Book Review – Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

You might hesitate about a book where the narrator approves of foot-binding, believes women are worthless unless they bear sons, and thinks the highest female virtue is for a woman to serve and obey her husband without complaint. But the narrator, Lily, lives in a small village in China in the mid-18th century, and in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, she describes the culture she lives in and tells the story of her life.

That is, her life and the life of her best friend and pen pal, Snow Flower. The story begins with the two girls at the age of about six, when they are officially contracted to become laotongs. In Chinese society at the time, such a relationship between two girls was meant to last their entire lifetimes, transcending any other relationships they had with parents, siblings, husbands, or their own children. Marriage was always a duty contracted with a stranger, arranged by a matchmaker, but the laotong was one’s beloved friend through all life events. And through nu shu, the “women’s writing” invented centuries ago by and for women in the Hunan province of southern China, the two heart partners could share their true thoughts and feelings with each other.

The story follows Lily and Snow Flower as they grow up, have their feet bound, go through the matchmaking and betrothal process, and finally become wives and mothers. They are from two quite different economic classes, and face some amount of disapproval from their in-laws as they continue their relationship, but it is so important to them that they refuse to break their contract with each other. They sustain each other through many difficult times, until a misunderstanding comes between them and they must somehow work their way back to each other.

Even apart from their story, the book provides fascinating details about how people of the villages lived in that time period. The beliefs and customs that surround women are heart-breaking to those of us living where women are now almost equal to men in our society. Yet the women in this story bear up under those beliefs, and even find strength in many of the customs. Even the horrific practice of foot-binding – where the instep is broken and the toes are also broken and curled under the foot, so the foot span is made to be no longer than three or four inches and walking is very difficult – is seen as a privilege, a right of passage that turns a child into a woman and sets her on her journey toward marriage. The smaller her “lily feet” turn out, the more desirable and marriageable she is.

We are shown the whole process. But we also see the strength of the women in the village, and how their inner world of the household sustains the men who believe they are in control of everything. And we watch the subversive nature of the nu shu, which is used to create the rituals and songs the women observe among themselves, that add to their strength.

I’d have loved this book anyway, just because it showed me the real lives of these women, and I was fascinated by the culture and customs. But the tale of Lily and Snow Flower is a deeply human story, sometimes sweet and sometimes bittersweet. You want to smack Lily upside the head sometimes, but she gains a hard-won wisdom by the end.

Lisa See has Chinese-American heritage on her father’s side, and gained her interest in the history of Chinese women through spending a lot of time with her father in Chinatown in Los Angeles. For this story, she travelled to the villages that are featured in the book, to research nu shu and understand the women’s culture.

This research is likely what makes this story so intimate and real. And a joy to read.