Danke Li. Echoes of Chongqing: Women in Wartime China. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010. x + 215 pp. $70.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-252-03489-3; $25.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-252-07674-9.
Reviewed by Maria Rohrer (Department of Sinology (University of Tuebingen))
Published on H-HistGeog (July, 2010)
Commissioned by Eva M. Stolberg (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany)
China's Women in Resistance against Japan
Echoes of Chongqing is a collection of twenty annotated oral remembrances of Chinese women from different social, economic, and educational backgrounds about their personal experiences during China's War of Resistance against Japan during World War II. The women all lived in the wartime capital of Chongqing. In her introduction the author states that in the study of China and World War II, oral history and especially the history of women have not yet gained the attention of scholars. Through a focus on master narratives and masculine state actors the experiences of ordinary women have largely been neglected although they can broaden our understanding of the history of the Second Sino-Japanese War. According to the author the purpose of the study is to rewrite the roles played by ordinary people and to give women a public voice. The personal insights into the national experience of death and suffering will enrich traditional historical narratives. The three major objectives of the study are: first, to introduce oral histories and private memories into the study of women and China’s War of Resistance against Japan; second, to show that the history of China’s War of Resistance against Japan is a gendered discourse; and third, to move the study of twentieth-century Chinese history in general and China’s War of Resistance in particular beyond the dichotomy of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) versus Guomindang (GMD).
The interviews were conducted between 1999 and 2007. According to the author the interviewees were asked a set of basic questions as well as some specific questions based on each individual's background. As the questions unfortunately have not been included they have to be deduced from the stories themselves. Generally, the stories give information such as name, date and place of birth, family background, educational training, jobs, marriage(most were arranged), memories of the Japanese bombings and associated traumas, the situation of married women, the birth and loss of children, the financial situation, political activities during the War of Resistance, and the situation at the end of the war. The stories recorded in the book were edited to make them more readable. Although we are dealing with more or less standardized interviews the length of the stories varies from two to more than fifteen pages. The four interviews in part 3 ("The War and Gender’s Political Impact") are unusually long. While the average length of the interviews is about six pages, the length of the interviews in part 3 varies from five to fifteen pages. The longer length is possibly meant to compensate for the dearth of memories contained in this chapter. At any rate it leads to a certain imbalance.
The stories are divided into three sections: 1: "The War and Gender’s Social Roles"; 2: "The War and Gender’s Economic Impact"; and 3: "The War and Gender’s Political Impact." Each section has its own prologue to introduce major issues pertaining to Chinese history and gender studies. In order to forestall criticism the author admits that the stories could be placed in all three sections and that classification is artificial and only for organizational purposes. If this is true and the organizational principal turns out to be arbitrary, why not merely collect them all and present an analysis separately?
The stories reveal that women’s experiences in the war varied according to their social, cultural, educational, and political background. For poor women war only caused a worsening of the material situation. As Xu Chengzhen states, it was difficult for poor women to operate a small business. Due to the lack of protection war made their lives more miserable. Many of the records of poor women demonstrate that because of their daily struggle for survival they had no time and energy left to participate in political activities. Poor women also suffered because they received no help from the government. When the home of Li Shuhua was destroyed during the bombings, the government ignored the situation.
For the refugee woman Liu Qunying, war ruined her dream and her life, when she was forced to have sex with a man and marry him because he helped her during the flight. According to the author’s prologue the records show that the state-controlled economy was only one part of reality. As the concern of the nationalists’ government was to support the state and the war, the needs of the common people were largely neglected. Overlooked by the government, they largely relied on informal economic activities in order to survive. Women who were traditionally responsible for the nutrition of their families were the initiators of those activities. Yet, the contribution of women to China’s survival has not yet gained the attention of scholars. Many of the stories also give reason to rethink the categories of public and private. As some show, women were obliged to work “outside.” During aid-relief they also had to run to shelters outside. Yet, in contrast to European female workers during the Second World War, for Chinese women participation in wartime production had no influence on existing gender relations and the sexual division of labor.
The stories of rich women show a greater variety of war experiences than the stories of the underprivileged. As the story of Chen Guojin demonstrates, for rich women war was only an inconvenience disturbing women’s leisure activities. Even during the bombings majiang parties were held in private shelters. For poor women poverty was the greatest threat. The daily struggle for survival caused an equalization of gender roles. The cooperation of women and men who worked hand in hand was a useful strategy to overcome hardship. According to Wang Shufen, the need to survive together with her husband deepened the bond between them. Yet, at the same time their daily efforts excluded them from social, cultural, and political participation. As Wang Shufen states, “there was simply no life for us poor people to live” (p. 93).
For richer women the greatest “menace” was the rigid Confucian family system their families were subjected to. According to Confucian ethics obedience for women was a duty which took away the possibility of free choice. Women had no say in arranged marriages, were prohibited from participating in political activities after marriage, and were not permitted to work after the birth of a child.
A few stories also show that war offered opportunities for meeting men. As gender segregation was interrupted during political and academic activities (p. 52), women could sometimes take advantage of the situation. Yet, love affairs seem to have been very rare. Only Zhu Shuqin had a love affair, which left her heart-broken. In contrast, Luo Fuhui recalls that she did not benefit from the situation and refused to take a boyfriend out of respect for her family.
Unfortunately there are some misspellings, for example, xianjiang instead of xiajiang p. 48), quipao instead of qipao (p. 53), and Ge Muoruo instead of Guo Moruo (p. 53). Another weakness concerns the rather “uncritical” use of the oral histories and autobiographic materials. As the author affirms, “there is no reason to suspect untruthfulness and exaggeration,” but the reader will suddenly get suspicious (p. 28 ). Stressing the credibility of the statements is no guarantee for reliability. First, the interviews were held fifty years later and memory is not a fixed category but a construction dependent on many factors. For example, recent studies about happiness show that memory does not function as a recorder of personal experience or historical facts. There is much evidence that the construction of memory is also influenced by social norms and public discourse. And sometimes there are gaps in one’s memory or even systematic errors because memory is selective. Second, we have to take into account that autobiographical statements--for example by Chinese writers of the same period--have to be read with caution if not suspicion; even the authors themselves are aware of the difficulties underlying the genre. When dealing with such material we have to bear in mind that life histories are only testimonials of memories and nothing more.
Nonetheless the stories of how women struggled and suffered in order to survive and support their families in Chongqing during China's War of Resistance against Japan rewrites historical understanding of the roles played by ordinary people in wartime and highlights the voices of women which, until now, have been largely neglected in scholarship on the war.
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Citation:
Maria Rohrer. Review of Li, Danke, Echoes of Chongqing: Women in Wartime China.
H-HistGeog, H-Net Reviews.
July, 2010.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=30474
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