Post by NZBC on Dec 25, 2007 17:54:11 GMT 12
The Paths That Led From China
In London and San Francisco, sisters found contrasting ways to show their feminism.
by Charles Matthews
Once there were two sisters. Both were “modern girls” who wanted an independence that their culture wasn’t inclined to grant. One was a writer and artist who met some of the most eminent intellectuals of her day, including members of the Bloomsbury Group. The other was a scientist who dreamed of becoming a pioneering physician. With their very different ways of looking at the world, they told very different stories about their own family.
And it fell to Sasha Su-Ling Welland to sort out those rivalry-laden differences in A Thousand Miles of Dreams: The Journeys of Two Chinese Sisters (Rowman & Littlefield), which examines the lives of Welland’s grandmother and great-aunt. Part scholarly biography, part memoir, the book illuminates the many, many ways that the role of women changed profoundly, not only in China but also in the West, during the century spanned by the sisters’ lives. “The story came to me in a very personal way,” says Welland, ’91. “It was the conundrum of trying to understand my own family that, in essence, led to my re-education in 20th-century history.”
In London and San Francisco, sisters found contrasting ways to show their feminism.
by Charles Matthews
Once there were two sisters. Both were “modern girls” who wanted an independence that their culture wasn’t inclined to grant. One was a writer and artist who met some of the most eminent intellectuals of her day, including members of the Bloomsbury Group. The other was a scientist who dreamed of becoming a pioneering physician. With their very different ways of looking at the world, they told very different stories about their own family.
And it fell to Sasha Su-Ling Welland to sort out those rivalry-laden differences in A Thousand Miles of Dreams: The Journeys of Two Chinese Sisters (Rowman & Littlefield), which examines the lives of Welland’s grandmother and great-aunt. Part scholarly biography, part memoir, the book illuminates the many, many ways that the role of women changed profoundly, not only in China but also in the West, during the century spanned by the sisters’ lives. “The story came to me in a very personal way,” says Welland, ’91. “It was the conundrum of trying to understand my own family that, in essence, led to my re-education in 20th-century history.”