the Humanities & Social Sciences Initiative Grants.Key Issues in Asian Studies Book Series.AAS Takes Action to Build Diversity & Equity in Asian Studies.AAS Community Forum Log In and Participate.
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