Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Feb, 09/2021 also in: Women Literature
This is a powerful book coming from someone with no formal education in 19th century Chinese culture. Formerly acquainted with Chinese culture, Lisa See did a lot of research both in China and in libraries (as she details in the acknowledgment section of this book and on her website), which is surely why this book is so successful in representing women, their world, and more broadly the world of the Tongkou 同口 village (Hubei) in the middle of the 19th century.
The story follows the laotong 老同 relationship between Snow Flower and Lily, sworn to become kindred sisters since a very young age. The relationship is meant to provide a supportive network between two soon-to-be women, and it is supposed to last after their marriage. This is a reflection of the fact that for a woman, to marry into the husband’s family often means moving into an unsupportive environment. As Lily, the narrating voice of this story, continuously reminds us, to a family a woman is no more than a machine to produce sons (not daughters). Thus, a laotong relationship is stronger than a wife-husband bound, given that the latter is pure practicality. The two girls are taught to communicate in nu shu 女書, the supposedly secret language of women that creates a sense of intimacy, and reinforces the boundaries between the female and the male areas in a household.
While Lily belongs to a humble family, Snow Flower is introduced to her as coming from a noble and dignified family. For her entire childhood, Lily is in pure awe of Snow Flower. It will be only after marrying into a powerful family in the city, the Lu, that Lily finds out the truth. Moving to Snow Flower’s place to help her laotong to prepare for her marriage crashes Lily’s reality of all those years: Snow Flower family has long been in disgrace, ever since the father started using opium (known in China since the 7th century but heavily available starting from the 18th century), and she is off to marry a butcher, one of the worst categories in society at the time because of the close contacts with blood. In spite of the now evident social differences between the two families, Lily and Snow Flower continue their relationship through hardship, childbirths, deaths of their children, and economic struggles exacerbated by the Taiping rebellion.
The most remarkable aspect of the book to my mind is the table-turning of the situation. Lily comes from a humble background but will become the richest and most respected Lady of the village, moving from absolute respect for Snow Flower to looking at her almost with contempt, but remaining faithful to her laotong nonetheless. Perhaps more importantly, however, the book is clever in showing the naiveté of Lily. Lily is given the best life, and precisely because of this, she ends up being even more chained to the rhetoric and the rules of how and what a woman should be; her self-imposition and blind recitals of what she was taught become a more stringent obstacle than her bound-feet that make her so proud. The higher Lily reaches, the more trapped she is in the idea of what she should have been. Snow Flower instead is the woman who is unafraid of living: she enjoys sex, she shows her feelings candidly, in a world where female feelings do not matter. The final conversation between Lily and some women in the village after Snow Flower dies leaves no doubt about it.
“This is what we are supposed to say,” I (Lily) answered indignantly. “This is how we women give comfort–“ “But do you think those words were a consolation when Snow Flower had lost another baby?”
Lily is finally judged:
“But you had too much man-thinking in you. You loved Snow Flower as a man would, valuing her only for following men’s rules.”
The story follows the laotong 老同 relationship between Snow Flower and Lily, sworn to become kindred sisters since a very young age. The relationship is meant to provide a supportive network between two soon-to-be women, and it is supposed to last after their marriage. This is a reflection of the fact that for a woman, to marry into the husband’s family often means moving into an unsupportive environment. As Lily, the narrating voice of this story, continuously reminds us, to a family a woman is no more than a machine to produce sons (not daughters). Thus, a laotong relationship is stronger than a wife-husband bound, given that the latter is pure practicality. The two girls are taught to communicate in nu shu 女書, the supposedly secret language of women that creates a sense of intimacy, and reinforces the boundaries between the female and the male areas in a household.
While Lily belongs to a humble family, Snow Flower is introduced to her as coming from a noble and dignified family. For her entire childhood, Lily is in pure awe of Snow Flower. It will be only after marrying into a powerful family in the city, the Lu, that Lily finds out the truth. Moving to Snow Flower’s place to help her laotong to prepare for her marriage crashes Lily’s reality of all those years: Snow Flower family has long been in disgrace, ever since the father started using opium (known in China since the 7th century but heavily available starting from the 18th century), and she is off to marry a butcher, one of the worst categories in society at the time because of the close contacts with blood. In spite of the now evident social differences between the two families, Lily and Snow Flower continue their relationship through hardship, childbirths, deaths of their children, and economic struggles exacerbated by the Taiping rebellion.
The most remarkable aspect of the book to my mind is the table-turning of the situation. Lily comes from a humble background but will become the richest and most respected Lady of the village, moving from absolute respect for Snow Flower to looking at her almost with contempt, but remaining faithful to her laotong nonetheless. Perhaps more importantly, however, the book is clever in showing the naiveté of Lily. Lily is given the best life, and precisely because of this, she ends up being even more chained to the rhetoric and the rules of how and what a woman should be; her self-imposition and blind recitals of what she was taught become a more stringent obstacle than her bound-feet that make her so proud. The higher Lily reaches, the more trapped she is in the idea of what she should have been. Snow Flower instead is the woman who is unafraid of living: she enjoys sex, she shows her feelings candidly, in a world where female feelings do not matter. The final conversation between Lily and some women in the village after Snow Flower dies leaves no doubt about it.
“This is what we are supposed to say,” I (Lily) answered indignantly. “This is how we women give comfort–“ “But do you think those words were a consolation when Snow Flower had lost another baby?”
Lily is finally judged:
“But you had too much man-thinking in you. You loved Snow Flower as a man would, valuing her only for following men’s rules.”