
Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden
Two Sisters Separated by China’s Civil War
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Narrated by:
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Nancy Wu
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By:
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Zhuqing Li
Sisters separated by war forge new identities as they are forced to choose between family, nation, and their own independence.
Scions of a once-great southern Chinese family that produced the tutor of the last emperor, Jun and Hong were each other’s best friends until, in their twenties, they were separated by chance at the end of the Chinese Civil War. For the next thirty years, while one became a model Communist, the other a model capitalist, they could not even communicate.
On Taiwan, Jun married a Nationalist general, established an important trading company, and ultimately emigrated to the United States. On the Communist mainland, Hong built her medical career under a cloud of suspicion about her family and survived two waves of “re-education” before she was acclaimed for her achievements.
Zhuqing Li recounts her aunts’ experiences with extraordinary sympathy and breathtaking storytelling. A microcosm of women’s lives in a time of traumatic change, this is a fascinating, evenhanded account of the recent history of separation between mainland China and Taiwan.
©2022 Zhuqing Li (P)2022 Spotify AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...




















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Incredible story
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Very engaging story!
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very informative
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Excellent story
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The story tells about the sister’s idyllic lives before the war and political changes in China. The family was wealthy and well-respected because of their family history of notable scholars back through the centuries and because of their father’s high ranking job.
Then, the political winds changed and the father found his views no longer aligned with the governments. He knew war was coming, and knowing he would likely be targeted because of his beliefs, he chose to move his multi-generational family away from their beloved home to what he believed would be a safer location. He thought it would be a temporary move, and eventually they would all be able to go back to their beloved home and their beautiful gardens.
Things didn’t work out that way however; eventually, they found themselves political targets and slowly, as their family grew, and their resources ran out as impoverished as the rest of the country.
One sister (Jun), was visiting a close friend a few miles from home one day, when fighting broke out and she suddenly found herself unable to get back to her family. Lines between China and what became Taiwan were drawn, and Jun found herself on the opposite boarder from her family (although physically, they could look across a body of water and see each other’s homes).
The story details the lives the two sisters had to go on to make without each other. The sister still in China, Hong, became a very famous doctor, but her life was often overshadowed by her sister’s life. Jun was considered a political enemy as she was in Taiwan; simply being related to her made Hong an automatic suspect of being an enemy of China. She was constantly labeled as an enemy, found guilty of things she knew nothing about and sent to remote camps for “reformation camps to change her thinking.”
Throughout it all, both sisters, in their own countries, managed to make huge successes of themselves despite all the hardships they faced. Both sisters had had happy marriages and had children (before the one-child law in China went into effect in 1979.
Jun in particular, never gave up hope of being reunited with her Chinese family. She worked relentlessly to find a legal way to get back to them, eventually succeeding. The reunion, 30 some years in the making was both happy and sad, and also awkward as Jun found life for her family was not as it had been frozen in her memory 30 years prior. Many family members also blamed HER for much of the political targeting they had endured because of her. Yet, over time, the two families came to know and understand each other.
I very much enjoyed this book (maybe as much because my husband and I adopted a wonderful baby girl from China in 2005). She is everything any parent could ever hope for. I enjoyed learning more about the country of her birth and hearing the names of so many of the cities I was already familiar with.
If there is one thing I did not enjoy so much, it is the (what I felt) the TOO MANY details of the multiple wars and skirmishes and political changes/thinking of China. What I knew before of Mao, I disliked. Now I DEEPLY dislike him and his policies knowing just how deep the suffering of the people in China was because of a single man and his inability (maybe it was his ego and UNWILLINGNESS) to say he was wrong in his thinking and to change things. Millions died of starvation and millions more were humiliated, shamed and often killed because of the laws he invoked and the fear of every person to so much as LOOK as if they had a thought of their own — fanatics followed him like loyal dogs, carrying out acts that are beyond the comprehension of most Americans.
The narrator, Nancy Woo, is excellent. This is not my first book with her narrating. Both her Chinese and English are perfect and her voice is very pleasing to listen to.
This is definitely a credit worthy book. I listened to it twice back-to-back to ensure I understood everything and to make sure I hadn’t missed any important details.
Wonderful Story of a Family’s Survival Through Political Change…
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Lots of History & Personal Impact
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Excellent read
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Excellent
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Very good story, but the narrator almost ruined it
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Fascinating
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