Original language:
English Translated from: English
Authors: See, Lisa
Translated by: Banelytė, Antanina
ISBN: 978-5-415-01935-9
Published in: Vilnius
Published on: 2005
Publisher: Vaga
This is a book which will not disappoint those who want to feel the culture of 19 century China, to understand how it is difficult to be a woman there and how a strong and sincere friendship could help get through to fate. “Snow Flower and the Secret fan“ is a novel about a girl Lily who lives in 19th century Hunan province.
In 19th century in all families daughters had their „Sworn sisters“ who were united not by the blood relation but by promise to behave like they would be real sisters. However. Lily was special and woman matchmaker find for her „laotong“ – soulmate (Snow Flower). There was a strong relation between the girls and this tie could be broken only the death of one of them.
There existed Nushu script, which was invented by women for secret writing between each other. Snow Flower send to Lily a silky fan, which verifies a start of friendship and relations, later – telling stories, memorize of important life events in Nushu script. Girls go together through foot binding, dream about marriage, joy of maternity, survive the Taiping Rebellion in the village, when they had to hide themselves in mountains in the middle of winter. At the end of the story they begin to alienate from each other and their friendship faces huge challenges.
The novel consists of chapters, which reflects particular stage of Lily’s life. One of the most interesting, however, most terrible scenes is „Feet binding“. The perfect length of Chinese girl foot cannot outreach 7 centimeters, so from the childhood mothers bind their daughters’ feet up. Those feet were called „Golden lilies“ because of their shape, which reminded a bloom of lily, it could only be seen by a husband. Having feet bound the girl showed her obedience to mother, patience in every situation, being able to go through the pain of birth.
The novel presents a woman role in China in those years. The daughter was just another mouth to feed and a body to dress up until she moves to husband’s home. Girls must follow three rules of humility: “when a girl, obey your father; when a vife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son“. These were words, which mothers said to their offsprings.
Lisa See, the author of novel, was born in Paris, lived and grew in a Chinatown in Los Angeles. In 2001 she was nominated as “The woman of the year“ by the organisation of Chinese women in USA. Lisa See is a writer of six books, four books are already international bestsellers and one of them is “Snow Flower and the Secrat Fan“.