Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden Audiobook Libro.fm

Description

Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden is a window into the lives of women in twentiethcentury China a time of traumatic change and unparalleled resilience In this riveting and deeply personal account linguist and East Asian scholar Zhuqing Li confronts the bitter political rivals of mainland China and Taiwan with elegance and unique insight while celebrating her aunts remarkable legacies

Beautifully woven family memories coalesce into a vivid history of two very different Chinas
Kirkus Reviews

Sisters separated by war forge new identities as they are forced to choose between family nation and their own independence

Jun and Hong were scions of a once great southern Chinese family Each others best friend they grew up in the 1930s during the final days of Old China before the tumult of the twentieth century brought political revolution violence and a fractured national identity By a quirk of timing at the end of the Chinese Civil War Jun ended up on an island under Nationalist control and then settled in Taiwan married a Nationalist general and lived among fellow exiles at odds with everything the new Communist regime stood for on the mainland Hong found herself an ocean away on the mainland forced to publicly disavow both her own family background and her sisters decision to abandon the party A doctor by training to overcome the suspicion created by her family circumstances Hong endured two waves of reeducation and internal exile forced to work in some of the most desperately poor remote areas of the country

Ambitious determined and resourceful both women faced morally fraught decisions as they forged careers and families in the midst of political and social upheaval Jun established one of USallied Taiwans most important trading companies Hong became one of the most celebrated doctors in China appearing on national media and honored for her dedication to medicine Niece to both sisters Li tells her aunts story for the first time honoring her familys history with sympathy and grace