كما قالت روضة الحاج يوما: وجعي على وجع النساء
هذا ما أحسست به طوال الرواية، الألم على حياة النساء الصعبة في أي مكان وأي عصر، وهذه الرواية تكلمت عن النساء في الصين حينما كانت الأقدام الصغيرة علامة الجمال حيث تربط أقدام الفتيات الصغيرات، شعرت بألم كبير في أقدامي أثناء قراءة طريقة ربط الأقدام، وشعرت بألم على حياة النساء التي تطلبت لغة نسائية سرية حتى يستطعن شكوى همومهن وآلامهن بعيدا عن أعين الرجال الذين لا يفهمون شيئا عن هذه المعاناة، المرأة التي همها أن تنجب ابنًا ليصبح لها قيمة كيف هي تفاصيل حياتها الباقية؟
الرواية تأخذنا لعالم مختلف حيث الشرق الأقصى في الصين العالم المنغلق على نفسه كثيرا ومازال حتى بعد هذا الانفتاح العالمي الكبير وفي زمن ليس بالبعيد جدا حيث كانت هناك معاناة النساء الصامتات ، نساء ليس نحن فقط من لا يعلم عنهن شيئا بل حتى أبنائهن وأزواجهن وآبائهن، نساء عانين في صمت ومتن في صمت.

I LOVED n  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan!n It was sad, yet fulfilling, true and honest, yet fictional. A truly moving story about the hardships of being a woman in nineteenth-century China. Yes, foot binding too. We'll get there. By the way, this is going to be n  a buddy read review,n so get ready to read a lot of questions and answers! If you want to read the interview questions and answers, read them on my blog here, as it is too long to put into a Goodreads review.

In nineteenth century China, a girl from a poor family is paired into a lifelong female friendship match with a girl from a family of a higher social standing. So her life begins, and we learn about it through her own eyes, as she is growing up. n  Not only does Snow Flower and the Secret Fan extensively cover the woman's place and life in pre-modern China, nbut it's also a tale about sisterhood, trust and empathy, as well as just being a good human being, no matter what your circumstances are -- or failing to be one.


Read the full review here.


You might like this book, if you liked these books:


n  n n  n n  n n  n n  n


n  I have quite an assortment of books for this one!n First of all, naturally I'm going to recommend another novel of Lisa See's that tells about the traditions of a different minority of the Chinese people: n  n    The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lanen  n. Meanwhile, if you are more into reading about courtesans, you might enjoy Amy Tan's n  The Valley of Amazementnn  ,n which is also a tale of hardship and involves some foot binding and other traditions, but in a completely different situation for the main character. I will even go as far as saying that n  Snow Flower and the Secret Fann has ties to n  The Handmaid's Talenn  ,n because it's about strong female relationships in a terribly restricting, even violent society for women. n  Brick Lanen is also from a different cultural context, not China - however, it also deals with women's freedom and the woman's place in different cultures. And n  The Secrets of Jin-Shein is fantasy, and might have one or two cliches, but it's also the only (older!) book that I've read that uses nu shu as a part of the plot.


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I loved this book. A look into the "secret" life of women in 19th century China. Lotus feet, secret women's writing (nu shu) and sworn sisters. Beautifully written and should be shared with your best Laotong!

Whelp... that was freaking depressing. I was going to rate it 3 stars because it was so depressing that I can't really say that I "liked" it per se, but the writing was very well done, so I have to give it 4 stars for how well Lisa See wrote it.

This is the story of Lily and her immense guilt in letting down the most important person in her entire life.

It is the story of Chinese women during the foot-binding era and the small ways that they grasp any amount of womanly freedom in a society that allows for practically none. It is the story of a woman's entire value being placed on her male offspring... It is a story of hopelessness and small moments of courage.

I love the NuShu (women's writing) information, and this book really brought to life the feelings of hopelessness of so many people in that era and revolved around the importance of a lot of superstitions that resulted in matches for marriage and lifelong sisterhood.

Lisa See, as always, did an immense amount of research and is telling the story from a place of knowledge on the time period and the culture. But man, is this book a downer. Like I feel, after many Historical Fictions, I need to read something uplifting now....

Favorite quotes:
"Truly, it is like planting a beautiful flower on a pile of cow dung."
“To me, she was still as ugly as a pig’s genitals, but she had not fallen ill and I knew she would care for my children as if they were her own.”

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a fictional account of the intense friendship between two young girls in 1800s rural China. It’s not at all my usual kind of book, but I do try to read other genres occasionally and it’s been sitting on my Book Club pile for some time so gave it a go, and was surprised to see how many friends have read it and generally how many reviews & ratings it has, given I’d never heard of it before. It turns out there was even a 2011 movie of it - watching the trailer helped me visualise the buildings and costumes but didn’t tempt me to see it. I liked the book rather than loved it - it’s a fascinating insight into the way females were treated that made me profoundly grateful for the freedom to enjoy my average sized feet, but the characters were largely unsympathetic and I didn’t find it as moving as I expected.

Lily is the second daughter of a poor farmer in a small Chinese village. The best future she can hope for is to be married out to become the lowest status member of a family in another village, but when her small feet and fortuitous birthday are found to be a match for Snow Flower, the daughter of a wealthy family, they are contracted to become Lao tong, meaning “old same” - a traditional bond intended to be lifelong. The girls meet at age seven, and immediately become close, writing letters in nu shu, the secret writing of women, enduring the horrors of foot-binding and the anxiety of arranged marriages, but can friendship survive when family fortunes change?

This is all told from Lily’s point of view as an elderly woman of high status - so we know from the start that things work out for her. The idea that this is because of the brutal torture she endures in childhood to force her feet into the feminine ideal was rather nauseating - the process is described in excruciating detail and the consequences are lifelong and potentially life threatening as we discover later in the book. Lily’s passive acceptance of the ritual abuse as necessary and inevitable is hard to read about but almost certainly realistic for the time. The afterword explains that the practice continued well into the 20th century in parts of China, which seems unbelievable until I remember that girls still under genital mutilation in some countries today.

The plot is slow-paced and I can see why some reviewers found it boring - I liked the writing and the details of Chinese life, food and culture, it’s also not too long, and there is some drama later on to raise the tension. It’s sad in various places but Lily’s flat delivery lessened the impact and her character development was disappointing if probably realistic. I’ve seen comparisons with Memoir of a Geisha, but I remember that being a much better story. 3.5 rounded up for the writing.

This book made me feel claustrophobic. The idea that not only were you not supposed to leave one area of your house, but actually could not go more than a few steps because of your bound feet, is horrifying to me. I genuinely think I would have had a nervous breakdown. I had a panic attack when I got my braces on, because the fact that there was something pulling at my teeth, poking at my lips, about drove me over the edge. So I have nothing but admiration for women who lived like this. Who were wives and mothers, ran households, made beautiful things, cared for children and elderly parents, all while often being crippled by improper or extreme bindings.

This book is interesting in that it is very much a window into the world of women in 19th century China. It was not written with modern or Western themes. Too often we take things that are this alien to us and make the "hero" be the outsider. Someone bucking convention, a women who refuses to have her feet bound, say, or leaves or husband and strikes out alone. That doesn't happen here. That isn't something that COULD happen here, unless she wanted it to be a fantasy. So we see Lily and Snow Flower through all the stages of their life as it might have actually played out, had they been real. Did I feel sympathy for them? Yes. Were they sympathetic? Ye-no . . . ? Part of me wanted them to not do many of the things they did. I understood that it wasn't possible, but I still wanted it to be different. Because the reality is very, very sad. And angering. People made mistakes. Sometimes they were able to fix them, sometimes they were not. People were awful or kind. Because they are real people represented here, and not fairy tale characters.

Such a sad story.
Snow Flower and Lily are laotong. They are "old sames". Joined forever in a bond of sisterhood that runs deeper than blood since the time of their foot binding (7 years old). But life's hardships has no mercy for these two young women. and as women in China their life holds no value. Can their laotong bond withstand the tragedies that life throws at them?
This book was a glimpse into the lives of women in China before the 19th century. It was very interesting in many respects. The book had obviously been very well-researched before written down.
I have to say the one chapter that I absolutely did not like was the chapter where they explain in great detail the horror of the process of foot binding for young women in China. This chapter was so detailed and written in such a way that it became so real that it made me physically ill. Like I seriously wanted to throw up!
With all of the sorrow and pain that these two women endure there is lots in this book about the happiness and joy that life brings them as well. These were my favorite chapters. I especially loved the chapter that ended right before their first children were to be born. This was probably the peak of happiness in this book and was very well written.
It is more than sad what women had to endure in this time. To grow up believing that you are worthless unless you bear a son which you have no control over. And even then to be categorized as lower than a dog in the household... just disgusting. But it is a harsh reality that we all have to face in the fact that that is the way it was. We cannot erase history but rather we can learn from it as we move forward.
I have said it before and I will say it again, this book is very well written. The storyline as well thought-out, well-researched and very easy to follow. The characters are more than identifiable even with their (now) alien way of living to someone who lives in the western world. And as a woman reading this book I found myself wanting deep down to have a laotong of my very own

I ended up enjoying this book because it was so beautifully written and it took me deep into a world so unlike my own; thank goodness for that! This story takes place in China’s Hunan Province in the 1800s and is more about the inner lives of the women than the men.

I had a complete misconception of what foot binding entailed. It’s completely different, and so much more brutal a practice than I ever could have imagined. There were also many examples given of what I consider other horrendous customs and beliefs. I’ve always believed that tradition and culture that harms is not worth preserving and reading about these people’s lives was a painful experience. The story is fiction but well researched so I’m assuming there was much truth about how women led their lives in that time and place.

I was able to feel some empathy for the storywriter, because I could understand her longing to be loved and the difficulties she had in her upbringing that formed her personality, even though I sometimes had a hard time liking her and many of the characters. I was also irritated by so much of the book. I loathe stories where there’s a horrible miscommunication or misunderstanding that seems so unnecessary, and there’s an example of that here. Also, throughout the book, the narrator is writing the story of her life for another/others in her culture to read, yet the whole time I felt she was educating us in our time & places. So frequently the line “as you know” or “as everyone knows” is used to start a sentence, and I just kept thinking that if everyone knows it the narrator wouldn’t need to say it in that way. The narrator also most of the way through the book alludes to something she’s going to tell the reader and it got to the point where, instead of following along with the story, I just wanted to see what she was going to reveal.

I think that it’s worth it to read the paperback copy because of Lisa See’s notes at the end about the writing of this book,. Perhaps they were there in the hardcover version as well, but often additions such as this aren’t there at publication of the hardcover edition. Also, the paperback has some discussion questions at the end which might come in handy as I read this book for my book club.

The plot & characters did make me think about however women are regarded and what is considered beautiful in various cultures, including our own, can powerfully influence women’s lives. And they also highlight how our various expectations of ourselves and others imposed by our societies can influence human beings. It also made me think a lot about the corrosive power of unresolved anger and trauma.

Lisa Lee s-a nascut la Paris si este o autoare americana cu ascendenta chineza petrecandu-si mare parte a vietii la Los Angeles in China Town unde a organizat nenumarate evenimente culturale.
Pentru scrierea acestui roman a calatorit intr-o regiune izolata din China unde a studiat scrierea secreta a femeilor de acolo. Se crede ca Nu Shu este o scriere codificata folosita de femeile dintr-o zona indepartata a sudului provinciei Hunan care a aparut in urma cu 1000 de ani.
Cartea a aparut in 2005 si vorbeste despre prietenia a doua femei Floare de Crin si Floare de Zapada precum si despre corespondenta secreta dintre ele.
Pornim de la copilaria Florii de Crin ce venise pe lume in Anul Calului, sub dominatia imparatului Daoguang si se tragea din neamul Yi. Ea si-a petrecut primii ani concurand cu surorile ei pentru atentia mamei lor.
Cand a implinit 6 ani petitoarea ii spune ca este speciala si ca ar putea sa aiba mare noroc si sa se marite intr-o familie bogata. Ea invata atunci tot ce trebuie sa stie o fata virtuoasa dar si scrierea secreta a femeilor din acea zona numita Nu Shu. Aceasta ii era necesara pentru ca aparuse ocazia de a deveni o laotong, adica de a fi sufletul pereche al unei alte fete care are calitati similare cu ea (cele 8 caractere atat de vitale in horoscopul chinezesc se potrivesc). Aceasta va fi Floare de Zapada, care facea parte dintr-o familie mult mai buna ca a ei. Ele isi vor consolida prietenia cu ajutorul unui evantai pe care vor nota intamplarile fericite si triste ale vietii lor.
Ne sunt descrise multe obiceiuri si traditii locale chinezesti practicate in momentele cheie ale vietii, la nastere, casatorie, inmormantare dar si un obicei ingrozitor cum ar fi 'legarea picioarelor' tinerelor fete. "Picioarele de lotus" - simbolul aristocratiei si o conditie pentru o casatorie reusita, a fost una dintre cele mai barbare si inumane practici chinezesti ale timpului.
Coperta este foarte frumoasa , intreaga colectie "Pentru tine", cu cescuta de ceai ca simbol, a editurii Rao fiind superba.
O carte profunda despre prietenie, sentimente, iubirea de mama, destinul femeilor, locul lor in lume, in inima unei familii, a unei societati. O carte ce poate fi citita de toate femeile ca o alinare pentru momentele de singuratate, suferinta dar si bucurie pe care o da statutul de iubita, sotie, mama.
In incheiere atasez cateva citate care cuprind viziunea chineza despre cum ar trebui sa fie o fata plina de virtute si pregatita de casatorie:
"Sa fii neprihanita si supusa, calma si onesta in atitudini; sa fii tacuta si agreabila in cuvinte; sa fii retinuta si rafinata in miscari; sa fii desavarsita la lucrul manual si la broderie. Daca fetele nu se abat de la aceste principii, ele vor deveni femei virtuoase."
"O adevarata doamna nu lasa sa intre nimic urat in viata ei, repeta ea la nesfarsit, infigand in mine cuvintele. Numai prin durere vei obtine frumusete. Numai prin suferinta vei gasi pacea."
"Putem sa ne iubim fiicele din toata inima, dar trebuie sa le educam prin suferinta. Ne iubim fiii mai presus de orice, dar nu putem niciodata sa facem parte din lumea lor, lumea exterioara a barbatilor."
"Poti fi disperata, dar sa nu lasi pe nimeni sa te vada altfel decat ca pe o femeie cultivata."
"... singura noastra protectie reala, ca femei, era imaginea linistita pe care o afisam, chiar si in momentele de mare suferinta."

This extraordinary novel was first pubished in 2005, and gained a great deal of attention at the time, becoming a New York Times bestseller and being made into a movie. It was a book I always meant to read, but never picked up, until my own trip to China this month encouraged me to give it a go (I always like to read books set in the country to which I am travelling.)

It is an absolutely riveting read, telling the story of a long friendship between two Chinese women in the nineteenth century. At the age of seven, Lily is paired with another girl of the same age named Snow Flower. Their relationship is one of laotongs or sworn sisters, with a signed contract between them akin to that of marriage. "A laotong relationship is made by choice for the purpose of emotional companionship and eternal fidelity. A marriage is not made by choice and has only one purpose – to have sons." Snow Flower introduces herself to Lily by sending her a silk fan on which she’s painted a poem in nu shu, a secret language written only by Chinese women so they can communicate without men knowing.

The two girls have their feet bound on the same day, and their shared agony knot their lives together even more closely. This chapter is one of the most powerful and heartrending in the book, and dissects an appalling cultural practise that literally crippled girls so that they were kept closely constrained within the house and family. Not banned in China until 1912, foot-binding today seems barbaric but Snow Flower & the Secret Fan shows how deeply entrenched it was in some sections of Chinese culture. This unflinching honesty and historical accuracy is one of the great strengths of the novel, and truly transports the reader back in time.

As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower continue to write their clandestine language on the fan, recording their hopes and dreams and fears and failures. Both have marriages arranged for them, both have children, and both carry secrets that will ultimately damage their deep bond.

Intense friendship between women is not often depicted in fiction, and that alone makes Snow Flower and the Secret Fan remarkable. I was also utterly immersed in the world of nineteenth century China, and its fascinating beliefs and customs. I feel I learned so much, and understood an aspect of human life that had always been closed to me before. This is what great historical fiction does for its readers – it teaches and illuminates as well as engaging and diverting. Haunting, heartbreaking and enthralling, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is utterly brilliant in every sense of the word.

I’ve tried reading this book when it first came out, but nothing has changed. After over 10 years, I still wasn’t able to go through with this book. Meanwhile, I tried reading another book by this author with the same result.

I guess it comes down to her style of writing, which doesn’t speak to me. It is flat, with all the descriptions not able to touch upon human emotions. It reads like an encyclopedia.

Duro, entrañable, tierno y estremecedor. Todo a la vez. Absolutamente enamorada de la autora, de su forma tan delicada de narrar la realidad, por muy salvaje que sea.

He adorado a las protagonistas de este libro, sintiéndolas mías, queriendo abrazarlas y consolarlas a lo largo del viaje de sus vidas.

Un placer.