Human rights lawyer Eve J. Chung draws inspiration from her family’s history to tell the story of Hai, one of the eponymous Daughters of Shandong. Hai is one of four sisters born to the wealthy Ang family. Although the family is privileged, Hai’s life—and the lives of her mother and sisters—is a miserable one of hard work and regular humiliation at the hands of their grandmother. Things get even worse when the Chinese Civil War rips through the country and the Angs abandon Hai, her mother, and her other sisters to keep an eye on the family home until “things blow over.” This novel is difficult to read as the female Angs face violence, hunger, illness, bureaucracy, and relentless sexism.
Hai is the oldest daughter of the Angs and is the kind of child who bears witness to the world around her while she does her chores, studies, and wonders about her future. Her circumscribed life consists of the Ang family. At the head are the repellent Nai Nai, her grandmother, and her grandfather, Yei Yei. Nai Nai and Yei Yei’s will are law. Because Hai’s mother has only had girls, Nai Nai heaps scorn and punishment on Chiang-Yue. It’s almost a relief when the Nationalist Army abandons Shandong and the Communists take over because Nai Nai and the other Angs take everything of value and flee, leaving Chiang-Yue, Hai, and her sisters. Unfortunately, as the only remaining Angs in the area, they are subject to the rough “justice” of the Communists because they’re the only landowners the Communists can get their hands on. Things get increasingly difficult and dangerous after the small family is forced out of the Ang home. They only manage to survive their first encounter with the Communists because of Chiang-Yue’s years of kindness to the family’s tenants.
When life becomes untenable in Shandong Province, Chiang-Yue decides to take her daughters to Qingdao, where the Angs fled. In the first of many disappointments, they find that the Angs followed the Nationalist forces to Taiwan. Chiang-Yue and the girls do their best to keep themselves fed and free while they figure out their next move. Chung says in her afterword that she struggled to find historical documentation from the perspective of Chinese people fleeing the Communists and mainland China in the wake of the civil war; she had to rely on Western accounts for some of what might have happened to the discarded Angs. I found Hai’s descriptions of how she and her younger sister, Li-Di, scammed and scrounged for money and food; the cold, dirty rooms they lived in; and the struggle to get the necessary documents to follow the rest of the Angs so detailed and realistic that I felt like I was trudging along the roads or huddling in their temporary housing with her.
Along with questions about food, housing, and documents, Hai and her family have to wrestle with the more existential question of whether or not they should rejoin the rest of the Angs. On the one hand, there will be safety and sustenance with them. On the other, these are the people who left them to die in mainland China. They know that Nai Nai hates them and Chiang-Yue’s husband—Hai’s father—said nothing when his wife and daughters were deliberately left behind. Hai and her sister Di wonder if their father even wants them, and if it might be better for them to start over on their own in Hong Kong. Life would be more dangerous but they wouldn’t have to deal with Nai Nai’s humiliations.
I was engrossed by Daughters of Shandong, although several parts made me want to shout at people on Hai and Chiang-Yue’s behalf. I loved the rich historical detail of this book and the deep characterization of the main characters. This is an amazing work of historical fiction.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
