The Good Women of China

The Good Women of China consists of anecdotes about the lives of Chinese women. Xinran, the author, was a radio host in China for many years. Many of the stories are quite sad, since the women had to contend with the ruthless Communist government, poverty, and sexism.

In one chapter, letters from a teenager reveal how she coped with sexual abuse from her father. Another chapter describes the immense poverty of a rural village. Xinran records survivor accounts of the devastating 1976 earthquake in Tangshan, including women who lost their children in the quake and are now running an orphanage. A lesbian provides her perspective of a society in which homosexuality is taboo. Women with bourgeois or foreign backgrounds discuss their torment during the Cultural Revolution. The Communist Party arranged marriage for teenagers who originally strong supporters of the Revolution.

Xinran writes well, pulling the reader into her caring depictions of women’s lives. The best way to understand another society is to observe the lives of ordinary people, and Xinran provides such a glimpse. Communist China was brutal for almost everyone, but women probably suffered more than men did.