15 different stories of real Chinese women and the hardships they encountered growing up in China. This is an excellent book, I recommend it!

Caught at the Dunedin Bookcrossers meetup on Saturday night. Great to see you all again, and now I'm looking forward even more to coming back down in February for the convention!

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I can't really say I enjoyed this book - the women's stories were far too disturbing for that - but I am glad I read it. I've read a lot of books about China, but I don't think any have brought home so strongly for me the huge and on-going impact of the Cultural Revolution as this one, and especially the impact on women, which I don't think I've ever seen explicitly addressed.

The Cultural Revolution in itself is scary enough - the kind of mass hysteria, accuse your neighbour before they accuse you, that is all too common in human history, is frightening when you think of small, relatively contained examples like Salem or McCarthyism, but terrifying when a whole country of a billion people is affected - but I'd never appreciated just how much worse it was for women. I suppose I'd always assumed that the Cultural Revolution meant a relative improvement for Chinese women - after all, they were no longer forced to bind their feet, and had nominal equality with men, that they'd never had before. This book opened my eyes to just how mistaken that impression was. And as the author points out, today young Chinese women of the next generation, born long after the Revolution ended, are still being hurt by its after-effects.

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Was recommended as an interesting book to read

I read this book ages ago and it is a very thought provoking read. I then lent the book to a colleague. She was only able to read it by having breaks between the stories as she found it too horrific a read. The book was given back to me yesterday.

While in Christchurch I attended a talk by Xinran on her latest book. Xinran also answered audience questions - a very interesting woman. Lyttelton Witch along with Future Cat also attended and after the talk Lyttelton Witch very kindly gave me THE GOOD WOMEN OF CHINA to take home. Looking forward to reading the book.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Returned to FutureCat for the convention.

Reserved for the 2009 Bookcrossing Convention.

A probable read, depending on reading time in NZ, or luggage space on the way back.

Judging by the existing journal entries, I probably won't be able to read all of this while still in NZ, so it'll depend on luggage space.

I've read the beginning of this. I may look out for it when I get home, as it is a worthwhile read. But it's pretty depressing, so I might not.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Left on the book exchange shelf in the TV room in the Top 10 caravan park in Christchurch.

Left 5 books, took three to register and release elsewhere, plus a wild catch! http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/7042239