The Good Women of China: Hidden
Voices by Xinran Xinran
Donna Carrick
When Deng Xiaoping’s efforts to “open up” China took root in the late
1980s, Xinran recognized an invaluable opportunity. As an employee for
the state radio system, she had long wanted to help improve the lives of
Chinese women. But when she was given clearance to host a radio call-in
show, she barely anticipated the enthusiasm it would quickly generate.
Operating within the constraints imposed by government censors, “Words
on the Night Breeze” sparked a tremendous outpouring, and the hours of
tape on her answering machines were soon filled every night. Whether
angry or muted, posing questions or simply relating experiences, these
anonymous women bore witness to decades of civil strife, and of halting
attempts at self-understanding in a painfully restrictive society. In this
collection, by turns heartrending and inspiring, Xinran brings us the stories
that affected her most, and offers a graphically detailed, altogether
unprecedented work of oral history.

Personal Review: The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices by
Xinran Xinran
This must be the book with the worst intimate information which I ever
read. Xinran was a radio moderator in China before she moved to
England, where she could write this book. For a long time the radio was
besides the newspapers the only source of information at the disposal for
the Chinese, and both were government controlled instruments. The book
is about the experiences of the author with the women of China in the
wake of her work as a well known radio moderator. Her radio broadcast
was meant for these women and dealt with their fate.
She compiled the most touching, outstandingly harrowing and distressing
stories. It is shocking and scandalous how the people in China treat with
one another, especially how the women are treated. They have to suffer
outrageous injustice; endless, senseless suffering, in addition a lack of civil
courage, the follies of communism as well as of the tradition, nourished by
the ambivalence of the many different religious directions; moreover the
lack of education and the immorality, which since the rule of communism
spread ever more. All unthinkable spawn of evil are quite naturally and
unchangeably protected and fostered in China, desperation drives the
people into their deaths.
And hit the women always hardest, because they were already the
weakest before the levelling down of the individualists by the communist
party. A people without sun, without reason, where children are raped and
violated, the olds tortured, where the families misfortune is culture, where
oppression of any kind and political terror seem to be the days order,
where foolishness, lovelessness, indifference and carelessness are
practised to the excess. China, a land of no hopes, of no security, a loose
cannon, a ticking bomb this land is, for the children grow up in a soulless
society.
All exaggeration? Read! Very valuable! It is also a tremendous appeal for
more human togetherness, for more charity and brotherly love - even when
the party did not design it. Life in China makes clear how much the people
need a sustainable hope to build up a society worthy for living.
What are the causes for all this? We read in this book that in China men
think of women as almost worthless, they only use them. "Men wish a
virtuous wife and good mother, who does all homework like a servant."
Many men have several lovers. "They despise their lovers, otherwise they
would have married them long ago."
"There is no true love, the couples who outwardly live together fondly, stay
together only for the personal advantage, be it money, power or influence!"
It is also said that: "Women put emphasis on feelings, men on flesh!" And
only the men get what they want!
The poorest are in China women and children. The children are in a
dilemma, because: "they had never got acquainted with a normal lovely
surrounding, in which they could have grown up."
"Since the long gone days of matriarchy the Chinese women, as for their
state and reputation, were on the lowest level. They were classified as
things, as part of possession, distributed like food, tools, weapons. Later

access to the world of men was granted, but their place was at their feet
and in total dependence of the goodness or malice of the man."
But are there not the religions of Konfuzius, Tao te King and Buddha which
could have a healing effect? About the faith of the people the author says:
In first line is the faith in the Party, "outside your house believe in the Party
and be careful in everything what you do". At home there are other
practical solutions: "They do not know which God is mighty and which spirit
could show to be more effective, therefore they believe in all of them as a
precaution."
I believe that there is hardly one woman who really understands what
religion is. The most only understand to imitate the other people in order to
have no disadvantage!"
The little money the poor people have is spent for religious rituals and holy
pictures "but they had not become richer or happier."
The stories span a period from the takeover of the Communists in the end
of the forties until now.
"A situation which is characterizing for the China of today is either to have
a family in which there are no sentiments for one another, or to have
sentiments, but no family!"
The remnants of tradition are not really helpful: for the Chinese it is most
important to save one`s face. "The only thing which is important for the
Chinese is their face, but they do not understand that there is a context
between their faces and their bodies". Or: "When a man beats his wife or
clobbers his children, many Chinese have the opinion that he puts his
house in order."
The cultural revolution tore many wounds into the country. Children rose
up against their parents, because they had not really known them. They
believed the paroles of the revolutionists. Lovers were torn apart for the
sake of the Party. Children were separated from their parents. Girls were
made to members of the Party when high officials savaged them. "Sexual
submission became the touchstone of their loyalty". And "When the girls
developed physically they became victims of molestation and rape". The
author describes several shocking examples, only such which she knows
at first hand: girls like Hongxue who only had some joy with a fly before
she was driven to suicide; like Hua`er , who was raped by the Revolution
and many others who were driven to lunacy or suicide. Culprits were their
teachers, their friends and in many cases even their fathers and brothers.
If their night mares could be audible for us, decades would not be sufficient
to listen to always the same kind of stories!" Many people in China are
dragging their whole life the big, dark shadows of their memories along
with them.
The men spent their time either in prisons or in specialist training. In China
they say: "In every family there is a book which is better not read aloud.
The pages of this book were stick together with tears and can no more be
opened. Future generations and outsiders will only see the hardly visible
title... people who watch the joy of families and friends who are reunited
after many years of separation, will only seldom ask how this family got
along with their longings and their grief during all these years of
separation."

Sometime the author had enough, hearing of all that misery and seeing it
herself by the women of the "Calling mountain": "the Chinese brains is still
missing the cells, which are competent for processing truth and freedom".
The author left the country, because out of the discord between what she
knew as a journalist and what she could report an atmosphere evolved
which made her mental and physical health suffer.
You should have read the book. But you have to be strong. And when you
lay it aside you should stand the temptation to hate the whole humankind.
Instead you should campaign for all people`s availability of access to a
good measure of information sources and that the human rights which are
so natural for us attain acknowledgment everywhere. And as already Paul
of Tarsus said: "You men, love your women!"
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