Thursday, August 20, 2009

GOOD READ


A friend loaned me the book, "Wild Swans" by Jung Chang. From the moment I read the first word, I could not put the book down. It's the author's perspective and experience of 3 generations of women in her family in China, from the 1900's to present. I am amazed at the hardships, both physical and emotional that her family and others had to endure during the pre-Communist era and after. Some of the situations seemed unbelievable and yet frightening because much of this happened not too long ago. As a result, in her forward, she states that the book has been banned in China. It is gripping to realize how easily mankind can become corrupted, mis-led, and de-sensitized all because of pride, greed, jealousy, envy.....all the things that God warns about in the Bible. And after reading the horrific consequences and results of these behaviors, it goes to show why God encourages people to be the opposite...selfless, humble, loving, patient, etc. 

Here's a quick review of the book by Amazon:

Amazon.com Review
In Wild Swans Jung Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and insistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century. Chang's grandmother was a warlord's concubine. Her gently raised mother struggled with hardships in the early days of Mao's revolution and rose, like her husband, to a prominent position in the Communist Party before being denounced during the Cultural Revolution. Chang herself marched, worked, and breathed for Mao until doubt crept in over the excesses of his policies and purges. Born just a few decades apart, their lives overlap with the end of the warlords' regime and overthrow of the Japanese occupation, violent struggles between the Kuomintang and the Communists to carve up China, and, most poignant for the author, the vicious cycle of purges orchestrated by Chairman Mao that discredited and crushed millions of people, including her parents.


I highly recommend the book. It is heavy reading and yet many lessons can be learned from it.

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