I did not remember reading Lap's comment here. No wonder I found the book name familiar when I saw it in Taipei. Anyway, I read about 1/4 of the book in the Eslite Bookstore. And read another half on the flight to Hong Kong. Like you said, it's a collection of smaller stories in a time of monumental historic change.
The wind had changed few years prior to 1949. But that year Kuomintang lost all hope to turn around the wheels of history - almost all battles resulted in total collapse, and town after town were lost to the Communist army. Families were split when running away from war, as they hedge the family survive by splitting and run to different directions. Kuomintang soldiers lost their will to fight, when they saw that they had lost the the support of the people.
At several places in the book, the author tried to present a "balanced" picture, that in war, both sides were capable of, and did, do evil. Yet in her own little stories, there was no mistake that the Communist army had the "hearts and minds" of the general populace. For example in the stories about drafting, the Kuomintang army draft young men at gun point, while the Communist attract recruit by providing cares. When the Kuomintang army pass a town, people hide themselves as well as their food, but when the Communist army came, people came out to help and provided food (as reported by a captured Kuomintang general.)
When I read this book, I couldn't help to compare to a book I read few weeks ago - The Korean War, a History by Bruce Cumings. In both China and Korea, the governments emerging from WWII were supported by the US politically and militarily. Both governments were oppressive, corrupted, unpopular and ineffective. In both countries, it was the opposition Communist party who brought hopes to the people. Yet the irony is that after 60 years, it was the loser (in the case of China) or the unpopular (in the case of Korea) government who had turned around and brought prosperity and a fair society to the people. (In the case of Taiwan, their preserved a large part of Chinese culture as well.)
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I am about 3/4 through 大江大海, and today I asked my parents of their stories of 1949. What did they saw? What was the mood like?
I always knew a little bits and pieces of my parents childhoods, but I never knew their stories could be as dramatic as those in the 大江大海 book. (OK, almost as dramatic, but no one died.) I will need to organize and write down the details later, perhaps in another place.
But basically, my parents were from two different worlds - one from a wealthy merchant family and the other from a farming family who had no land. In 1949, one of my grand uncles was part of the Kuomintang team that blew up the Pearl River bridge to stall the advance of the Communist army, while at the same time, another uncle of mine, who was not even 16 and a strong supporter of the Communist Party, was busy sawing day-and-night the new China flags in anticipation of the liberation.
Although the families political preference were very different, one thing seemed to be clear for everyone at the time - Kuomintang was losing fast, and people were looking forward to the regime change. On the day of the Guangzhou liberation, my parents did not see any fight. They only saw people on the street welcoming the PLA.
For my friends whose parents experienced 1949, perhaps you should ask them their stories.
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