Snow flower and the secret fan summary
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Lily , an year-old Chinese woman, is a widow now, and old enough that she can say things that would once have gotten her in trouble. She says she spent her life longing for love, despite being undeserving of love as a woman. She was an obedient girl and woman, but took obedience too far. Her only rebellion was nu shu , or secret women's writing, and she describes a fan sitting in front of her covered in nu shu notes she exchanged with her laotong bonded female companion , Snow Flower. The story to follow is Lily's autobiography, which will be burned upon her death. Lily is born in Yongming County, China, in
Snow flower and the secret fan summary
Sign In Sign In. New Customer? Create account. Jump to Summaries 2 Synopsis 1 Edit. A story set in nineteenth-century China and focusing on the life-long friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid social norms imposed on women. In 19th-century China, seven year old girls Snow Flower and Lily are matched as laotong - or "old sames" - bound together for eternity. Isolated by their families, they furtively communicate by taking turns writing in a secret language, nu shu, between the folds of a white silk fan. In a parallel story in present day Shanghai, the laotong's descendants, Nina and Sophia, struggle to maintain the intimacy of their own childhood friendship in the face of demanding careers, complicated love lives, and a relentlessly evolving Shanghai. Drawing on the lessons of the past, the two modern women must understand the story of their ancestral connection, hidden from them in the folds of the antique white silk fan, or risk losing one another forever. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, directed by Wayne Wang and takes place in the 19th century, has parallel time periods and there is around four or so time periods. First off there is these two girls, one of wealth and one of poverty, these girls are Snow Flower, who is of wealth, and Lily, who is of poverty. These girls have been born on the same day and in the same year. In present day there is two descendants of these girls and of the same class as their ancestors. Nina and Sophia are these other girls. In both time periods the two sets of girls have become laotongs, or old sames and in this bond between sisters they to learn this secret language of the women or nu shu.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a frame tale, a story within a story, as told by an eighty-year-old Chinese woman, reflecting on her life and preparing for her death. During their childbearing years, Lily enjoys success, giving birth to four boys and one girl.
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Snow flower and the secret fan summary
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Adam Plantinga's brilliant debut novel, The Ascent , introduces readers to former Detroit police The Bathing Women. As with the best historical fiction, it transports the reader to a time and place and feels authentic. I love when a book educates as well as entertains a reader and this novel has a lot of detail on Chinese customs and culture which I really enjoyed. Is it something nature, or us, or others, or some higher power design for us? Sign up for the free PLUS newsletter. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. This is not like "Sex and the Zhejiang Province", or those awesome soap operas out of Shanghai recently where everybody runs around an ancient chinese palace set waving fans and giggling and pouring tea and crying and having babies and being banished and what not. Set in China in the early to mid th century, this book tells of a deep friendship between two women, Lily and Snow Flower. My family
In her introduction to the novel, See writes that Lily, the narrator, was born on June 5, —"the fifth day of the sixth month of the third year of the Daoguang Emperor 's reign".
Derek B. Image: A secret fan, from the BBC article link below. Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. As teenagers, Sophia and Nina were introduced to the idea of laotong, and they signed a traditional laotong contract on the cover of Canto-pop Faye Wong 's album Fu Zao Restless in English. A lot of books like these tend to be very love story-driven, so the fact that Lisa See chose to make it focused on female friendships and female agency made it feel very powerful to me. Drawing on the lessons of the past, the two modern women must understand the story of their ancestral connection, hidden from them in the folds of the antique white silk fan, or risk losing one another forever. Beyond the Book The practice of foot binding began around BC. Find out more. They suffered so much abuse and, from a very young age, they were cultivated for marriage because, after all, all women were good for was for giving birth to sons. Write a Review. Edit page. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Two aspects of the book were interesting: descriptions of the practice of Chinese footbinding, and an exploration of 'nu shu,' the written language Chinese women developed to communicate exclusively with each other. The book had obviously been very well-researched before written down.
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