All the Flowers of Shanghai

All the Flowers in Shanghai by Duncan Jepson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


All the Flowers of Shanghai...Before I give my review of this book, I have to clarify that I've read many books about China, Chinese Women and the Cultural Revolution. Being Chinese my self, surrounded by older Chinese women also gave me invaluable insights into the basic struggles and values of them. The bottom line is that I probably had a higher expectation for the book than most.



The story was told in the voice of Xiao Feng, as a letter to the daughter she never raised, recounting her own and her family's history. I love the beginning of the book, where Feng described her happy childhood in Shanghai during the 1930s, spending the day with her Grandfather around town, visiting public gardens, learning names of flowers in Latin and sampling street delicacies. The author's description of Shanghai, possibly in it's most delightful and successful era of history, where all fancy merchandises from all over the world were purchasable, was accurate and enlightening. I almost didn't want her simple childhood to end. Xiao Feng in this part of the book was naive, simple curious, smart, loving and forgiving. She knew that happiness does not come from beauty or wealth, but within.



I love the last 15% of the book as well, where Feng ended up in a sewing factory during the cultural revolution, being reformed and corrected by working hard and enjoying very little. There was a glimpse into the mind and functions of the Red Army members, who were barely immature teenagers themselves. Feng, in this section, did not talk much about her feelings, yet her actions showed she was loving and forgiving, too. The ending was abrupt, leading lots of questions unanswered.



Now it brings us to the major and middle section of the book, which I found unbearable, and not only because of the boring tone of her monologue and her description of mundane things over and over again. This section begins as Feng was married into one of the richest family in Shanghai, which I could not describe how she ended up without spoilers. Her husband was not good-looking, but loved and treasured her. This part should have had lots of potential for the author to develop conflicts and relationships, whether positive or negative, between Feng and her family...but no. Feng spent all her self dwelling in self-pity, repeating meaningless things around her and describing how she resists performing the marriage ritual with her husband, night in and night out. I had no idea how she transformed from the loving girl in the beginning to this materialistic, hateful, deceitful, angry, loveless and full of revenge character overnight. I did not see the causes or events leading to it. I almost stopped reading a few times to get over the torture. Her resistance of performing wife duties was a bit unrealistic and forceful as well, especially for women of that era.

All in all, there are much better books to understand China, and the mentality of Chinese women with.











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