Hyvien kukkien lapset

by Hong Ying, Riina Vuokko (translator)

Kirjailija Hong Ying saa puhelinsoiton sisareltaan ja kuulee äitinsä tekevän kuolemaa. Hän kiiruhtaa pikavauhtia entiseen kotikaupunkiinsa Chongqingiin
jättääkseen äidille hyvästit, mutta saapuu liian myöhään.

Hautajaisvalmistelujen aikana sisarusten välille tulee riitaa, ja he kiistelevät siitä, kuka heistä oli äidille kaikkein tärkein. Heidän äidillään oli elämänsä aikana useita suhteita, joten sisaruksilla on eri isät. Hong Ying haluaa selvittää äitinsä koko tarinan ja alkaa tutkia tämän elämää.

Teos kertoo riipaisevan äiti-tytärtarinan, jossa taustalla kulkee Kiinan historia aina Maon suuresta harppauksesta kulttuurivallankumoukseen ja talousreformiin.Hong Ying myös peilaa äidin tarinan kautta omaa elämäänsä ja ihmissuhteitaan. Vasta perehdyttyään äitinsä elämänvaiheisiin Hong Ying alkaa ymmärtää äitiään ja tämän tekemiä uhrauksia.

Genres: China, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir

464 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2009

About the author

Hong Ying was born in Chongqing in 1962, towards the end of the Great Leap Forward. She began to write at eighteen, leaving home shortly afterwards to spend the next ten years moving around China, exploring her voice as a writer via poems and short stories. After brief periods of study at the Lu Xun Academy in Beijing and Shanghai’s Fudan University, Hong Ying moved to London in 1991 where she as writer. She returned to Beijing in 2000.
Best known in English for the novels K: the Art of Love, Summer of Betrayal, Peacock Cries, and her autobiography Daughter of the River, Hong Ying has been published in twenty- nineteen languages and has appeared on the bestseller lists of numerous countries, she won the Prize of Rome for K: the Art of Love in 2005 and many of her books have been or are now in the process of being turned into television series and films.
Hong Ying has long been interested in the stories of homosexuals living in China, a theme explored here and in her short story collection, A Lipstick Called Red Pepper: Fiction About Gay and Lesbian Love in China 1993-1998. In her work, she likes to focus on human stories, hardship and history. Her responsibility as a writer, she believes, is in part to explore the lives of marginalised groups struggling for visibility – and for compassion – in contemporary China.

Chinese Profile: 虹影

Reviews

[Evelina | AvalinahsBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all - I got this book on Netgalley in enchange to my honest review.

So on with the review. I always enjoy reading memoirs, and I've read quite a few that are about China. What always surprises me though, is the way people in China are portrayed. If this was just one book, I would think - yes, the author must be biased, maybe they're making it up, maybe they're painting it too strong. But two, three books? Two, three books - and I'm scared of China. Not even the regime - I'm scared of the people, of the culture. The author paints a very dark social scene in China - a scene with so many prejudices and dark beliefs that people hold in their hearts.. Where prejudice and opinion is more important than humanity. This isn't the first book I read where it's like this. Maybe it's because they are books written by immigrants, because they left, taking their pain?

I found this book interesting, although extremely dark. I found the actions of almost all people completely impossible to understand - the lies, the righteousness, the mere reasons they do one thing or another, both for small and big things. Cultural gaps? Or do I just live in a completely different world? From the books I've read about China, I have to say books about Nazis scare me less. Because in those books, there are "bad guys" and the insanity is temporary. In memoirs like this, the darkness and insanity is NORMAL. Perhaps even proper? That's what chills you to the bone. Do read this book. It will open your eyes to the world around you. Maybe you will feel like the little world you live in in quite cozy and nice for a change.

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review excepted from the longer version on my blog:

I was hoping to be able to add another book to my “books about China written by Chinese people” list. Unfortunately, this book was a complete dud. I’m a little leery of speaking about the use of language in Good Children of the Flower because I recognize that I read it in translation [but] I find it extremely hard to believe that such a critically-acclaimed author would turn out such underwhelming prose and overwrought narrative structure. I don't know whether to give her the benefit of the doubt and say the translators ruined the novel or to assume the translators did their best with what was a sub-par piece of writing.

I won’t comment on the actual plot of the novel other than to say the pacing was painfully slow. I fought my instinct to put the book in hopes that my efforts would be rewarded. I was sorely disappointed. Frankly, the story could have been told start-to-finish in about 100 pages. I gather from the novel that Hong Ying wanted to pay tribute to her late mother by highlighting both the suffering her mother endured during the political tumult of the 1900s and the sacrifices she made in an attempt to keep her family alive and together. Without the unnecessary detours into Hong Ying’s life, (every now and then it seems like she is bragging about her numerous awards and ruminating upon the place of marriage in her life, though neither subject holds any importance in the grand scheme of the novel) Good Children of the Flower would be a pretty decent illustration of some of the horrors common people faced during the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. I found myself cringing and on the verge of tears when I read what her mother went through. While some would argue that my mild emotional involvement is a testament to good writing, in this case the tears came because I was disgusted that one human being could be so cruel to another human being, not because the writing was particularly good.

I most likely won’t be reading Good Children of the Flower again, and I certainly won’t recommend it to anyone else. Reading it was such a chore and the end result so poor that I’m glad I received the book for free from NetGalley in exchange for a review. I would be quite upset if I’d wasted my money.

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is such a breathless book. Everything is overwrought and dramatic and high-octane. People seem to shout at each other all the time, make accusations, bring up long-buried resentments, react out of proportion – and it all became very tedious. Hong Ying is a successful writer who managed to escape her Chinese upbringing and move to the west but rushes back home when her mother is dying. This death causes her to look back on events in her own and her family’s past, but the memoir is written in a very disjointed way and I found the style very alienating. We get little chance to really connect with anyone and thus there is no emotional engagement. The book needed a good edit as a tighter structure would have made it more accessible. Not recommended – there are better books about growing up in China, and about living in China today.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read some of the reviews before reading this book and after reading it I'm a little surprised by them. I have read several books about China written by Chinese authors. Many have been fiction but based on actual events or at least 'real Chinese culture' so maybe that's why I wasn't the least bit surprised by the events in this book. I will say I had to keep reminding myself that much of the book takes place in the late 90's early 2000's and my brain kept trying to put me in a much earlier time period due to the situations and conditions of living that were being described.
This book is a non-fiction 'memoir' of sorts but frankly reads much like the fictional books I have read about China. I guess I am more interested in China and it's history than the average so maybe that's why I enjoyed it more than the average. I would definitely read other works by this author.
My only criticism of the book was that it jumped around in the story a little too much making it difficult to keep track of where I was in the story and dates and times. As she describes different people and their life experiences she jumps back to the past but then recounts the same events when talking about another person's story and so it's hard to know exactly when or what she's describing sometimes. Other than that, I enjoyed the story. It's a heartbreaking one to be sure and another reminder of the hopelessness in a world without the hope of Jesus and his saving grace. The more I read about Buddhism the more I wonder how anyone can live under the weight of it. Also a good reminder of the fear and despair of living in a communist society.

[BJ McSt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chinese culture and norms have gone through a lot in the last 100 years. My younger son has studied facets of that culture for 15 years or more as a cultural anthropologist living and working in Beijing and I've learned some from him. The family expectations, the spiritual beliefs and practices, the local community networks and relationships, and the overarching political structure all make for very different social ways than what most Westerners are used to. China is an ethnically diverse nation, not at all a monolithic society as we outside tend to think. There are over a dozen distinct languages -- not to mention dialects -- spoken and the individual, familial, and societal views of religion and philosophy and humans' relationship to the planet and the universe are very different from those in the west. Add to that the almost incomprehensible effects at every level, from "the state" to the single person, of famine, rebellions, local gangs, fighting, changing (and ill-defined) politically correct thinking, natural disasters, and so many other events over the last 100 years, and it is a wonder that even more than a million-plus people haven't died.

I read this book not looking so much at the actual story line as at the way everyone interacted, how they remembered events, and how events impacted them at the individual, family, and local community level. Yes, there is a lot that Americans, for example, might have a hard time understanding or sympathizing with, but this is a description of THEIR world, not mine. At times it is hard to read. You might want to -- as I did many times -- smack some of the people on the forehead, tell someone to "get over" themselves, put the entire family in a locked building with a group of family therapists for a month until they sorted things out, or have other reactions.

But this is a narrative of family history, both on the intimate "fly on the wall" level and the much larger "national butting heads with small local groups" level, from a culture and society very different than anything I've ever experienced. At the same time, I read very common themes that I can relate to -- sibling rivalry, parental love, growing up and separating from the core family (a dysfunctional one at that), reconnecting to that imperfect family, recognizing one's own faults and role in the family, hidden family history, and how death forces everyone to re-evaluate things, people, and relationships.

I spent the first half of the book trying to understand the people and places -- look up Chongquin on Google Maps for example. But once I mentally stepped back and just let the words flow through, I understood a little better and wanted to know more. I see some parallels with my American Southern family's exasperating way of dealing with problems ("because that's just the way we DO things, honey, and always have!") and I see fascinating glimpses of a very different culture, history, and way of life. If you can read this book more from a "This is different. What do they do? How do they act? How did they survive?" perspective, I think you will come away with more thoughts and perhaps challenged perspectives than you had at the start.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a gentle story about a woman returning to China for her mother's funeral and the family drama that can surround such an occasion. "Little Six," as she is called, connects with family members and relatives and friends over the course of the 3 days of the funeral and learns more about her mother's past. As the outcast of the family (she is illegitimate), it seems she is the last to know much of that past. While an entertaining read, the pace of the narrative did slow somewhat. There was just enough interest to find out the next step of the story, but barely.
That being said, the main problem with the novel was the choppy narrative structure. There were little teasers dropped along the way which never came to fruition. Several people were only identified by a letter. The identity of her husband is left untold until the end. The story hops between dates and people and just did not seem at all cohesive. Also, much of the story was Little Six's dreams. While informative as to her state of mind, they were too involved to move the narration along. As a result, there does not seem to be a full accounting of the events - too much emphasis on some, no resolution of others.
Overall, a passable read with lots of Chinese customs and superstitions regarding death and funeral rites.

[Maria Beltrami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Usando la morte e il funerale tradizionale cinese della madre come filo conduttore, Hong Ying percorre avanti e indietro la storia recente della Cina, parlando della Rivoluzione Culturale, delle Guardie Rosse, dei vari andirivieni "rivoluzionari" che, nel tentativo di modernizzare la nazione, l'hanno per molti versi e per certi periodi precipitata in una specie di macelleria e di tutti contro tutti. Attraverso questi eventi si snoda la storia della madre, donna per molti versi fuori dagli schemi e che per primi i figli faticano a capire.
La prima parte del libro è piuttosto interessante, la ricostruzione sia degli eventi storici sia del carattere della madre precisa e coinvolgente. A partire però dal momento della cremazione della madre il libro perde forza, incagliandosi nel continuo piangersi addosso della protagonista, che non è altro che l'autrice, e, francamente, a un certo punto non si vede l'ora che arrivi alla fine.
Ringrazio AmazonCrossing e Netgalley per avermi fornito una copia gratuita in cambio di una recensione onesta.

Using the death and the traditional Chinese funeral of the mother as main theme, Hong Ying goes through the recent history of China over and over again, speaking of the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards, the various 'revolutionary' comings and goings that, in an effort to modernize the nation, have in many ways and in some periods plunged it into a kind of butchery and everyone off against each other. Through these events unfolds the story of the mother, a woman in many ways outside the box and wich the children are the first struggling to understand.
The first part of the book is quite interesting, with its reconstruction of historical events and the precise and engaging description of the the mother's character . Since the time of the mother's cremation however, the book loses strength, getting stuck in the continuous cry on the protagonist, who is none other than the author, and, frankly, at some point you can't wait for the end.
Thank AmazonCrossing and Netgalley for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[LifeSparring · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Good Children of the Flower" is at the same time a sequel and a prequel to "Daughter of the River", Hong Ying's autobiography dealing with her Childhood as an illegitimate child in a poor Chongqing family in times of tumult.
It is a sequel, as the book published in 2016, is set around the death of her mother in 2006, dealing with a lot of what the author experienced after her Childhood. At the same time, it is a prequel, as it explores the life of Hong Ying's mother prior to the birth of the author.

Just like in her previous works, Hong Ying offers a very open and vulnerable view on her family and their hardships. That makes the book in parts an uncomfortable read, as there are no black and white heroes or heroines. At points in the story, you want to grab some of the characters and shake them. But this intensity is what makes Hong Ying's writing so compelling.

To fully appreciate "Good Children of the Flower", I recommend reading "Daughter of the River" first, a book that had me in tears when I finished it.

[Chuck Kramer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a bloated story that’s both memoir and novel but quite either. An immense cast of characters makes it very difficult to keep people and their individual stories straight. The book also jumps chronologically, adding another level of opacity to a melodramatic tearjerker. But Ying hooked me along and I kept reading, even as I told myself it was nothing more than contemporary pulp fiction.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir was interesting to me because I have visited Chongqing but it was a bit difficult to follow due to all of the characters and what seemed to me to be a rather disorganized style of writing. It still was a good picture of what growing up poor in China in the 70s was like.

[Wenjing Fan · Rating 4 out of 5]

好像没有像《饥饿的女儿》那么喜欢，读前面的时候觉得有点用写作手法来故意感动我，而我总是会避免进入这种“文字陷阱”。讲到赵的片段实在太恶心，后面也是，我跳过了好多次。不过往下读回到母女故事的时候，还是顺利进入了六姑娘的叙述，对“母亲生前的故事”也有一些猜到，作为女儿的痛也能共情到。我想作为一本怀念母亲的小说，这写得已经足够好了吧。

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly, this book needed a good scrub by an editor before it was published because there's a good story buried somewhere in here. Try this if you are interested in books about 20th century China but beware that it's not a clear narrative. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I'd like to read something else by Hong Ying.

[Johanna]

(2010) En jaksanut alkua pidemmälle, tämä kiinalainen muistelma kuolevasta äidistä oli ankeaa.