Book Review 1 (Pj)

Title: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Author: Lisa See

Synopsis
Sitting Quietly
This novel started with Lily, an eighty years old widow reminiscing about her life for the past eighty years. In the next few chapters, Lisa See uses this character to explain the true meaning behind love and friendships. Using flashback, Lily started talking about her own life. Lily has gone through ups and downs of her life with Snow Flower and this Secret Fan. This fan was something that both Lily and Snow Flower shared since they became laotongs. It was something they used, to record about everything that happened. As the story goes, things changed and the story ended with a sad ending, which leaves Lily in regret. It is because her selfishness has not only hurt her beloved laotong, but also caused her death in the end. This novel brings out the love both had for each other, truly touching despite it is not a true story.

Reflections
Daughter Days
Important chapters like Footbinding, The Fan and Snow Flower, introduced me to the women’s lives in nineteenth-century China. Footbinding is encouraged for all girls back then, as a woman’s eligibility is judged by the shape and size of her feet. I am exposed to the experiences Lily had while she endures the pain and hardships during her footbinding years. This leaves me feeling relieved that we girls in this century do not have to follow this rule anymore, since it has been banned. Imagine your feet to be 7cm long!(If I'm not wrong) I shall leave the processes behind footbinding for you to find out, because it is honestly painful. Here's a sentence from the story, “from the first wrapping and pain through the horrible shock of softened, pressured bones snapping”. See what i mean?
The Fan and Snow Flower was about the start of Lily and Snow Flower’s laotong match. “A laotong relationship is made by choice for the purpose of emotional companionship and eternal fidelity.” Even though they do not exist now, I am happy to be able to come across such things. The fan is also how the girls write to each other in Nu Shu*. Coming across these, I am appalled and at the same time learning more about the Chinese culture.

Hair-Pinning Days - Lily's life at fifteen years old
One touching chapter nearly made me cry and it is Beautiful Moon. Beautiful Moon is Lily’s cousin of the same age. But this chapter focus on Beautiful Moon’s sudden death caused by a bee stung. The author did a very good job describing the emotions Lily felt when she was having her last moment with her cousin. It was heart wrenching. However, the learning point that Lily made was this. “We were at the mercy of powerful elements and could do nothing but follow our fates. This can be explained by yin and yang. There are women and men, dark and light, sorrow and happiness. These things create balance. You take a moment of supreme happiness like Snow Flower and I felt at the beginning of the Catching Cool Breezes Festival, then sweep it away in the cruelest way with Beautiful Moon’s death … You take a family like mine that is not so well off, then add the pressure of too many weddings in one household. All these things disrupted the balance of the universe, so the gods set things right by striking down a kind-hearted girl. There is no life without death. This is the true meaning of yin and yang.” This paragraph of sentences, though long, has already made an impact. I will never forget that you have to lose something to be able to gain something. Just like “No pain, no gain”.

Rice-and-Salt Days - Lily's life as a mother
Together with Snow Flower, they’ve had sons, daughters and shared the joy through the fan, by writing to each other. Is there anybody now who is able to keep in contact with a good friend this long? Sometimes not everything in the past is worthless. Now, it's emails, technology and convenience. But I feel that in the past, when you carefully write out each word on your paper, the joy you felt when you received news of your pal, that’s where you find the real happiness. There are always lessons from the past for us to learn from. Not everything now is better than before. Sometimes I wish I could live in the past. Because life just felt more like how life should be. Because love is everywhere, anytime, felt everyday.
Moving on to the chapter Joy and Sorrow, there is this sentence “It was a pattern that we heard again and again, for a mother cannot turn away from a sick child and a husband cannot abandon a dying wife.” This portrays the love within a family. Motherly love, love for one’s other half, I realized at the end of the book that another important aspect of it is about love.
Letter of Vituperation is another tear-jerking chapter. Lily’s belief in her self-importance had made her laotong suffer because of her blindness and ignorance. By the time Lily realizes this, it was already too late. And Snow Flower’s last words ended with “Though I was not as good as you, I believe that heavenly spirits joined us. We will be together forever”. Writing this, my eyes have gone a little watery. “Her heart had always been pure, but mine had been as shriveled, hard, and dry as an old walnut.” This shows the deep regret Lily felt.

Sitting Quietly
Yes, the story ends back to this, sitting quietly. Lily lived her life for the next forty years, the past only aroused regret in her. Even till the very end, Lily was still hesitating if what Snow Flower said were the truth. But at the end, she wrote “But if the dead continue to have the needs and desires of the living, then I’m reaching out to Snow Flower and the others who witnessed it all. Please hear my words. Please forgive me.”

Great story, left me with a lot of questions to think about. I highly recommend this book to everyone, although I know that it won’t attract much. Especially if you are a guy. This story is not as exciting as an action movie, nor as funny as a comedy. But my interest in what happened in the past, the interesting Chinese culture started me off with this book in the first place. Nonetheless, I enjoy doing this book review. I did not know this is not a true story until the very end. This shows how well Lisa See writes, because the emotions and feelings Lily had just felt so real. It’s a pity this isn’t a true story, otherwise I would have respect Lily and Snow Flower a lot. I admire the unwavering deep-heart love, and the deep-seated loyalty between this two laotong. But it’s also my pleasure to come across such a wonderfully written story, so real, yet it doesn’t exist. Absolutely impossible to forget, and I agree that this story touches your heart, and breaks it at the same time.

*Nu Shu: It is believed to be the only written language in the world to have been created by women exclusively for their own use.