Title- Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Author- Lisa See
Publisher- Bloomsbury
Format- Kindle Edition
Pages- 321
Rating- 3.5/ 5
Summary- Lily, a five year old girl lives in a joint family in the village of Puwei in the Yongming County of China. Being a girl child of a poor farmer, she is unwanted and unloved, so she strives to get her parents' attention along with her two other female siblings but fails each time until one day just before her foot binding is about to begin, a diviner and a matchmaker tells her parents that her foot has a particular high arch and if bound properly it has the capability of becoming the most perfect foot in the whole county which can fetch her a match from a rich family. The matchmaker further adds that her perfect feet will also make her capable of a "laotong" relationship which none of the girls in her family had ever had. When she meets her "old same" or laotong, Snow Flower, they promise to remain true to each other and be friends for life. However, not all promises we make can be kept as we don't know what destiny has in store for us.
Review- Life in rural China during the 19th century has been beautifully portrayed by the author. The status of women was miserable during those days which could be understood by the Three Obediences which all women were expected to follow. According to the Three Obediences, "When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son." To keep women under the control of men, their feet were bound so that they were incapable of walking long distances and so had to depend on men. Though foot binding was a very painful process still they could not avoid it as girls whose feet were not bound were considered unmarriageable. It was quite fascinating to learn that as they had no right to study the men's language, many centuries ago a woman in Yongming county had invented a secret language called nu shu to communicate with her mother and sisters at home and in this way the knowledge of nu shu had been passed down from mothers to their daughters for generations, while keeping it secret from men.
Lily, the narrator and the protagonist, being a female child failed to get any love from her parents. So when she met Snow Flower, she wanted all her love which she eventually got and both of them were almost inseparable until they got married. They shared their happiness and sorrow and even after getting married they met at the temple every year where they had signed their laotong contract. Though the financial statuses of their families were not at par, it did not affect their friendship. Both of them learnt something from each other because while Snow Flower excelled in the art of writing, Lily was adept in household work.
The book lacks character development due to which I found it difficult to connect with any of the characters. It would have been better if instead of calling some characters by the relationship they had with the protagonist (like Elder Brother, Second Brother, Elder Sister), the author had assigned them some names. The parts where the process of food binding has been described is not for the tender hearted.
It was quite interesting to learn that nu shu is the only language in the world to have been created by women solely for their own use. So readers who want to feel the essence of Chinese culture can definitely check this out.
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