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Wie jede Woche, seit einem Jahr, haben meine Freundin und ich zusammen am Telefon in unserem jetzigen Buch mit dem Titel «Wilde Schwäne» von Jung Chang gelesen. Die Schriftstellerin erzählt darin über das Leben ihrer Grossmutter, Mutter und die von sich selbst. Diese ergreifende autobiographische Familiengeschichte überspannt ungefähr ein Jahrhundert und beginnt in Yixian in der südwestlichen Mandschurei. Da wir auf unserer Chinareise in Chengde/Hebei, das nicht weit entfernt ist, waren, kann ich mir die Umgebung recht gut vorstellen, aber vielleicht die Geschichte nicht!
Die Grossmutter wurde 1909 geboren, also gegen Ende der Qing Dynastie, und bekam einen Namen, was bereits eine Sensation war! Ihre Füsse wurden ab dem 2. Jahr eingebunden, was mit unvorstellbaren Schmerzen verbunden war, weil die Knochen auch ab und zu brachen, aber eine Frau mit normal grossen Füssen wurde von der Gesellschaft ausgeschlossen und übrigens fühlten sich Männer offenbar von kleinen Füssen erotisch angezogen! Als sehr junges Mädchen wurde sie als Konkubine mit einem einflussreichen Kriegsfürsten verheiratet. Fu-fang verbrachte mehrere Jahre ohne ihren Mann in einem prächtigen Haus, musste aber immer Angst haben bespitzelt und eventuell verraten zu werden. Schlussendlich besuchte er sie doch und sie bekam eine Tochter. Leider verstarb ihr Ehemann aber kurz darauf und Fu-fang hatte Angst um ihr Kind und von der Ehefrau eliminiert zu werden, weshalb sie angab das Kind sei gestorben und ist zu ihren Eltern geflüchtet.
Später heiratete sie den sehr angesehenen, freundlichen und sehr fähigen buddhistischen Mandschu Arzt Dr. Xia, der auch arme Leute behandelte und dem es nichts ausmachte, dass Fu-fangs Vater nichts zur Aussteuer beitragen konnte oder wollte. Die Kinder aus erster Ehe waren damit überhaupt nicht einverstanden und der Altersunterschied betrug ca. 20 Jahre, aber sie mussten sich fügen. Am Schluss entschied Dr. Xia jedoch sein ganzes Eigentum unter den Verwandten aufzuteilen, um schliesslich in Frieden leben zu können und in Jinzhou wieder ganz von vorne anzufangen!
Das Kaiserreich Mandschu mit dem von den Japanern eingesetzten Puyi (der letzte Kaiser der Qing Dynastie) hatte 1932 seinen Anfang. Im Buch wird natürlich von der grausamen Behandlung, des Hungers und der Vertreibung der Menschen durch die Japaner gesprochen, die Japanisch als Hauptsprache einsetzten. Ausserdem wurde der Mutter in der Schule beigebracht, dass Mandschuko ihr Heimatland sei und dass es unter den Nachbarländern zwei chinesische Republiken gäbe, die ihnen schlecht Gesinnte von Chiang Kai-shek und die gut gesinnte pro-japanische Marionettenregierung. Sie hat nie gelernt, dass die Mandschurei zu China gehörte. Es wurde ihr kein Konzept gezeigt, in welchem die Mandschurei zu China gehörte. Ihre Mutter verstand schon sehr früh, dass ihr Land nur für die Japaner ein Paradies war und für Mandschuren die Hölle, die erst 1945 zusammenbrach. Die letzten Kämpfe im Bürgerkrieg zwischen den Komunisten und Chiang Kai-shek endeten erst 1949.
Als wir vom Thema abgeleitet wurden und über Japan und unsere Reisen mit dem Zug in dieses Land und im Land zu sprechen begannen, dachte ich ein kleiner Bericht darüber wäre vielleicht noch ganz spannend, weil es damals gar nicht so einfach war sich in Japan, ohne Kenntnisse der Sprache zurechtzufinden, denn Englisch war noch selten anzutreffen! Das heisst auch, dass wir später über die grosse Kulturelle Revolution von 1966-1976 lesen werden!
Wenn jemand die kurze Zusammenfassung meiner Freundin zur Reise lesen möchte, kann man
sie hier herunterladen:
Like every week for the last year, I have my phone session together with my friend when we read in a book. Recently we have tackled “White Swans” by Jung Chang. The writer narrates the touching stories of her grandmother, mother and herself. This autobiographic family narrative spans approximately a century and starts in Yixian, in the southwest of Manchuria. Due to the fact that my husband and me have been in Chengde/Hebei, which is close to Liaoning on our trip to China I can quite imagine the natural surrounding, but maybe not the historical one.
The grandmother of the writer was born in 1909 towards the end of the Qing dynasty and was even given a name, Fu-fang, this was already quite a surprise for just a girl. Her feet were bandaged from the ages of two and the consequence were terrible pains because the bones broke frequently. A young lady with normal feet length couldn’t be sold for marriage, which was a business transaction and didn’t have anything to do with love. Besides it seems, small feet were also a sexual attraction for men! When she was about fifteen years old she was married, as a concubine, to a powerful warlord. She then lived in a gorgeous mansion without her husband but with several employees, by whom she was spied on and had to be careful of what she said and did. After he had finally come to visit her, she became pregnant and a daughter was born. Shortly after that her husband became ill and died. The grandmother had been very afraid that the wife of the warlord would want to get rid of the daughter and herself so that she escaped to her parents.
Later she married the kind and very respected buddhist Manchu doctor Xia, who also treated poor people. He also had quite a fight about this marriage with his children from the first marriage, who had to accept the decision taken by him in the end. He decided even to divide all his propriety among his family in order to live in peace and start once more from scratch in Jinzhou! The difference of age between the couple was more than 20 years, but it was love! By the way, the doctor didn’t mind that the writer’s father couldn’t or wouldn’t contribute any dowry.
The empire of Manchu with the emperor Puyi (the last emperor of the Qing dynasty) appointed by the Japanese began in 1932. In the book the writer, speaks, of course, of the cruel treatments by the Japanese,the hunger or the mass expulsion of the indigenous people from their homes. Japanese was introduced as first language and her mother was taught at school that Manchukuo was her home country and that among their neighbor countries there were two Chinese republics, one the ill disposed by Chiang Kai-shek and the other, the well disposed Japanese puppet government. At school she was not told in any way that Manchuria was part of China!
Her mother understood very quickly that her country was a paradise only for the Japanese, because their schools were dilapidated and sometimes they had to kneel for hours in the snow. This regime collapsed in 1945. The civil war between the communists and Chiang Kai-shek only ended in 1949!
Reading about Japan and the Japanese made us deviate from our book and we started speaking about our trips by train to this country or our journeys in Japan, and I thought it could maybe interesting to tell you something about it/them. At that time it was not so easy to travel in Japan, because English was still a rarity! This means also that we will latergo on reading about the big Cultural Revolution between 1966-1976!
Memories of my friends trip to Japan:
Come ogni settimana nell’ultimo anno, io e la mia amica abbiamo letto insieme al telefono il nostro libro attuale intitolato “I cigni selvatici” di Jung Chang. In esso, la scrittrice racconta la storia di sua nonna, di sua madre e di se stessa. Questa storia familiare autobiografica attraversa circa un secolo e inizia a Yixian, nel sud-ovest della Manciuria.
Dato che siamo stati a Chengde/Hebei, che non è lontano, durante il nostro viaggio in Cina, posso immaginare l’ambientazione abbastanza bene.
La nonna è nata nel 1909, verso la fine della dinastia Qing, e le è stato dato un nome che faceva già sensazione! I suoi piedi erano legati dal 2° anno, il che era associato a dolori inimmaginabili perché anche le ossa si rompevano di tanto in tanto, ma una donna con piedi di dimensioni normali era esclusa dalla società e a quanto pare gli uomini si sentivano eroticamente attratti dai piedi piccoli! Quando era molto giovane, fu data in sposa come concubina a un influente signore della guerra. Fu-fang trascorse diversi anni senza il marito, in una splendida casa, ma dovette sempre temere di essere spiata e forse tradita. Alla fine l’ha visitata e lei ha avuto una figlia. Purtroppo, suo marito morì poco dopo e Fu-fang aveva paura per il suo bambino e di essere eliminata dalla moglie, così disse che il bambino era morto e fuggì dai suoi genitori.
Più tardi sposò il dottor Xia, medico buddista manciù molto rispettato, amichevole e capace, che curava anche i poveri e a cui non importava che il padre di Fu-fang non potesse o non volesse contribuire alla dote. I figli del primo matrimonio non erano affatto d’accordo e la differenza d’età era di circa 20 anni, ma hanno dovuto adeguarsi. Alla fine, però, il dottor Xia decise di dividere tutte le sue proprietà tra i suoi parenti per poter finalmente vivere in pace e ricominciare tutto da capo!
L’impero Manciù, con Puyi (l’ultimo imperatore della dinastia Qing) installato dai giapponesi, ha avuto il suo inizio nel 1932. Il libro parla naturalmente del cattivo trattamento e dell’espulsione del popolo da parte dei giapponesi, che usavano il giapponese come lingua principale. Inoltre, a sua madre fu insegnato a scuola che il Manchukuo era la sua patria e che tra i paesi vicini c’erano due repubbliche cinesi, quella maldisposta di Chiang Kai-shek e il benintenzionato governo fantoccio filo-giapponese. Non le fu insegnato che la Manciuria apparteneva alla Cina. Non le fu mostrato alcun concetto in cui la Manciuria appartenesse alla Cina. Sua madre capì molto presto che il suo paese era un paradiso solo per i giapponesi e un inferno per i manciù, che non crollò fino al 1945.
Quando siamo andati fuori tema e abbiamo iniziato a parlare del Giappone e dei nostri viaggi in treno verso e in quel paese, ho pensato che un resoconto su questo potrebbe essere piuttosto eccitante!
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