Destination Chunking An Autobiography

by Han Suyin

Destination Chunking An Autobiography

Genres: China, Nonfiction, Biography, Asia, History

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Han Suyin (Pinyin: Hán Sùyīn) is the pen name of Elizabeth Comber, born Rosalie Elisabeth Kuanghu Chow (Pinyin: Zhōu Guānghú). She was a Chinese-born Eurasian author of several books on modern China, novels set in East Asia, and autobiographical works, as well as a physician. She wrote in English and French. She died in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2012.

Reviews

[arthur]

“Deep beneath the surface wave of war is this unshakable peace of China. This heritage of tranquillity…In me the thread of life, continuous”.

Courage, loyalty, and determination. And a narrator who doesn't want to hear about it. Destination Chungking (Chongqing; pronounced [ʈʂʰuŋ tɕʰjəŋ]) is greatness, written with humility.

Startling real and unvarnished naked pictures of war are the canvas on which the loyal, passionate, and tragic relationship between Han Suyin and Tan Paohuang takes place. Growing up together on the streets of Beijing, they find each other again in England, of all places, and return to their country together to join the resistance in the Second Sino-Japanese War.

The narrator, who was 25 at the time, reports with an honesty that underlines the reality of the war and testifies to her love for her country: Destination Chungking is a homage to the China that lives beneath the ashes of war and the life that pulsates beyond politics in the hearts of those who love it. Between shocking episodes of war, Han Suyin writes interludes that reveal why she and Pao gave up their safe life in England to return to China: She writes of customs and traditions, explains the dynamics of family and friendship, and introduces words and recipes with a matter-of-factness that lets you know that this fictionalized memoir belongs in the hands of those who have no idea.

[Roger Norman]

Han Suyin's A Many Splendoured Thing was popular among readers of romantic epics in the 1950s. No doubt Sinophiles also know this one, a memoir of Japanese-occupied China in 1942. Chiang Kai-Shek is the hero of the piece, a knight in shining armour resisting the invaders. As we know, historians are no longer comfortable with that version (see Sterling Seagrave and Barbara Tuchman, among others). But the account of Han Suyin's love affair with Pao, the dreadful flight across the breadth of China, and lots of interesting detail about the old villages and towns and temples en route (often beautifully written) -make this a rather unique novel. Has it survived? I don't know. My copy is a 40-yr-old Panther paperback advertising This Right Soft Lot by Edward Blishen ('A Blackboard Jungle,London style') and 'Bizarre and Arabesque' by EA Poe, 'supreme exponent of horror').

[Owen Hatherley]

A gripping and typically very florid yarn in which Han follows the trek westwards of the Chinese state from Nanjing to Chongqing - stirring, overwritten, sometimes kitsch, often fascinating. Genuinely puzzling to me that Han, such a big thing in her day, is largely out of print - a mid-century realist political romance novelist! A Chinese-Dutch woman doctor writing epic tales of politics and love! Why Persephone aren't putting all her novels out right now can honestly only be explained by the bad smell left by her enthusiasm for Mao Zedong, and if that's really the reason everyone needs to get over themselves.

(addenda: it seems at least one publisher actually has done something like this at least for one novel, Winter Love)

[Ivan]

[Placeholder for a review/Un peu de patience, le temps que je le digère]

[Maria Dommer Nielsen]

The only reason it doesn't get five stars from me is that Han Suyin and her co-writer Marian had to leave out many details that could be perceived as being damaging to China and the Koumintang, mostly for their own safety, but also because they were very aware that the book could influence the level of sympathy foreign powers had for China. Also, of course, to cater to publishers.

It is written in quite a (well-done and sneaky) propagandistic way, in that many real-life people feature in the novel as completely altered and beautified versions of themselves, and she emphatically describes many beautiful and admirable attributes of the Chinese 'spirit' and culture, which she has later revealed was quite far from her real experience (reference to e.g. her train journey from Hong Kong to Wuhan).

However, I see it as being far from just a piece of propaganda, but rather the story of Han Suyin's life during those years, reimagined to be more romantic. Some things she consciously changed (if you have read her real autobiography, you will know what) and some things are described as she perceived them back then. Some accounts, like those of the coolies, are true and have remained unchanged in her writings. And they are beautiful. She wrote and had it published in the eye of the storm, and that is rare. The years she writes about are mainly 1938-40 and it was published in 1943.

And she never claimed (far as as I know) that it was biographical. It is a novel, but it is based on her own experiences.

Her own character is an enormously inspiring women and all of her side characters are hilariously written and feel very vivid even though they are also caricatured slightly.

Lastly, it cannot be over-emphasised how beautiful I find her style of writing. It is vivid, a sophisticated kind of rawness, bordering on the poetic. And she is hilarious.

I would suggest reading this book first, you will no doubt love it, and afterwards her true autobiography about those years, Birdless Summer. It is truly an experience, especially for a person like me, who has read very little from Chinese authors.

[Don]

A novelised account of the author's experiences during the Sino-Japanese war in the 1930s. There's a love story at the heart of it, with Pao, a playmate from childhood years in Beijing (Peking in this book), encountered as an adult during the turbulent years when China was torn apart by the factional activities of warlords. Pao has by now become a militant of the Kuomintang and has been selected for military training in England. Han decides to serve her country as a nurse midwife and also has opportunities to study for this position in the same country.

They return to China in 1938, arriving in Hong Kong but en route to the provisional capital of Nationalist China - Chungking, located among the mountains of Szechwan. The chapters follow their journey, firstly to Hankow, a part of the region that also included Wuhan. Han dwells on Chinese scenes, including her own marriage to Pao on arriving in the city, and the festivities that follow. But the Japanese air forces are raiding the city and it is clear that it will shortly fall to their army. Pao is attached to the military central staff and moves in the orbit of Chaing Kai-shek, who at this time she clearly idolises along with this wife, Chaing Soong Mei-ling.

The privations of the retreat through China, moving by plane and road journeys through Nanyu and Hengshen are vividly described. Japanese air raids terrorise the stages of the travel and they move with a vast crowd of refugees who are in competition with one another for food and shelter. Han is called on to provide services as a nurse and midwife, operating in squalid conditions. Temples and monasteries provide accommodation on occasion and the serenity and ancient routines of Buddhist worship contrast with the horrors of war.

As well as big the capital of the beleaguered Chinese Republic, Chungking is also Han's ancestral home and the residence of a large branch of her family. She spends pages explaining Chinese family relations, with its pyramids of second uncles and third aunts, and the significance of the honour the dead generations continuing to hold for the living generation. But this is still the backdrop to a ruthless war that has followed her and her husband into the heart of China.

The story hints at political tensions in the republican camp, with groups of young 'intellectuals' declaring themselves in support of the Communist resistance being waged in provinces to the north. Han professes herself indifferent to these disputes, on the grounds that as long as they fought for a free China it was fine with her. Her husband, however, is a KMT loyalist staunch in his support of the Generalissimo. No mention is made of the Xi'an Incident, which had taken place in 1936, just prior to the period covered by this book, when Chaing was seized by his own officers and compelled to cease his military action against the Communists (ostensibly allies since an agreement in 1935) and concentrate on fighting the Japanese. It was in the subsequent civil war between the Nationalist and Communists that her husband died in action. Whatever the extent of her affections, she became a firm supporter of CCP rule and the leadership of Mao Zedong.

[myriam kisfaludi]

très belle littérature. histoire romantique pendant la débâcle chinoise pendant l'invasion japonaise. j'ai connu cette société chinoise très cultivée et policée a Taiwan mais pas en Chine. Malheureusement la Révolution Culturelle est passée par la.

[Jessy]

Han Suyin is very good at poetic description and narration. You start getting a grasp of her life, but unfortunately the story was moving so slow that I decided to stop reading.

[Madeleine Herkes]

Good but I left it on a plane before finishing.

[Paul_pot13]

C’était très lent

[Izzy]

Interesting historical and cultural read about an aspect of WW2 that I really should have been more aware of. As a novel structure it was unfortunately a bit repetitive.

[Kristin Davis]

Last year I made an eBay impulse buy of a large box of books. I have a few regrets about that middle of the night purchase, but this isn't one of them. It's a novel based on the author's harrowing journey and survival during the second sino-japanese war. There are several parts that start to feel like the propaganda is being laid on a bit thick, particularly at the end. But this was written contemporaneously with the events, and the powers that be had to be kept happy. The writing was very engaging. I had a hard time putting it down, and this is not usually the type of thing that I would read.

[Leang]

This book records the author's and her husband's personal account of the long march in the Mao Tse Tung era. It's a very interesting social and political account of China's history.