Daughters of Shandong

De: Eve J. Chung

Narrado por: Yu-Li Alice Shen

A propulsive, extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ harrowing escape to Taiwan as the Communist revolution sweeps through China, by debut author Eve J. Chung, based on her family story

An Instant USA Today Bestseller, a Good Morning America Buzz Pick, and a People Book of the Week!

“Throw open the doors of your heart for the lionhearted girls of Chung’s gripping debut . . . they are heroines for the ages."—People

Daughters are the Ang family’s curse.

In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di, who is just a year younger, learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother—abused by the family for failing to birth a boy—finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on their town, the rest of the prosperous household flees, leaving behind the girls and their mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed.

Without an Ang male to punish, the land-seizing cadres choose Hai, as the eldest child, to stand trial for her family’s crimes. She barely survives their brutality. Realizing the worst is yet to come, the women plan their escape. Starving and penniless but resourceful, they forge travel permits and embark on a thousand-mile journey to confront the family that abandoned them.

From the countryside to the bustling city of Qingdao, and onward to British Hong Kong and eventually Taiwan, they witness the changing tide of a nation and the plight of multitudes caught in the wake of revolution. But with the loss of their home and the life they’ve known also comes new freedom—to take hold of their fate, to shake free of the bonds of their gender, and to claim their own story.

Told in assured, evocative prose, with impeccably drawn characters, Daughters of Shandong is a hopeful, powerful story about the resilience of women in war; the enduring love between mothers, daughters, and sisters; and the sacrifices made to lift up future generations.

©2024 Eve J. Chung (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Unforgettable . . . [a] story in the straightforward first-person style of a narrator who is not much given to cynicism or poetry but who can keep your attention with her wit, a knack for shrewd details and uncommon tenderness."—The New York Times

“Throw open the doors of your heart for the lionhearted girls of Chung’s gripping debut . . . they are heroines for the ages."—People

“Chung chronicles in her stirring debut the trials and tribulations of a family’s abandoned women during the Chinese Revolution . . . Chung portrays the characters’ stark circumstances in lyrical prose. Readers will be moved by this humanizing account of a turbulent period in China’s history.”—Publishers Weekly

Moving story kept me on the edge of my seat

I learned so much about what could also be my own family’s past by listening to Daughters of Shandong. My grandma had a similar backstory and I never got to speak to her about it before she passed away. This book opened my eyes and my heart to what my grandma may have gone through. It explains why she was so tough and never spoke about this extremely scary and difficult time in life—way too traumatizing. The story flows very well and I enjoyed every minute. Thank you for writing and sharing this story!

Awesome Story

The story is a look into a different culture in a different time that will hold you captive! One of the best stories I have heard thus year! Well written and read.

Compelling writing, captivating story

Eve Chung’s Daughters of Shandong is a beautifully written narrative that intricately weaves personal and cultural elements to shed light on the pervasive inequities between men and women in Chinese society. The deeply personal nature of the story offers a nuanced understanding of the female experience within a patriarchal framework, making Daughters of Shandong both a specific cultural tale and a broader human story. This masterful work is as enlightening as it is moving, a testament to the strength of women and a critique of enduring societal inequalities.

Resilience

I appreciate the historical perspective and context of this period in China throughout this novel.

Family as Strength

Despite being a novel, I believe Chung gave us a true picture of the brutality endured and the cultural beliefs still influencing the people today. A beautiful story about a horrendous time.

Learned a lot

Learned a lot that is not taught in the west about 1950 china. The story of migration is always a powerful lesson of times.

Fantastic listen and story

I love learning about history, even if it is difficult, through the storytelling of others. The reader did so well and I was engaged throughout bc of her and the story itself. As for the story, it’s perseverance at its finest, especially for women in this type of cultural setting and its changes over time. So well done!

Powerful Story

An incredible story of mother and daughters and China during the revolution and immersion into Chinese traditions of family and fortune. learned so much about the revolution and impact on citizens of mainland china and Taiwan.

Wow! Such a captivating read

Thank you for writing this book and sharing the story of your family. i was not taught about the Chinese Revolution in school -well not enough to remember it or any of the details that you were able to share. I’m not versed in Chinese culture (although i would love to be) however reading this book had definitely shed light on Chinese history, culture, and beliefs. This book was very well written, Readers, expect for your emotions to be just up and down. The things that these women had to endure is a true testament of faith, love, and family.

CAPTIVATING! A STORY OF LOVE, DETERMINATION AND STRENGTH…

Eve Chung’s book (partially true based on her family’s experience) was beautifully written and is a true testament to the strength and resilience of women.

As an American woman, it was sometimes hard for me to understand the cultural mentality portrayed in this book (yet I know they are true) and cannot imagine living with these deeply ingrained cultural beliefs. Yet, as the mother of a Chinese daughter (adopted at less than a year old and is now 21), I began this book with a little bit of knowledge of the cultural belief system in China and know it to be true.

The laws have changed in China as to how many children a couple are allowed to have, but when my husband and I adopted our beautiful girl, the “one child” law was still in effect. I cannot count the number of times my daughter had asked me as she was growing up, “Why didn’t my biological mother keep me? Did she think something was wrong with me? Why didn’t she love me enough to KEEP me?”

Many, many times I resorted to the answer that “because of old cultural beliefs and the way the government is set up, society in China sees males as being more ‘valuable’ than girls. To us as Americans, it makes no sense to us that a parent could give a female child away in hopes that they would someday be the parents of a male; but in Chinese culture the male is the one who will care for aging parents, guaranteeing they will be well looked after when they can no longer care for themselves.”

On an intellectual level, my daughter understood the explanation, but I know my answers never really satisfied her need to know why her mother “didn’t love her enough to keep her.” I tried to explain to my daughter that I didn’t think it was so much a matter of loving or not loving her enough, it is simply a matter in Chinese culture of practicality.

I have raised my daughter to believe wholeheartedly that she is strong, beautiful and every bit as worthy as every other human — whether American or Chinese. She is both, so I’ve tried so hard to put my daughter’s mind and heart at ease, but I know questions will remain with her for as long as she lives, and as her mother, it deeply hurts my heart.

I am happy to say my daughter has turned into a beautiful, smart, accomplished young woman. She is now a senior in college and is preparing to enter a career field that is primarily filled by males. I want her to go into her career KNOWING her worth and knowing how much she can contribute to the field. I hope she will be an inspiration to other girls; that they too will know their worth and believe in their abilities, whether they enter a formal career or chose to be stay-at-home mothers. I believe both are equally important jobs.

While reading this book, I was in absolute AWE of what the mother was able to do to keep her family together and safe after they had literally been abandoned by their father (because of a truly horrible grandmother who was so entrenched in her beliefs that she could pretend the three girls and their mother never existed). Personally, I thought she was just truly a mean-spirited person and was just plain evil.

What these girls (and their mother) endured in their attempts to escape the Communists, was truly horrifying and yet inspiring. I had to keep myself from gagging at the description of the things they had to eat while they were homeless and wandering. I was equally horrified at the description of a prosperous male cousin, who was regularly forced to eat raw fish brains because the grandmother had been so influenced by the past, she believed the eating of the raw fish brains would make the boy more intelligent and strong. The fact that the boy actually endured this on a regular basis, despite how revolting he thought it was, and actually gagged it down without complaint, boggled my mind.

The abandonment on the part of the father, because of his hateful mother, was deeply disturbing to me. I know it was cultural, but I couldn’t help thinking throughout the book that he was a sad, spineless coward. Any man who would obey the command of his mother to literally abandon his wife and three daughters with literally nothing and to let them think he would be coming back for them…I don’t have enough words to describe how cowardly I thought his behavior was. He AND the grandmother should have been punished.

What really disappointed me was after the mother and father were back together and their sixth child, a boy, how the mother automatically bought in to the old belief that the boy should have the best of everything, including formula, while her previous child, a female of a little over a year should be given only a rice/water bottle instead of milk, justifying it by believing that’s all the little child deserved. After all she and her girls had been through, and as much as they supported each other to be strong, self-sufficient survivors, when the boy comes along, suddenly the two youngest females children barely count. I was actually angry when I read this.

Despite my personal thoughts and feelings, I found this book to be masterfully written and told. The narrator did a fantastic job.

I HIGHLY recommend this book to everyone. I will immediately be reading it for a second time to catch anything I might have missed in the first reading.