Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel (original 2005; edition 2006)

3.5 stars. It is 19th century China. As children, Lily and Snow Flower are bound together as laotong – a lifelong friendship - in a society where family and sons are what’s really important. They live in different villages, and although Snow Flower comes to visit Lily and her family, they also write to each other in a secret women’s language, nu shu.

It wasn’t a fast-paced book, but it was interesting to read about the Chinese culture and women's lives during the 19th century. ( )

recommended for: those interested in women in 19th century rural China or who enjoy learning about other cultures

I ended up enjoying this book because it was so beautifully written and it took me deep into a world so unlike my own; thank goodness for that! This story takes place in China’s Hunan Province in the 1800s and is more about the inner lives of the women than the men.

I had a complete misconception of what foot binding entailed. It’s completely different, and so much more brutal a practice than I ever could have imagined. There were also many examples given of what I consider other horrendous customs and beliefs. I’ve always believed that tradition and culture that harms is not worth preserving and reading about these people’s lives was a painful experience. The story is fiction but well researched so I’m assuming there was much truth about how women led their lives in that time and place.

I was able to feel some empathy for the storywriter, because I could understand her longing to be loved and the difficulties she had in her upbringing that formed her personality, even though I sometimes had a hard time liking her and many of the characters. I was also irritated by so much of the book. I loathe stories where there’s a horrible miscommunication or misunderstanding that seems so unnecessary, and there’s an example of that here. Also, throughout the book, the narrator is writing the story of her life for another/others in her culture to read, yet the whole time I felt she was educating us in our time & places. So frequently the line “as you know” or “as everyone knows” is used to start a sentence, and I just kept thinking that if everyone knows it the narrator wouldn’t need to say it in that way. The narrator also most of the way through the book alludes to something she’s going to tell the reader and it got to the point where, instead of following along with the story, I just wanted to see what she was going to reveal.

I think that it’s worth it to read the paperback copy because of Lisa See’s notes at the end about the writing of this book,. Perhaps they were there in the hardcover version as well, but often additions such as this aren’t there at publication of the hardcover edition. Also, the paperback has some discussion questions at the end which might come in handy as I read this book for my book club.

The plot & characters did make me think about however women are regarded and what is considered beautiful in various cultures, including our own, can powerfully influence women’s lives. And they also highlight how our various expectations of ourselves and others imposed by our societies can influence human beings. It also made me think a lot about the corrosive power of unresolved anger and trauma. ( )

I liked it better than [book:Memoires of a Geisha], to which the book has been compared. The novel follows the life of Lily who is deemed unique and is given a 'same old' -- almost like a 'bff' except that it was more binding than a marriage. Lily tells her story in old China, with footbinding and marriage rituals and life in the women's rooms, weaving the customs of nu shu throughout.

It's a simple tale, on the one hand -- nothing really profound, many flat characters, but a good story of a culture and a time so different from my own. ( )

3.5, really.
So. Sad. Don't read this if you don't like sad books.
This was very cool on the cultural aspect and all, a little less cool on the story. ( )

On my 13th birthday, I was furiously handed a copy of [b:Amy Vanderbilt's New Complete Book of Etiquette: The Guide to Gracious Living|1863671|Amy Vanderbilt's New Complete Book of Etiquette The Guide to Gracious Living|Amy Vanderbilt|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1189391404s/1863671.jpg|1864394] as my desperate cries for Madonna’s Erotica album were sternly dismissed. Phrases of "Learn to behave like a lady" and "Beauty comes from pain", swayed alongside numerous sermons on feminine mannerisms that became a major part of my teenage life. The former was courteously bestowed advising as to how a bra was essentially an undergarment and not a lacy billboard (Hey! I say blame Madonna!), likewise when the resonance of my beer burps would put a bull horn to shame. The latter was peculiarly used by a genteel woman who tried waxing my legs for the first time and ended up being kicked out of her chair. I certainly showed her the "beauty of my pain". Over the years, my grandma’s constant remarks(or 'blessings' as she would term it) on how it was important to be a dutiful wife to a husband and bear him a son was spitefully argued by me threatening dire consequences if she did not shut her mouth. Now, when I sometimes think of it, I regret of not giving a chance to understanding her frame of mind or the environment which she was raised in. My grandmother grew up humbly in the 1920s with disciplinary feminine etiquettes given a higher preference over academia, whereas I was nurturing on a steady diet of Beverly Hills 90210 & Co. Our worlds were separated through an entire generation and I could never comprehend her anxiety towards my adulthood.

Lisa See speaks of an earlier communal generation our evolved minds scorn or laugh away without giving a chance for a valid rationalization. It was a sisterhood sworn for life where happiness and sadness were shared through a secret language in an era, where ‘fate was predestined’ and ‘golden lilies’ were not flowers but an agonizing ordeal bound by austere customs. Lily who was born in the third year of the Emperor Daoguang’s sovereignty (1823) was the second daughter of a modest farmer.To brighten her prospects of finding a prosperous groom Lily’s first break from tradition came through a her laotong or same old- Snow Flower from Tongkou county. Snow Flower would now be Lily’s soul sister forming an undying bond of sisterhood sharing their life, desolations, joy and pledging loyalty to each other through nu-shu, a clandestine language exclusively learned to share their innermost grievances. From the tender age of seven, both these girls evenly obeyed customary rituals, right from bearing the treacherous process of foot-binding to a dedicated living after their marriages and heartbreaking miscarriages. As observed in the book, the story seems to be an outright semi-autobiographical sketch of Lily Lu. Contrary, this overwhelming portrayal is solely about Snow Flower and her altruistic allegiance to Lily as her laotong. The relation between these two women speaks volumes of a philosophical friendship formed through secret scriptures carved on a fan acting as link in a world where women were not allowed to love but comply with the concept of obligatory love that came with their designated roles of a daughter, wife, mother and finally as the matriarchal head of the family.



Lisa See manages to bring forth various staunch customs that were a stubborn part of a culture centuries ago. The inhumane(as I assert my belief) tradition of foot-binding that required fastening the feet of a young girl into a form of a lotus bud restricting the length to seven centimeters for the reason that the “golden lilies” (feet) were a mark of magnificence and its aptness was a standing for forthcoming prosperities. Debatably, inflexible rituals were a part of any culturally strong society prevailing over hundreds of years proclaiming the belief that women were meant to suffer as they were insignificant individuals to their natal families and at most times seen as a mere vessel to carry a male progeny. Several derogating customs imposed on women throughout centuries like child marriages, foot-binding, insulting display of conforming virginities, dowry regulations and many more have fortunately been banished from the current evolved civilization. The one I am extremely curious about is the Burmese Long Neck Women of the Kayan tribe abiding the tradition of compactly casing a brass coil around their necks to attain 'Giraffe necks' associated with beauty. Although most of them have been banished from the law of the land yet, a few have escaped the judicial eye occurring in many ethnic tribal regions of the global panorama. Female genital mutilation to speak of still thrives in the deep pockets of the African sub-continent whereas female infanticide resulting through pressure of birthing a male heir and concealed dowry deaths still see the daylight in rural Indian landscapes. Let alone vast cases of domestic abuse utilized to confirm the marital dominance. O boy! Before my inner feminist crosses the edge of civility, let me move further with this review.




The significant practice of nu shu as a communicative pathway disappeared with future generations and its traces can now only be found in the memories of elderly ladies. Reading this book made stop to reflect on the rearing of my grandmother wrapped up in customary obligations of compact arranged marriages, the responsibility of bearing a son and the preferences given to her several brothers over the girls. I can’t even imagine going beyond her mother’s generation and the suffrage women endured in the name of tradition.

Lisa See always manages to hit close to home with all her narrations, fortunately not intimately. The book is an absolute page-turner because it not only restrict you from putting it down but empathize a noble sisterhood defining the loyalty of a selfless love in an era where rigidity of foot-binding swallowed up one’s heart.
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