Tiger Girl (Hu Nu): A Creative Memoir

by Lien Chao

Born in the Year of the Tiger, Hu Nu, unwanted female child, is nearly given away as a one-year-old bride in a Chinese village. She grows up during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, when traditional values are challenged by the politicized young, and nonconformity is repressed with brutal humiliation, examples of which she witnesses daily in her neighbourhood and in her school. Hu Nu joins the Red Guard movement more out of fear than conviction, later to reject it bitterly for its senseless cruelty. Using first-person and third-person narratives, Lien Chao captures thirty-five years of recent Chinese history through the gripping stories of Hu Nü and her generation as they survive both political repression in Mao's China and outdated attitudes to women.

Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Lien Chao has observed Chinese life through her work in the community as well as her interactions with Chinese immigrants in ESL classrooms. She came to Canada in 1984. Her first book, Beyond Silence: Chinese Canadian Literature in English, was published in 1997 and won the Gabrielle Roy Award for Canadian Criticism.