| Title | : | Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1473545390 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781473545397 |
| Format Type | : | ebook |
| Number of Pages | : | 381 |
| Publication | : | First published October 29, 2019 |
| Awards | : | HWA Non-fiction Crown Longlist (2020) |
Red Sister, Ching-ling, married the 'Father of China', Sun Yat-sen, and rose to be Mao's vice-chair.
Little Sister, May-ling, became Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right.
Big Sister, Ei-ling, became Chiang's unofficial main adviser - and made herself one of China's richest women.
All three sisters enjoyed tremendous privilege and glory, but also endured constant mortal danger. They showed great courage and experienced passionate love, as well as despair and heartbreak. They remained close emotionally, even when they embraced opposing political camps and Ching-ling dedicated herself to destroying her two sisters' worlds.
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a gripping story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal, which takes us on a sweeping journey from Canton to Hawaii to New York, from exiles' quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meeting rooms in Moscow, and from the compounds of the Communist elite in Beijing to the corridors of power in democratic Taiwan. In a group biography that is by turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China.
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China Reviews
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Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is the biography of the amazing Soong sisters who together made a huge impact on history.
The three sisters became a modern Chinese fairytale. They were much talked about and fanciful gossip about them was often passed around.
“In China there were three sisters. One loved money, one loved power, and one loved her country.”
Charlie Soong being very forward thinking sent each of his daughters to an American boarding school at a young age. He made influential friends who were then introduced to his daughters. The sisters were very intelligent and interested in the politics of their country. They also believed that women should be man’s equal and the three sisters all rose to positions of influence.
Jung Chang divides the book into five parts spanning the years 1866 – 2003. It features the rise of Sun Yat-Sen and the overthrow of the Chinese monarchy to May-Ling’s marriage to Chiang Kai-Shek.
I’m not normally a great fan of non-fiction, especially political tales, however this riveting biography is so well written it at no time becomes weighed down. The three sisters, their lives and loves, make for some fascinating reading. Moving from grand parties in Shanghai to penthouses in New York, from exiles’ quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meetings in Moscow we read about power struggles, godfather style assassinations, secret talks and bribes making this a book that is compulsive reading.
I received an uncorrected proof copy from the publisher -
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China by Jung Chang, was a sweeping and gripping account of the Soong family of Shanghai, not only of these three sisters that played a large part in the shaping of the history of China in the twentieth century, but it also tells about their three brothers, each making history in their own right, as part of the inner circle of the Chiang Kai-shek regime.
This is a magnificent biography of the three Soong sisters, Ei-ling, Ching-ling, and May-ling. Each of the girls were sent, as young children, to be educated in the United States. Ei-Ling, known as "Big Sister," married H.H. Kung, a business man, and ultimately became the wealthiest woman in China. Ching-ling, known as "Red Sister," married the "father of China," Sun Yat-sen, and ultimately rose to be Mao Zedung's Vice-Chair. May-ling, known as "Little Sister," became Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and first lady pre-Communist Nationalist China. This is an extraordinary and riveting account of the life stories of the Soong sisters and their involvement and influence in the sweep of the turbulent history in China during the twentieth century.
"Shanghai was then already of the most spectacular and cosmopolitan cities in the world. Situated near the place where the Yangtze, the longest river in China, flows into the sea, it had been marshland only a few decades previously, before the Manchu government allowed Westerners to develop it. Now solid European-style buildings rubbed shoulders with fragile bamboo houses, paved broad streets meshed with wheelbarrow-trodden mud alleys, and parkland jutted into rice paddies. Outside the Bund, the waterfront, under the still gaze of the skyscrapers, numerous sampans rocked with the waves, offering a stirring sight of the city's vitality." -
This is an ambitious undertaking, pruning the eventful lives of these 3 women to fit into one book. Jung Chang takes this on and covers all the highlights. The book is easily readable. The presentation is neutral to positive. The sisters's loyalty to one another is stressed. In each of the marriages, the Soong sister appears to be the better partner.
It is fitting, given their roles in history, that Ching-ling and May-ling have the most text. Ei-Ling is in the background.
Sun Yat-sen’s status as the Father of Modern China is shown to be dubious. He wasn’t even in China when it overthrew its monarch. He was said to be raising money in Hawaii and elsewhere but what funds he got for this seem to come from his Maui based brother. It was convenient for the Nationalists and later the Communists to use Sun as a symbol. He is shown to be a total cad towards his wife Ching-ling. She may have never found out that her Japanese marriage was a fake, but she figured out that he used her as a decoy and risked her life. The best thing about this marriage was Sun's death and the special treatment his role as a China’s”father” accorded her. Highlights of her life under Mao and her household, her alleged affair and her adopted daughters are page turners.
While first lady of China, and later Taiwan, May-ling gets away (she loves New York) every chance she gets. As a translator and advisor she is important to her husband (he also seems co-dependent, with her, later his son and maybe his previous wife and concubines). She returns if her husband really needs her. She only modestly curbs his most authoritarian tendencies. Most interesting here is the story of Chaing’s son and his hostage days in the Soviet Union. Years ago I read
Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady which, overall, paints a very different picture of "Little Sister".
Ei-ling's husband, said to be one of the richest men in China, served as China’s premiere for two years. Ei-ling has the only children of the 3 sisters: two sons and a daughter, who served the family in various capacities and Louis, a paranoid TX oilman who married an American actress and produced the sole heir to the Kung-Soong wealth, now in his 70's with no children. Ei-ling is the one who brought Chaing Kai-shek (who married May-Ling) into the family's orbit.
While the book is fairly positive on this family you see the Soong's and Kung’s helping themselves to public funds. You see Sun-yat-sen only interested in being president and creating the civil war the ended China’s democracy (that he supposedly founded) to have this status/power. There is some description of Chaing and his 2 million nationalists taking over the 7 million people of Taiwan and how his dictatorship was set up. You see May-ling is only concerned about who will run Taiwan after Chaing’s death because she wanted to keep her large staff (in New York City).
This will not be the last word on the Soong sisters.
There are a lot of pictures and they are of the people and events you would like to see. The complicated story is easily presented for westerners and the index is very good. If you are interested in this topic it is a good place to start; for those who know the story of the Soong’s there is new information and perspective. -
Published by:
Random House UK, Vintage Publishing
Jonathan Cape
Pub Date 17 October 2019. Reviewed 20 October 2019.
The official description:
They were the most famous sisters in China. As the country battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismic transformations, the three Soong sisters from Shanghai were at the centre of power, and each of them left an indelible mark on history. Red Sister, Ching-ling, married the ‘Father of China’, Sun Yat-sen, and rose to be Mao’s vice-chair. Little Sister, May-ling, became Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right. Big Sister, Ei-ling, became Chiang’s unofficial main adviser – and made herself one of China’s richest women. Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a gripping story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal, which takes us on a sweeping journey from Canton to Hawaii to New York, from exiles’ quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meeting rooms in Moscow, and from the compounds of the Communist elite in Beijing to the corridors of power in democratic Taiwan. In a group biography that is by turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China.
My review:
For a biography supposedly focussing on the three most famous women in Chinese history I found it strange that the initial chapters deal with men (Sun Yat-sen and the girls’ father). And this, I think, is the problem with the book. The sisters are viewed through the lens of their role relative to men, rather than in their own right. And so the book has become a history of Chinese politics and the roles the men in the sisters’ lives played, rather than a group biography of these three remarkable women.
The book is meticulously researched and filled with page after page of facts and details. Unfortunately, so many irrelevant details left me emotionally unengaged and frankly uninterested. I kept skimming through pages to get to the bits that actually told me something about the sisters.
Somewhere in these pages there is a good biography, if the book was re-focussed and irrelevant facts, details and chapters were trimmed off. Then what is a book on Chinese history might become what it promised to be: a biography of three most powerful Chinese women and their roles in shaping 20th century China.
My rating: 3 stars
Thanks to #NetGalley for eARC.
#BigSisterLittleSisterRedSister #NetGalley -
Jak poznawać historię, to tylko w taki sposób. Jung Chang ma niesamowity dar opowiadania i z całym szczęściem dla czytelnika nie zachowała go dla siebie. Powieść szkatułkowa i sto procent faktów. Chińska „Gra o tron” rzekłby ktoś i byłbym skłonny go poprzeć w tej śmiałej tezie.
Jung Chang zasłynęła publikując autobiograficzne „Dzikie Łabędzie”. Są one historią przemian ostatniego stulecia w Chinach z punktu widzenia trzech pokoleń kobiet. Książka przez wielu uwielbiana, bo osobista, prawdziwa, a do tego w kraju urodzin autorki zakazana (pisałem o niej wcześniej). Później doszły do tego kolejne dwie monumentalne biografie, a teraz światło dziennie w Polsce ujrzały „Siostry z Szanghaju”. Mnogość publikacji każdorazowo podparta kilkudziesięciostronicową bibliografią wystarczy, aby Jung Chang uznać za specjalistkę od najnowszej historii Chin.
„Były raz w Chinach trzy siostry. Jedna kochała pieniądze, druga władzę, a trzecia swój kraj.”
Ei-ling, Ching-ling i May-ling. Urodzone na przełomie wieków. Córki poczciwego kaznodziei o imieniu Charlie, który bardziej przesiąknął kulturą Stanów Zjednoczonych niż Chin. Tam też kształtował się, wolny od kulturowych ograniczeń, światopogląd trzech sióstr. Rzucone na głęboką wodę (najmłodsza z nich rozpoczęła edukację w wieku 9 lat) szybko osiągnęły samodzielność i określiły swoje ścieżki życiowe – każda inną. Po odebraniu należytego wykształcenia powróciły do kraju. Przez doświadczenie życia na zachodzie, powrót ten okazał się jednak mocno rozczarowujący. Adoratorzy ustawiający się w kolejce i zgodne z tradycją uprzedmiotowienie kobiet. Na nieszczęście Charliego wśród ubiegających się o rękę jednej z córek znalazł się największy rewolucjonista kraju. Gdyby jednak znał siłę samostanowienia i zaradność swoich córek i wiedział jak z fotela pasażera pokierują przemianami w Chinami, może nawet współczułby nieświadomemu mężczyźnie.
„Rewolucja nie zależy od pieniędzy, ona zależy od pasji”.
Nieustanny konflikt wewnętrzny, to najlepsze określenie dla tła opowieści Jung Chang. Przez wiele stuleci w Chinach utrzymywany był kult jednostki, a co najważniejsze dla tej historii – że władzę może wyrwać sobie każdy, kto będzie wystarczająco zdeterminowany i bezwzględny. Tak więc każdy bunt i rewolucja rodziła kolejne lata tyranii, zawsze tym samym kosztem – przeciętnych obywateli, którzy naiwnie ulegali pięknie opakowanym ideom. Ich jedyną nadzieją okazywały się kobiety, które potrafiły używać swojej siły wpływu do sterowania mężczyznami u władzy – i tutaj oto mamy możliwą przyczynę zbanowania tej książki w patriarchalnych Chinach.
więcej na moim blogu:
okonwsieci.pl/siostryzszanghaju -
This is an epic undertaking by an excellent writer and historian. Jung Chang brings the early twentieth century to life as she explores the world of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-Shek. She shows their progress towards revolution, seen through the lives of the family who knew them. Taking the three sisters as the focal point is a clever way of exploring the twists and turns of Chinese society and politics as it moves from a monarchy through to communism.
The author crafts the extraordinary story through writings of many people who knew them at the time. These include letters from lovers, teachers and acquaintances, and reminiscences of fellow-students. It seems well researched, with occasional footnotes to help you place subsidiary events in context.
I wouldn't call it easy reading, although it is interesting. I definitely wouldn't call it gripping unless you are a real fan of political intrigue and China in particular. It's not one I'd place on the level of Wild Swans. But it is definitely worth reading if it piques your interest. -
20th-century Chinese history as viewed through three sisters, who each married major figures and at times played a role themselves in that history. There is a saying dating from the Maoist era that one sister loved money, one loved power, and one loved her country, although Chang at least attempts to add some nuance and perspective. She relies on memoirs and biographical sources for this.
Mostly, I get the impression that this book is mainly notes - some interesting tangents are not discussed at all, and other lines of discussion are ignored, some events are just strung together. I almost get the feeling that Chang might have been able to write a much longer book but never had the time or resources to. -
An absolutely fascinating tale of three sisters at the heart of the events in China last century. A well written, interesting read that mixes historical facts with personal lives.
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this book has indeed educated me on the history of China and introduced me to the historical figures behind the founding of CCP and the Nationalist Party. It was a great reading experience in terms of gaining insights on the political stances of these founding members and especially the Soong sisters.
The writing style helps readers who are not used to reading biographies understand the context of the book easily. It was as if I was reading a historical fiction novel. However, I must say that there were certain parts that felt unnecessarily long. There were some details that could be taken out because they are simply not needed for the readers to understand certain events that were taking place. If those unnecessary details were taken out, it would be a much compact and straight to the point kinda book.
There is another aspect of this book that I didn’t like as much. I was confused with main focus of this book. The title clearly emphasizes on the sisters but we were given a whole lot introduction to the men: Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai Shek. The sisters were merely on the background, supporting their husbands and the highlight is hardly on them until maybe, the last 100 pages or so. I wish the focus is more on the sisters right from the start because that last 100 pages was really interesting on how the sisters were being manipulative, empowering and they did play significant roles in China history.
Note: I received this book from definitelybooks in exchange for an honest review. -
I've already read
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by the same author, and I've read about the Soong sisters in Sterling Seagrave's
The Soong Dynasty so I decided to give this book a try.
Seagrave published the Soong Dynasty in 1985, and while that book is longer and has more material, Jung Chang published this in 2019, with some information that Seagrave did not have access to. So which book is better?
I suppose that's a matter of personal taste. Seagrave offers a more negative take on the Soong family while Chang is in turns neutral or complimentary. Chang also grew up in China during Mao's regime while Seagrave was a foreigner. Chang's book is also shorter and her writing style may appeal more to certain readers than others. So ultimately, I think both books have their good/bad sides.
I get that this is supposed to be a review for Jung Chang's book, but given the content (and context) I feel that a comparison between the two books are necessary. Seagrave also wrote a bio on the infamous Empress Dowager Cixi/Tzu Hsi
Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China which I also read and enjoyed. Chang has also written a bio on her,
Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China but I have not read it so I can not compare these.
If you want a quicker, and more friendly read on the Soong sisters, then check out this book. If you want a thicker, harder read, then go for the Soong Dynasty. Personally I recommend both as a comprehensive reading/history experience on the Soongs.
One thing I can say in definite favor of Chang's book is that it has a nice amount of pictures of the Soong sisters, in comparison to Seagrave's book. This book gets a solid 3.5/5 stars from me. -
Learning about the history of China from the time the monarch was overthrown and who contribute to the success of the ruling was both fascinating and intriguing. Written in a very readable prose, this book captured the lives of the Soong sisters, Big sister, Red sister and Little sister, each of them making served their positions as women who help to shape China as it is.
The author was pretty objective and neutral in conveying the historical narratives of these characters. Its one of the thing i appreciated a lot though we can only see that as how we want to perceive it. Learning about the true history of thesr real people can be hard because we know they went through this.
The pictures provided more information and make the book interesting so we can see these people as they are. Additional informations are always welcomed and knowing there was a movie adaptation of this history made me want to watch it soon. Im fascinated by these sisters -
I am so happy I've learnt about these women.
I cannot believe I've never heard of them before.
this was so gripping and felt so personal -
This book ended out on my list due to a challenge from a friend to read something way out of my comfort zone. I know very little about China or its history, and was invited into this wing of the library because there were three women who were important and relevant as to how China shaped into the nation it has today.
Three daughters of Charlie Soong are introduced and their lives and impacts on society skillfully unfolded for a neophyte reader on this topic. Author Jung Chang does a clear and compelling job at showing how their parents' and their childhood in various places informed life choices, while keeping the threads of family bonds in place no matter how far they traveled. Not that they were non-contentious - they were, but they needed each other if only to keep each other close and know who was doing what through all the societal changes that happened during their lifetimes.
This was a beginner book for me in this part of world history. But it makes me smile to think, I will probably always follow a good story about brave, forthright women, wherever and whenever they pull back the curtain of history and step forward. This particular curtain revealed the three Soong sisters who changed China.
4 stars. A great place to start if you are like me. . . -
Ik ben echt compleet in awe van dit boek en vind het ontzettend jammer dat ik dus eigenlijk tijdens de geschiedenislessen op de middelbare school bijna niks over de vorming van 'modern' China heb gehoord. De rol die de Soong-zussen hierin hebben gespeeld, de politiek, de verandering en gruwelijkheden waaraan het volk was onderworpen. Het is fascinerend én verschrikkelijk tegelijkertijd. De auteur brengt het bovendien heel prettig leesbaar over. Ik ben super benieuwd naar haar boeken 'De keizerin' en 'Mao'.
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Buku ini sengaja saya baca utk yg pertama di tahun 2021 krn saya kuatir bakal lama membaca buku nonfiksi biografi berbahasa Inggris. To my surprise, I couldn't believe I finished read this book today. I'm so happy and excited because this book is great and very good for biography/memoir.
Menceritakan ttg kisah hidup 3 bersaudari dari Soong Dynasty ini. Buku ini menceritakan sepak terjang dan kiprah mereka dlm politik Cina di awal abad 20. Ei-Ling (atau Ai Ling) adalah kakak tertua yg dipanggil Big Sister (Da-Jie) adalah yg paling pintar mencari uang, maka julukannya adalah "ai qian" (cinta uang). Ching-Ling adalah anak kedua yg menikah dgn Sun Yat Sen, bapak pendiri RRC sehingga sebutannya adalah Madame Sun. Dia mengabdikan dirinya membela pihak Komunis yg diyakininya itulah ideologi yg diinginkan oleh suaminya, sehingga julukannya adalah "ai guo" (cinta negara). Sedangkan si bungsu perempuan adalah May-Ling (atau Mei Ling) menikah dgn Generalissimo (Jendral Besar) Chiang Kai-Shek yg memimpin Partai Nasionalis Cina selama 23 tahun di Cina sehingga sebutannya adalah Madame Chiang. Krn kekuasaan suaminya dan keglamoran gaya hidupnya maka May-Ling dijuluki "ai quan" (cinta kekuasaan).
Dari yg saya baca ini hidup mereka sangat tidak mudah dan enak dibayangkan oleh saya yg boleh dibilang lahir pd menjelang akhir abad 20. Ayah mereka punya visi jauh ke depan sehingga dari awal anak-anaknya baik perempuan maupun lelaki disekolahkan dikirim jauh ke Amerika di seberang lautan tanpa pendampingan, supaya mereka hidup mandiri. Sekembalinya mereka ke Cina, 2 diantaranya bekerja pd Dr Sun dan salah satunya jatuh cinta dan memutuskan kawin lari. Hidup dikejar-kejar "musuh" suami mereka di zaman Warlord ini (dlm kasus ini, Ching Ling dan May Ling) membuat mereka keguguran dan tidak bisa memiliki anak. Dan masih banyak lagi pengorbanan mereka dlm membantu suami mereka utk mempersatukan Cina.
Yg bagus dari buku ini adalah author sebisa mungkin obyektif terhadap tokoh-tokoh yg ditulisnya ini. Krn semua tokohnya juga sudah meninggal, author mengumpulkan data dari buku-buku, epistolary (korespondensi) yg dilakukan mereka kpd teman-teman terdekat mereka, sehingga kita diberi cukup banyak ttg pandangan mereka ttg Cina dan ideologi mereka yg bertentangan. Juga motif-motif kenapa mereka tetap mempertahankan pendirian mereka. Secara pribadi, saya paling menyukai Ai Ling yg sangat brilian dlm ide-ide mencari uang dan pandangannya ttg keluarga. Saya juga lebih menyukai May-Ling, walau terkesan "manja" dibandingkan saudarinya yg lain, May-Ling justru yg paling baik hati, paling bisa beradaptasi dan paling beruntung. Saya justru kurang suka dgn Ching-Ling (pdhl ini adalah favorit almarhumah mama saya) krn menurut saya dia terlalu idealis dan romantis sekaligus terlalu subyektif.
Kekurangan buku ini mungkin akan menyebabkan kesulitan bagi awam yg gak mengikuti sejarah Cina di awal abad 20 yg super chaotic, krn sejak kejatuhan Dinasti Qing, Cina otomatis ambruk di segala bidang, politik, ekonomi, sosial yg semuanya sangat parah. Setelah berdirinya RRC, tradisi kuno spt foot binding juga sudah dilarang dan perlahan-lahan banyak praktek poligami yg tadinya umum di Cina menjadi dicemooh. Dan dari buku ini saya jadi lebih tahu motif pribadi masing-masing pemimpin, yg mana yg lebih sayang pd keluarga dan yg mana yg tidak mempedulikan keluarga atau koleganya sendiri, hanya demi reputasi dirinya semata. -
Where do you draw the line between your convictions and the desires of your heart?
Jung Chang’s book was an informative and comprehensive look at the Soong Dynasty, specifically the lives of the Soong sisters. I’d heard my parents talk about them in passing, but I had never really given them much thought. All I knew was that one sister married Sun Yat-sen and another married Chiang Kai-shek. Their unions would influence the history of the world, yet all I could recite was the fairytale-like adage, “One loved money, one loved power, one loved her country.”
The full story, as Chang argues, is much more complicated than that.
The Soong sisters came from a world of privilege—they had every comfort they could want and were the first Chinese women to be educated at American universities. They even spoke English more comfortably than their native tongues. What set them on their paths to destiny was perhaps their father’s love for the country. By quietly funding Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary schemes to democratize China, Charlie Soong inadvertently introduced his daughters to the world of politics.
Ei-ling, the eldest daughter, worked as Sun Yat-sen’s secretary but rebuffed his advances. She went on to marry H.H. Kung, a wealthy businessman who would later become Chiang Kai-shek’s finance minister. Ching-ling, or Red Sister as Chang refers to her, would become the Madame Sun Yat-sen, and later served as vice-chairman to Mao Zedong. Little Sister May-ling would become Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and, arguably, one of the most notable sisters for her contributions to the war efforts against Japan, her publicized mission in the United States, and her crucial role to Chiang Kai-shek as an interpreter during post-WW2 peace talks.
The Soong sisters are not the only highlights, but also their 3 brothers and a powerful political dynasty this family forged. Despite their differing political views, it was clear the sisters loved each other deeply. They protected each other from the political whims of their husbands and showered each other with gifts and letters. With the start of the Nationalist-Communist civil war, however, the sisters were permanently separated. Red Sister died in Communist China alone.
Despite their divergent destinies, the Soong sisters were clearly emboldened by their life of plenty. They were wealthy, educated, and ambitious. They had the confidence to pursue their passions and align (and parrot) their political beliefs to that of their husbands. For better or for worse, they were wealthy girls whose dreams were able to come true. They made their country fit their ideals and appetites (Big Sister and Red Sister, in particular) so much so that I found myself asking—if the Soong sisters had not met men like Sun or Chiang, would they still have been together? If their passions had not materialized into men that echoed their own convictions, would they have remained as they were?
Chang’s book was an engrossing and wonderful introduction to 20th century China. Her painstaking efforts to acquire accounts, records, and interviews are well-paid off as the research comes together to create a cohesive narrative of country, family, and longing. -
As a person who loves China and is fascinated by Chinese history, I was captivated by this book. I had already learned a great deal from Jung Chang's book Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China. I appreciate how Jung Chang has brought to light the lives of important Chinese women.
Before she wrote this book, Jung Chang had wanted to write about Sun Yat-sen, who has been called the Father of (Modern) China. She had done a great deal of research about him before she moved on to write about these women: Ching-ling, his wife; Ei-ling, the wife of tycoon and Nationalist politician H.H. Kung; and May-ling, who married Chiang Kai-shek. The three women were sisters, the daughters of Soong Charlie, who rose from poverty to become a prominent business owner and supporter of a republic for China, and his devout Christian wife. Soong spent much of his money seeing that all of his children were educated in the United States.
There was a strong bond between the sisters, who were alone together getting an education at Wellesley College. But eventually they were divided by politics because Ching-ling sided with the Communists and the other two were involved with the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang).
Sun Yat-sen, who pioneered the idea that China should become a republic, became angry when he was not elected as the republic's first president. He did everything he could to supplant the elected government, even soliciting funds from Germany and Japan, so that he could be the leader. He died without achieving his goal. Ching-ling was devoted to him until she learned that even her life was expendable. Later, as his widow, she became a symbol for the Communists.
Chiang Kai-shek started his political career as an assassin, and went on to also put his own desire to be leader at the forefront of his concerns. He was violent and temperamental. But he and May-ling apparently did love each other. Big sister Ei-ling was his adviser and the brains behind her husband's business.
This saga is well researched and well written. If you have any interest in 20th century China, you should read it. The author, who grew up in the People's Republic of China, has no love for the Communists, but she has no love for the Kuomintang, which also has violent history, either. -
La Cina è un popolo dalla grande tradizione millenaria alle spalle, ricca di fascino e di storia. Jung Chang, come già fatto con altre sue opere, anche in questo libro racconta della Cina, della sua storia e lo fa tramite la voce, la vita di tre donne, di tre sorelle che hanno cambiato questa terra con la loro forza, umanità diventando il simbolo di questa grande potenza mondiale.
"Le signore di Shanghai" sono le tre sorelle Ei-ling, Ching-ling e May-ling, che hanno trasformato la Cina. Un romanzo che ripercorre la storia della Cina: dal 1866 sino al 2003. Una storia che racconta sia dei grandi uomini che hanno caratterizzato il Paese, come Chiang Kai-shek, sino ad arrivare alle tre sorelle che, con determinazione e grande umanità, sono riuscite a raccogliere grandi consensi in ambito politico ed economico.
Tre sorelle molto diverse tra di loro, ma che grazie alla loro perseveranza, coraggio hanno reso ancora più grande il popolo cinese. Una bellissima fiaba cinese moderna, come è descritta nell'introduzione all'opera che spiega la bellezza di questo paese, la sua storia, il suo fascino.
Dall'America dove il padre ha voluto che studiassero, sino ai contatti con la Russia passando per gli esili a Berlino, alle fughe in Giappone sino ad arrivare a Taiwan e poi di nuovo a Shanghai dove si sono affermate e fatte apprezzare al mondo. Tre sorelle diventate il simbolo di emancipazione, lotta e di grande sacrificio, mettendo anche da parte se stesse in nome del popolo e dell'amore per i loro mariti. -
4.5 stars - but only because I just slightly prefer Wild Swans.
Jung Chang is such an excellent writer. She makes such complicated moments in history so easy to understand and after reading this I feel like I’m a FOUNTAIN of knowledge on the politics of twentieth-century China. -
The three sisters’s lives spanned three centuries of Chinese history. Born late in the nineteenth century, the youngest of them died at the age of 105 in 2003. Together, these three extraordinary women helped shape the destiny of the world’s most populous nation from the closing days of the Manchu dynasty to the dawn of China’s ascension into a superpower. In Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister, the acclaimed Chinese-British historian Jung Chang tells their story with compassion and an obsessive attention to historical fact. In the process, she illuminates the story of twentieth-century Chinese history from a new perspective.
Three sisters who were at the forefront of twentieth-century Chinese history
In outline, the basic facts are these:
** The three sisters’s father, Soong Charlie, grew up poor but gained the advantage of a missionary education. Trained as a missionary himself in the United States, he found ways for all six of his children to gain American college degrees. They all became fluent English speakers.
** Soong May-ling (Little Sister) was the youngest of the three girls. (Their three brothers were all younger.) Having lived in the US from age nine to nineteen, she spoke English but was illiterate in Chinese, which she had to learn later in life. She married Chiang Kai-shek, the Soviet-backed soldier who became Generalissimo and later president of the Nationalist forces that dominated China until 1949. He then led the exodus to Taiwan, where he ruled until his death in 1975.
** Soong Ching-ling (Red Sister), married Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who has been credited as the “Father of China” for having played a leading role in the movement to overthrow the Manchu Dynasty. After his death in 1925, she sided against her family with the Communists. During the last three decades of her life she held an honored role in Red China as Vice-Chairman under Mao Ze-dong and Deng Tsiao-peng.
** Soong Ei-ling (Big Sister), the eldest of the children, was “the first Chinese woman to be educated in the United States.” She married an American-educated Christian banker named H. H. Kung. She guided him to an enormous fortune, much of it gained during the war with Japan when Kung served as finance minister and sometime prime minister in the Nationalist government. In fact, it was Ei-ling who was her brother-in-law Chiang Kai-shek’s most influential advisor, even though much of her advice had to be funneled through her husband or a younger brother who also served in Chiang’s cabinet.
** Ei-ling supported others in the family for many years through the fortune she and Kung had amassed, largely through commissions and kickbacks on weapons and other supplies from the US. “Eventually, the wealth amassed by the Kungs,” Chang reports, “may have reached, or even surpassed, $100 million” (the equivalent of at least $1.4 billion in 2019 dollars). And the corruption was anything but hidden. As President Harry S Truman famously said of the Soong and Kung families, “They’re all thieves, every damn one of them.” However, you can’t understand twentieth-century Chinese history without knowing about the role of this remarkable family.
Updating an earlier biography of the three Soong sisters
More than thirty years ago, I read an earlier biography of the three sisters: The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, a bestseller published in 1985. That book, which “portrayed the Soong family in a highly unfavourable light,” shaped my views of some of the major figures in twentieth-century Chinese history, including Dowager Empress Cixi, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong, as well as the three Soong sisters themselves. Jung Chang’s treatment, benefiting from several decades of additional documents that have come to light, conveys a somewhat different picture. The Dowager Empress emerges in Jung Chang’s book as a committed and effective reformer, not the greedy and self-indulgent figure portrayed in the Communists’s rewriting of history. Both Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek come across as scheming and amoral, the one incompetent at politics, the other disastrous as a military leader. And the three sisters, in Chang’s telling, are all fallible but believable human beings.
Because of decades of propaganda on all sides, the three sisters came to be regarded as what Chang refers to as “fairy-tale figures.” She cites the “much-quoted description: ‘In China, there were three sisters. One loved money, one loved power, and one loved her country.'” The reference to Big Sister, Little Sister, and Red Sister (in the same order) is, of course, a gross oversimplification. They and their lives were anything but simple.
Refuting the myths spread by propaganda
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister upends a great many myths that have been propagated both by the Chinese government in Beijing and the China Lobby in the US.
Dowager Empress Cixi
The subject of an earlier biography by Jung Chang, the Dowager Empress was in reality a far worthier person than she is generally portrayed as being. “A former imperial concubine, this extraordinary woman had seized power through a palace coup after her husband’s death in 1861, whereupon she had begun to bring the medieval country into the modern age.” After earlier efforts at reform that are generally credited to the men in her court, she doubled down on the effort after the turn of the century. “In the first decade of the twentieth century,” Chang writes, “she introduced a series of fundamental changes. These included a brand-new educational system, a free press, and women’s emancipation, beginning not least with an edict against foot-binding in 1902. The country was to become a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament.”
Sun Yat-sen
Although Sun Yat-sen is typically referred to as the first president of China, in fact he was only acting president, and for a very short time. For more than a decade he struggled with opponents within the Nationalist Party (which he did not found) to gain the presidency. Allied with gangsters, Sun employed hardball tactics, including assassination, to gain power but was never successful. He was a womanizer and treated all three of his wives (Ching-ling was the third) very badly. “A friend once asked him,” Chang writes, “what his favourite pursuits were; he replied without hesitation: ‘revolution’ followed by ‘women’.”
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek is one of the most controversial figures of the twentieth century, particularly in the United States, where he was lionized by the China Lobby advanced by TIME Magazine publisher Henry Luce. Although Chiang did in fact lead the resistance to Japan (1937-45) despite Beijing’s propaganda crediting Mao Ze-dong, senior American military officers assigned as his aides universally regarded him as an utterly incompetent soldier and blamed him for the loss to the Communists. And he was a violent man with a volcanic temper who frequently beat his first wife and concubines (Little Sister was effectively his fourth wife). Like Dr. Sun before him, he partnered with Shanghai’s notorious Green Gang; although Chiang was trained in the Soviet Union and controlled by Stalin for several years, he put the gangsters to work murdering Communists once he broke publicly with the Party in 1928. He was also himself a murderer who assassinated one of Sun Yat-sen’s opponents. (“He shot Tao dead in the bed at point-blank range.”)
Mao Ze-dong
Mao’s impulsive and brutal policies that led to the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese people are well documented and widely acknowledged. What is less well known are the facts surrounding the Long March and the Red Army’s performance in World War II. As Chang reveals, when Mao’s forces were holed up in the southeast, they were highly vulnerable. Chiang’s army might well have annihilated them when they drove them from the region. But Chiang was negotiating with Stalin at the time and dependent on Soviet arms; murdering the Reds might even have triggered a Soviet invasion. Thus, he was content to herd the Red Army into the arid far northwest where he might later bottle up and kill them.
Chang relates a strange story that explains how Chiang managed to lose to Mao even though his armies were battle-tested and much stronger than the guerrillas who made up the Red Army. Chiang’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, had been imprisoned in the USSR on Stalin’s orders to maintain leverage over the Nationalist leader. To secure his release after a dozen years, Chiang agreed to a meeting with Zhou En-lai at which the two men cut a deal “which led to the two parties forming a ‘united front’ as equal partners when the war against Japan started, within months.” The Nationalist cause quickly went downhill after that.
About the author
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is Jung Chang’s fifth biographical treatment of twentieth-century Chinese history. Her earlier subjects included Dowager Empress Cixi, Mao Zedong, Madame Sun Yat-sen, and her own family. Born in China, she lives in London with her husband, Jon Halliday, her coauthor on two of those books. -
Книга больше похожа на конспект лекции по истории Китая, чем на рассказ о жизни сестер Сун. Если в книге "Дикие лебеди" Юн Чжан показывает события в Китае через очень личный, эмоциональный рассказ о жизни своей бабушки и матери, то в этой книге она как будто цитирует учебник, повествование сухое, почти без подробностей. Только изредка проскакивают детали о быте, о семейной жизни сестер. Хотелось бы больше подробностей, которые помогают представить какими были сестры, как и над чем они шутили, что любили читать, как жили во время учебы в колледже. Без таких деталей образы получились не объемными, кажется, что книга рассказывает об одной и той же женщине, которая почему-то то становится женой премьер-министра Тайваня, то безбедно живет в Америке, а иногда даже номинально числится в руководстве Китайской республики при правлении Мао.
Плюс книги - сжатый рассказ о событиях, которые происходили на Дальнем Востоке, о том, как было заложено начало китайского чуда. -
It was refreshing to learn about the history of 20th century China through the lives of women. The sisters involvement in and influence on government figures and policy was extraordinary and compelling (the male leaders of China didn’t exactly come out smelling like a rose that’s for sure!).
The writing was good although at times got lost in the details. I found myself wanting to get back to the story about the sisters instead of the minutiae of the rise to power of this leader and the fall from grace of that leader.
The audiobook sure helped with the Chinese pronunciation. Googling a map of China was also helpful. -
Jung Chang is probably best known for her hugely successful family autobiography Wild Swans, however she has also written two historic books Mao: The Unknown Story and Empress Dowager Cixi. Now she tells the extraordinary story of three sisters who due to marriage and family association found themselves at the centre of the tumultuous events that engulfed 20th century China. We have Red Sister, Ching-ling who married the still revered ‘Father of China’, Sun Yat-sen and due to our allegiance to the Communist cause went on to become Mao’s vice-chair and remain diametrically opposed to her nationalist supporting sisters. There is Little Sister, May-ling, who would marry the nationalist leader of pre-Communist China Chiang Kai-shek and as first lady insert much influence and there is Big Sister, Ei-ling who again exerted much influence over Chiang Kai-shek and controversially through undoubted corruption (ably supported by her husband who himself became President of the Republic of China) became one of China’s richest women.
This is a fascinating, immaculately researched and referenced historical work that tells a gripping story of power, intrigue and shifting alliances together and with how personal relationships effected the political and historic outcome of one of the World's most important and enigmatic countries. We learn how the sisters from colonial influenced Shanghai grew up as Christians and were all educated in the USA and became so "westernised" that at times they struggled to speak their own native language.
Like I suspect a lot of people my understanding and knowledge of pre-Communist 20th century China was until reading this book somewhat limited and I did not for instance know that for a time in the 1920's China was with limitations a functioning democracy, having a free press and a flourishing art scene and therefore it's subsequent history could have been so different. This was in part attributable to the malevolent and destabilising influence that Stalin's Soviet Union exerted. If you want to make sense of modern China and its policies then an understanding of its history is required and a book like this will help you towards this goal. A recommended read. -
"C'erano tre sorelle, una amava il potere, l'altra amava i soldi, la terza amava il suo paese"
questo il detto che in Cina da sempre accompagna il nome delle sorelle Soong, figlie di Soong Charlie, emigrato negli Stati Uniti e là divenuto faticosamente un ricco uomo d'affari e, per un certo periodo anche un missionario metodista, tornò nel suo paese e conservò la fede per tutta la vita trasmettendola ai figli, prime donne cui fu risparmiata la tortura della fasciatura dei piedi e il doloroso stato di concubinaggio imposto alle donne del tempo, le ragazze studiarono tutte negli Stati Uniti e di ritorno a Shanghai divennero famose in primo luogo per i matrimoni che contrassero, ma successivamente per l'abilità politica che misero in campo al servizio del loro paese e della causa che ciascuna abbracciò
Mei Ling sposò Chiang Kai-shek divenendo la prima first lady cinese a parlare fuori del suo paese, arrivò ad affascinare politici di grande levatura per le sue capacità diplomatiche, usando a pretesto il ruolo di inteprete del consorte nelle visite ufficiali
Ai Ling dopo essere stata assistente di Chiang sposò H. H. Kung, ministro delle finanze del governo nazionalista
Ching Ling sposò, contro il parere della famiglia, Sun Yat-sen e successivamente divenne nota come "sorella rossa" vicepresidente di Mao, il quale per tutta la vita la usò per legittimare il suo potere di successore di Sun
la bio di Jung Chang, come quella precedente su Mao, è accurata e storicamente ben documentata, scritta in maniera avvincente, attraversa l'intera storia della Cina del novecento arricchendo gli scenari a beneficio di chi fosse interessato a uno sguardo obliquo sulle motivazioni e le scelte dei protagonisti
molte delle sue fonti sono personali, le lettere che le ragazze mandarono alle loro amiche americane, con cui mantennero i contatti in tutto il corso della loro vita -
An epic group biography detailing the lives of three woman who helped shaped twentieth century China and also their three brothers who also made history.
The story is crafted cleverly through research to bring alive the tale through memories and letters of acquaintances. Not a light read but very rewarding. I dipped in and out of this around my other books and learnt something new every time.
I would like to thank the author, publisher and Netgalley in providing this arc in return for a honest review. -
I was a little disappointed in this book. From the title and subtitle ('Three women at the heart of twentieth-century China) I expected much more personal detail about the sisters themselves. Sure, they were married to or associated with, arguably, the three most important figures in twentieth century China, but, to me, the book marginalized them to concentrate on the history itself. I would have preferred to get to know them a little better, rather than read pages of detail about the men they were associated with.
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If you want to read about the fascinating lives of the Soong sisters, this is a great book. It’s incredibly thorough and complete, and the meticulous research done by the authors is evident on each page.
That being said, the author’s personal opinion on certain topics was evident as well. Though of course there’s nothing against an author expressing their own thoughts on paper, it made for a slightly weird read at times: a book that tries to be distant and factual, but with a clear bias all throughout. -
A fascinating history of three sisters and their incredible influence over the tumultous political landscape of China and Taiwan. From monachy to democratic republic to dictatorship to communism their lives connected and shaped it all.
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Den h��r boken är både som ett historiskt och feminisiskt (?) dokument. Det är också intressant att se hur skeva ens värderingar kan bli.
