Jumping Through Hoops (2003)

Wang, Jing. Jumping through hoops : autobiographical stories by modern Chinese women writers. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press, 2003.

There are a number of real gems here -- particularly Lin Beili's hyper-distanced account of life in war conditions. "Children, servants, water, rice, and coal occupied my entire mind. By then I already understood very well that my life was being consumed day after day."

But unfortunately, an awkward translation style combines with the sometimes low or maudlin literary qualities of the original writings to produce more than a few howlers. Bai Wei's title story is probably the worst:

Jump! Jump! Jump out of hell! My heart was laughing. I could realize my ambitions. My heart could pursue its goals. Jump! Jump! My happy heart felt like a white lotus in full bloom at dawn. (55)

Preparing for class:

All stories in this book come from the 1945 volume Nü zuojia zizhuan xuanji 女作家自傳選集 edited by Xie Bingying. I'll need to locate the cover of the 1945 edition, for sure:

Highlighting the unconventionality of these narratives, the front cover of Xie's book features the portrait of a Western woman wearing long curly hair, earrings, and a low-neck dress. She looks half submissively and half defiantly to her lower right, with her right hand on her heart, as if full of stories that she hesitates and yet strongly desires to confide in the reader. This portrait gracing the cover of the book embodies the complicated connection between modern Chinese women's autobiographical practice and its Western "model"... (1)

Other zingers:

Teaching was indeed a joy. (164, Xie Bingying)

People in love with literature are like gardeners, eager to spread seeds at all times. (164, Xie Bingying)

A Chinese page describes the book very briefly, yielding up the Chinese forms of all nine authors represented: 子冈、安娥、白薇、林北丽、彭慧、叶仲寅、褚问鹃、赵清阁、谢冰莹.