Xinran: The Good Women of China

By MARGIE THOMSON

The thousands of New Zealanders who were moved by Wild Swans will find The Good Women of China more than worthy of a read. But, instead of following one family through the upheavals of 20th-century Chinese history - through feudalism, nationalism, communism, the Cultural Revolution to the Great Leap Forward - Xinran has drawn on the stories she heard from 1989-1996 as a journalist and talkback host for the Nanjing-based, state-run radio station.

Xinran's evening radio programme, Words on the Night Breeze, was bravely designed to "open a window so people could allow their spirits to cry out and breathe after the gunpowder-laden atmosphere of the previous 40 years".

It was ground-breaking and brave, as discussing personal issues in public could still be perceived as an offence by the authorities. Xinran's radio show was monitored and censored but despite the risks, it created and answered a desperate need among the people of China.

Through this little window roared the whispering voices of people who had never before dared to open their mouths. Over the eight years she hosted the show from 1989, Xinran went from being an unknown and relatively naive presenter to a celebrity.

No one living in China escaped the consequences of the political movements of the 20th century. Xinran displays these consequences in the most humane way possible: at the level of individuals and families in what appears as a series of short stories, linked by Xinran's often active and always intense involvement.

She was talkback host-cum-confidante-cum-social worker. She firmly believes in the lightness that can be achieved in a person's life through the speaking of sad experiences.

Poor China. If ever we needed evidence that extreme ideologies narrow and twist people's humanity, it is here in these stories of lovelessness, fear and cruelty.

The first story in the book is one of personal triumph for Xinran, although she would never frame it in such a crass way. It happened just four months after Words on the Night Breeze began broadcasting. She received a letter from a boy who lived in a village 240km from Nanjing, where a crippled, 60-year-old man had bought a young wife, who turned out to be 12 and had been kidnapped for the purpose.

The man was so afraid she would run away that he had tied her around the waist with a thick, iron chain which was rubbing her raw.

The rest of the villagers were unconcerned, and the boy knew that if they found out he had written to Xinran his family would be expelled from the village.

This letter was the first of many to appeal to Xinran for practical help.

She got on the case, bullying the reluctant police to do something about it. ("This sort of thing happens a lot. If everyone reacted like you, we'd be worked to death," one grumbled.)

In the end, Xinran pressured the head of the village agricultural supplies depot who threatened to cut off the villagers' fertiliser if they didn't release the girl. She was returned home to her parents, accompanied by a police officer and someone from Xinran's radio station.

Xinran received no praise, only criticism for "moving the troops about, stirring up the people and wasting the radio station's time and money.

"I was shaken by these complaints. A girl had been in danger and yet going to her rescue was seen as exhausting the people and draining the treasury. Just what was a woman's life worth in China? This question began to haunt me. I found myself wanting to know much more about the intimate lives of Chinese women."

She introduces us to many tragic figures: the girl who was shockingly abused by her father and could find refuge only in ill health, hiding out in the hospital where a fly was the chief recipient of her love and longing; the svelte, sophisticated university student whose bitterness and cynicism was the result of the fractured world she grew up in ("There is no real love," she says); the educated woman who had been abandoned by her ambitious son and who chose to live as a scavenger in a city slum so she could be near him; the woman whose marriage was arranged by the Party; and women in their 20s who know nothing about sex.

One of the book's most shocking aspects is that this is all recent history. The incident with the 12-year-old slave-bride happened in 1989.

We can therefore place ourselves at the time these stories are happening, and marvel at the different life experiences of people living a telephone call away.

This is a repelling, compelling snapshot of modern China, an eye-opening account of our own time, and an insight into the psyche of a ravaged people.

Shackles are not just applied externally; really successful regimes are those which have moulded the minds and behaviour of their subjects through strategies of fear and the undermining of trust, and it can take years for such ways of thinking and behaving to change.

Xinran gave up journalism at the end of 1996, exhausted by the conflict between what she was being told by her audience and what she was allowed to say.

The following year she went to live in England, wanting to know what it felt like to live in a free society. This book became possible. With its great sense of currency, it feels important and deserves to be read.

* Xinran will speak at the Women's Bookshop on Ponsonby Rd, August 22, 5.30pm. Tickets, $5 and $3.

Random House

$34.95