Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden

Two Sisters Separated by China’s Civil War

By: Zhuqing Li

Narrated by: Nancy Wu

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

Scions of a once-great southern Chinese family that produced the tutor of the last emperor, Jun and Hong were each other’s best friends until, in their twenties, they were separated by chance at the end of the Chinese Civil War. For the next thirty years, while one became a model Communist, the other a model capitalist, they could not even communicate.

On Taiwan, Jun married a Nationalist general, established an important trading company, and ultimately emigrated to the United States. On the Communist mainland, Hong built her medical career under a cloud of suspicion about her family and survived two waves of “re-education” before she was acclaimed for her achievements.

Zhuqing Li recounts her aunts’ experiences with extraordinary sympathy and breathtaking storytelling. A microcosm of women’s lives in a time of traumatic change, this is a fascinating, evenhanded account of the recent history of separation between mainland China and Taiwan.

©2022 Zhuqing Li (P)2022 Spotify Audiobooks

Incredible story

A gripping story of an amazing pair of women that illustrates the pain caused by China's policies and the separation of Taiwan. I could not put it down.

Excellent story

A powerful story that paints a landscape of China and its rich history while sharing the profoundness of personal consequences of its turmoil. I learned so much through the author’s vivid recollection and remarkable depth of research. The narration was a bit distracting for me personally, but I found that reading the actual book was 10x better. An excellent read!

Very engaging story!

I typically like Fictional stories, and every once in a while, I enjoy a biography. But this story was so moving and engaging. It makes you feel for the people who actually suffered through those times. And then, it’s really cool to find out about the descendents of those people.

very informative

this was a real education on what obtains in the closed world. Self discipline and endurance are key to survival.

Wonderful Story of a Family’s Survival Through Political Change…

This was a very gripping, enjoyable story of two sisters, who were very close until they were teenagers when they found themselves physically separated by war and politics.

The story tells about the sister’s idyllic lives before the war and political changes in China. The family was wealthy and well-respected because of their family history of notable scholars back through the centuries and because of their father’s high ranking job.

Then, the political winds changed and the father found his views no longer aligned with the governments. He knew war was coming, and knowing he would likely be targeted because of his beliefs, he chose to move his multi-generational family away from their beloved home to what he believed would be a safer location. He thought it would be a temporary move, and eventually they would all be able to go back to their beloved home and their beautiful gardens.

Things didn’t work out that way however; eventually, they found themselves political targets and slowly, as their family grew, and their resources ran out as impoverished as the rest of the country.

One sister (Jun), was visiting a close friend a few miles from home one day, when fighting broke out and she suddenly found herself unable to get back to her family. Lines between China and what became Taiwan were drawn, and Jun found herself on the opposite boarder from her family (although physically, they could look across a body of water and see each other’s homes).

The story details the lives the two sisters had to go on to make without each other. The sister still in China, Hong, became a very famous doctor, but her life was often overshadowed by her sister’s life. Jun was considered a political enemy as she was in Taiwan; simply being related to her made Hong an automatic suspect of being an enemy of China. She was constantly labeled as an enemy, found guilty of things she knew nothing about and sent to remote camps for “reformation camps to change her thinking.”

Throughout it all, both sisters, in their own countries, managed to make huge successes of themselves despite all the hardships they faced. Both sisters had had happy marriages and had children (before the one-child law in China went into effect in 1979.

Jun in particular, never gave up hope of being reunited with her Chinese family. She worked relentlessly to find a legal way to get back to them, eventually succeeding. The reunion, 30 some years in the making was both happy and sad, and also awkward as Jun found life for her family was not as it had been frozen in her memory 30 years prior. Many family members also blamed HER for much of the political targeting they had endured because of her. Yet, over time, the two families came to know and understand each other.

I very much enjoyed this book (maybe as much because my husband and I adopted a wonderful baby girl from China in 2005). She is everything any parent could ever hope for. I enjoyed learning more about the country of her birth and hearing the names of so many of the cities I was already familiar with.

If there is one thing I did not enjoy so much, it is the (what I felt) the TOO MANY details of the multiple wars and skirmishes and political changes/thinking of China. What I knew before of Mao, I disliked. Now I DEEPLY dislike him and his policies knowing just how deep the suffering of the people in China was because of a single man and his inability (maybe it was his ego and UNWILLINGNESS) to say he was wrong in his thinking and to change things. Millions died of starvation and millions more were humiliated, shamed and often killed because of the laws he invoked and the fear of every person to so much as LOOK as if they had a thought of their own — fanatics followed him like loyal dogs, carrying out acts that are beyond the comprehension of most Americans.

The narrator, Nancy Woo, is excellent. This is not my first book with her narrating. Both her Chinese and English are perfect and her voice is very pleasing to listen to.

This is definitely a credit worthy book. I listened to it twice back-to-back to ensure I understood everything and to make sure I hadn’t missed any important details.

Lots of History & Personal Impact

Fascinating parallel narratives as each of the sisters, separated for decades, experience opposing sides of the CCP/Nationalist struggles (and consequent suffering) of the mid-and-late 20th-century as reconstructed and related by their admiring and articulate American descendant.

Excellent read

I feel I gained both insight and detail about modern Chinese history, culture, politics, geography and more in this very entertaining memoir which reads like a novel!

Excellent

What a wonderful story. To think this is a true story is amazing. I loved it.

Fascinating

Not only a poignant presentation of what happened to a family due to the political winds of China beyond their control, but these two women, randomly separated, were really something - most definitely book worthy!

Very good story, but the narrator almost ruined it

The story was very interesting, though there are better books that tell of life during the revolutionary times in China. The aspects that have to do with Taiwan and the split with the mainland that occurred are very relevant to what is happening today - China clearly not ever having given up on including Taiwan in its communist regime (and whether the US will stand by Taiwan, as they promise). However, unfortunately, I found the narrator awful to listen to. The breathiness of her reading, and often sounding like a kindergarten teacher speaking to a class, was quite irritating. Perhaps it is not be easy to find narrators who can get the Chinese pronounced well, and though I don’t know Chinese, it sounded like she did know Chinese, and it would be awful to have someone botch that. But there are a lot of talented people out there, and there needed to be a greater effort made in finding the right narrator. Nancy Wu was annoying to listen to. And, I could have done without the Christian stuff in the book. It was a small part, but when it was there, it was too Christian for my taste.