Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
by Lisa See
Finished on 8 July 2007. Filed under Chinese Culture, Friendship, Historical Setting, Memoirs, Women.
IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY CHINA, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu ("women's writing"). Some girls were paired with laotongs, "old sames," in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.
With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become "old sames" at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflected upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.
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After-Thoughts
This was a fictional autobiography of Lily, a girl/woman living in nineteenth-century China, a time characterised by the superiority of men and the trend of foot-binding.
Told in first-person point of view, it mirrors the closed and isolated world of women at the time within the inner realm of their household. I was able to travel through the twists and turns and ups and down that Lily had experienced and her personal thoughts and struggles.
Being in Lily's perspective, I was taken through her entire foot-binding process for example, which made me cringe with the pain I imagined it to be like. It was descriptive and made me feel connected to the characters in the story whom Lily was associated with. I cried during certain parts of the story and my tears were falling continuously throughout the final concluding chapter.
It may have been quite an ordinary life story in an ordinary county in China, but it was a truly touching story that was detailed and realistic. Though set in a corrupted time, place and society, it was a beautiful journey to the past.
