Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Author best known for Wild Swans, a real life saga of three generations of women surviving under Communist rule in China.
On the island
Eight records
The Monks of the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Ganagobi
I immediately felt somehow I was transported to another world, and I felt a tremendous sense of elevation and tremendous lightness in my head. And also it reminded me of that period when I was writing the book, you know, so I would never forget it.
But Thou Didst Not Leave His Soul in Hell (from Messiah)Favourite
Stuart Burrows, London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Karl Richter
It's my all-time favorite. And I also encountered this music soon after I came to Britain. ... I felt my heart was expanding. I mean this music expresses so much of all my feelings, and being brought out and being transformed into something beautiful and memorable.
Now, I heard this piece of music when I was a child, before the Cultural Revolution, when it was still allowed. And then after Mao died and the Cultural Revolution was over, after nineteen seventy six, I heard it again, and I was in tears. Um I just thought this was so wonderful, so mm so beautiful.
Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. posth.
It was one of the first pieces of music I heard when I first came to Britain in nineteen seventy eight. And Futung was one of my first friends. He was Chinese and he played Chopin beautifully. And I just fell in love with this piece of music. I felt you know, wistful, I felt um sadness, happiness, all at the same time. And I I just felt that it was a heavenly piece of music.
The Song of the Boatmen of the Yellow River
This song is a boatman's song. Boatmen did not live, and still don't live, a comfortable life, because often they had to pull the boat to the shore. And when I was a child I remember seeing those boatmen. bending double, almost to the ground, you know, using all their effort to pull the heavy boat. And they would hum a kind of chant, which is very much like the boatman's song, to give them energy and to make life easier for themselves.
I was introduced to Ben Webster by John, my husband. And so the music is always associated with our romance, if I may say. Um but and also Mao and Mao's regime condemned jazz as particularly bourgeois and decadent. So we never heard the sound of jazz. I just fell in love with it, and Ben Webster in particular.
Kyrie (from Missa Brevis in F major, K. 192)
Regensburg Cathedral Choir, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rafael Kubelík
I listened to it many times when I was forced to have lie downs in the afternoons because of my cancer. And it just somehow it made me feel life is beautiful, it's worthwhile, and I just wanted to um live and enjoy music like this.
Billie Holiday & Herbie Nichols
It's absolutely wonderful piece of music. And again, Jong introduced me to Bill Holiday. So I of course I listen to it always with John at the back of my mind. I I feel words fail me when I describe music. And I think Bill Holiday is somebody who just sings for all of us.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:39Did you feel a sense of liberation when you wrote Wild Swans?
Yes, I did. I first came to Britain in nineteen seventy eight. I mean, right after the end of the Cultural Revolution. I used to have lots of nightmares, and the past was just too painful. ... And then ten years later, in nineteen eighty eight, my mother came to visit me, and for the first time she told me the stories of her life and stories of my grandmother. And as a result I wrote Wild Swans. And I put, you know, the past to to rest and I was able to live a much happier life.
Presenter asks
2:40How much kinship do you feel with the Chinese still?
Before I wrote Wild Swans, I just wanted to forget about China. I mean, I actually, when I first came to Britain, I used to tell people I was from South Korea because I didn't want people to ask me questions about the past I wanted to forget. But Wild Swans has brought China back to my heart and to my mind. I mean, if I don't go back every year, if I don't see the Chinese around me, I just feel restless.
Presenter asks
9:45Do you have any memories of how [the Great Leap Forward] impacted upon you as a little girl?
Yes, I remember very well. I was six when the Great Leap happened. I encountered many sort of starving people. I myself didn't starve because I was from a privileged background. But our maid, whose family was in the villages, Their f her family all died during the famine. ... And my grandmother was sitting in her on her bed in the mosquito net, and she was crying, and she was cursing the Communists who had brought this famine. ... I'd never seen it. I'd never heard this. I was so shocked. That's why I remembered very vividly now.
The keepsakes
The book
Ivan Turgenev
I would take Turgenev's first love, because I read it when I was sixteen, when I was exiled to the edge of the Himalayas, and it lived in my memory.
The luxury
I discovered the snorkeling this year and I just absolutely love it. And I hope in this desert island there are lovely, you know, corals and tropical fishes for me to enjoy.
Presenter asks
11:53What do you remember of those early days of the Cultural Revolution about your life?
Well, I was 14 when the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, and my life was turned upside down. My father was one of the few who stood up against the Mao and protested against the Cultural Revolution. And as a result, he was arrested, tortured, driven insane, exiled to a camp, and died prematurely.
Presenter asks
15:07What did you personally feel towards Chairman Mao at that time [as a teenager]?
At that time I never questioned Mao. Under the indoctrination we must condemn ourselves for any thoughts that went against the Mao's teachings. But my faith in Mao did begin to wane when I was fourteen, when the Cultural Revolution started. Before that Mao was like our God.
Presenter asks
19:01What were the rules [when you first came to London]?
Right, one was not to go out on your own, and one other was not to go into an English pub. Because the Chinese translation for pub, jiu ba, suggested somewhere indecent with nude women gyrating. And I was torn with curiosity.
“I grew up so much taking privilege and hierarchy for granted that when I first came to England I thought England was wonderfully classless. Of course my views have been modified over the years”
“I lay in bed again and I was thinking, you know, we were told Communist China was paradise on earth. And I thought if this is paradise, what then is a hell?”
“I learned from growing up in China never to let my guard drop. You know, I was full of armors wrapping around me. So when I saw this couple, you know, openly showing affection, I remember I suddenly felt So sad at, you know, at myself not being able to do this and being deprived of this.”