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The Good Women Of China: Hidden Voices (2003)

The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices (2003)

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Author
Rating
4.17 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
1400030803 (ISBN13: 9781400030804)
Language
English
Publisher
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About book The Good Women Of China: Hidden Voices (2003)

Buku ini adalah buku kedua karya Xinran yang saya baca,buku pertamanya adalah :Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of TibetSky Burial . Keduanya menceritakan tentang kekuatan, ketabahan da ketangguhan wanita Cina dari sisi(cerita) yang berbeda.Pada tahun 1980-an, Deng Xiaoping mulai berusaha untuk 'membuka' Cina, pada masa itulah diakhir 1980-an Xinran medapat pekerjaan sebagai penyiar radio negara dan mendapat izin untuk memandu acara 'show telepon radio' yang beroperasi di dalam batasan sensor pemerintah, dengan tujuan untuk membantu kehidupan wanita cina,program ini diberi nama 'Kata-kata Dalam Hembusa Angin Malam'. Xinran tidak hanya menunggu telepon yang datang tapi juga mengunjungi tempat-tempat , lorong-lorong dan daerah terpencil agar bisa mendapat berita/cerita yang autentik dari sumbernya. Acara ini disambut antusias oleh masyarakat, hal-hal yang selama ini hanya menjadi kisah-kisah rahasia yang terpendam seperti mendapat saluran yang tepat. Banyak kisah para wanita Cina yang menyayat hati, di luar nalar manusia, atau bahkan membangkitkan ilham dan kekaguman.Ada lebih kurang 15 cerita mengenai wanita-wanita Cina yang diungkapkan di sini, beberapa diantaranya : - Perjalananku Menuju Kisah-kisah Wanita Cina,Ada seorang pemuda yang menelpon Xinran dan mengatakan bahwa di kampungnya ada seorang pria tua yang membeli seorang gadis muda yang mungkin korban penculikan. (Hal seperti itu kerap terjadi di sana) Pria tsb memperistri sang gadis muda, tapi karena takut istrinya kabur maka dia mengikatkan rantai besi ke tubuh si wanita yang mengakibatkan pinggangnya luka-luka akibat gesekan rantai dan darah telah merembes kebajunya. Ketika Xinran berniat membantu dan melapor ke Biro keamanan Publik Lokal, polisi di sana mengatakan bahwa hal itu biasa terjadi dan ikut campur dalam persoalan ini adalah sia-sia. Menurut mereka di desa : ‘langitnya tinggi dan kaisar berada jauh di sana ‘ artinya hukum tidak mempunyai kekuatan di sana. Penduduk/petani hanya takut kepada pihak berwenang local yang mengendalikan suplai pupuk, pestisida, dan keperluan pertanian mereka. Memang akhirnya Xinran dapat membebaskan wanita itu dengan bantuan pimpinan depot pertanian desa. Ketika akhirnya Xinran membawa wanita itu pergi kepala desa harus mengosongkan jalan agar bisa melewati penduduk yang marah dan mengutuk rombongan Xinran.t-Wanita Bukit TeriakanThn. 1996 Xinran ditugaskan ke daerah barat Xi’an di Cina Tengah perjalanan panjang ke dataran tinggi kering dan berdebu dengan rumah-rumah gua di sisi bukit, tidak ada tanda air yang mengalir atau tumbuhan hijau. Daerah termiskin yang pernah dilihatnya dimana air merupakan hal yang sangat sangat berharga. Bukit Teriakan terletak di lajur tanah di mana padng pasir melanggar batas dataran tinggi kekuningan. Sepanjang tahun angin berhembus, di tengah badai pasir yang menghalangi penglihatan penduduk yang bekerja keras di atas bukit harus berteriak untuk berkomunikasi mungkin inilah latar belakang nama tempat tersebut.Tempat ini benar-benar tertutup dari dunia modern mereka tingal di rumah gua yang kecil dan rendah, penduduknya sekitar 20 keluarga.Para wanita dihargai hanya dari kegunaan mereka sebagai alat reproduksi , mereka adalah ‘benda’ perdagangan paling berharga. Para pria sering menukar 2 atau 3 anak gadis mereka dengan seorang istri dari desa lain, pada gilirannya wanita yang kemudian menjadi ibu ini harus merelakan pula kelak putrinya ditukar. Apabila satu keluarga miskin yang terdiri dari adik- kakak laki-laki tanpa memiliki saudara wanita untuk ditukar maka mereka membeli seorang istri bersama 'digunakan'untuk melanjutkan keturunan. Dengan demikian mereka medapat dua keuntungan, karena siang hari si istri mengurus keperluan rumah tangga termasuk mengambil air dari tempat yang letaknya di bukit lain yang ditempuh selama 2 jam perjalanan dengan memikul ember,dan malam hari mereka bergiliran menikmati tubuh si wanita. Tidak ada rasa kasih sayang terhadap istri bagi mereka keberadaan wanita dibenarkan oleh kegunaan mereka. Ketika Xinran disuguhi Mo roti datar yang kasar (makanan istimewa mereka), dia diberitahu bahwa hanya para petani pria yang berhak memakannya, sedangkan para wanita dan anak-anak hanya makan bubur gandum encer sepanjang tahun sehingga mereka terbiasa merasa lapar. Makanan kehormatan dan suguhan terbesar bagi wanita adalah semangkuk telur dengan gula dan air panas yang diberikan ketika mereka melahirkan seorang bayi laki-laki. Inilah prestasi tertinggi buat wanita.Xinran menyadari suatu fenomena aneh di tempat ini yaitu ketika para wanita mencapai masa remaja atau sebayanya , cara berjalan mereka mendadak menjadi sangat aneh. Mereka mulai berjalan dengan kedua kaki terentang lebar, berayun-ayun seperti busur setiap melangkah . Akhirnya Xinran menemukan jawabannya , ada 2 penyebab yang mengakibatkan para wanita berjalan seperti itu ( --saya ingin mengungkapkannhnya di sini tetapi untuk menuliskannya kembali saya merasa pedih dan ngilu). Secara garis besar penyebabnya karena penanganan ketika masa menstruasi, mengandung & melahirkan ……….Yang paling mencengangkan…Xinran mengatakan bahwa dari ratusan wanita Cina yang diajak bicara selama hampir sepuluh tahun bergelut di bidang penyiaran dan jurnalisme para wanita Bukit Teriakan inilah satu-satunya wanita yang memberitahukan bahwa.. mereka bahagia. Ternyata banyak alasan mendiskriminasi kaum wanita, di beberapa tempat ada diskriminasi mengatasnamakan agama, di Cina diskriminasi wanita dilakukan atas nama adat kebiasaan dan juga ideologi…Masih selalu terngiang di telinga : surga di bawah telapak kaki ibu

The Good Women of China is by far one of the best books I have read about modern China. Honest, frightening and downright depressing at times, this book is a must read. For anyone interested in learning about the real China, I cannot urge you strongly enough to read this book.The book starts off with the author, Xinran, describing the impetus for first becoming interested in a women’s radio show and later, for writing this book: helping save a 12 year old girl from death after learning through an anonymous letter that the young girl had been sold into marriage with a 60 year old crippled man. Fearing the young girl would try to escape, the old man had kept the girl bound to a iron chain which had been rapidly gnawing away at the flesh on her waist where it was tied. In response to Xinran’s pleas to save this young girls life, local officers simply replied, "This sort of thing happens a lot. If everyone reacted like you, we'd be worked to death. Anyway, it's a hopeless case. We have piles of reports here, and our human and financial resources are limited. I would be very wary of getting mixed up in it if I were you. Villagers like that aren't afraid of anyone or anything; even if we turned up there, they'd torch our cars and beat up our officers."The officers believed that they had no clout in the countryside and were thus reluctant to venture there and take action. Thankfully, Xinran persuaded them otherwise and once the girl had been successfully rescued and returned to her hometown where she was trafficked from, Xinran received no praise and "only criticism for 'moving the troops about and stirring up the people' and wasting the radio station's time and money. I was shaken by these complaints. A young girl had been in danger and yet going to her rescue was seen as "exhausting the people and draining the treasury". Just what was a woman's life worth in China?" From this initial experience, Xinran is further impelled to investigate women’s lives, disseminate their experiences, and encourage public dialogue about culturally-sensitive or taboo issues for one of the first times ever. And so begins Xinran’s quest to understand and probe deep into Chinese muted past through the lives of these seemingly ordinary women, whose experiences are anything but the latter.Each story has left a strong and meaningful impression on my mind and led me to reflect even more on the past two years in China as my service here comes to a close. Many times, upon finishing a story in the book, I found myself just staring for several minutes trying to fully absorb what I had just read.

Do You like book The Good Women Of China: Hidden Voices (2003)?

Don't judge a book by its title! This is one lesson I learned from The Good Women of China. A gift from a family friend, it languished on my bookshelf for many months because I thought it would be steeped in quasi-sentimental metaphors. Instead, it is a collection of the most poignant stories that former radio presenter Xinran encountered through her career at Radio Nanjing in the 1990s, when China was opening up under Deng Xiaoping's orders. Growing up amidst chaos, political and emotional repression, and ignorance about sex and relationships, through interviewing many women Xinran tries to understand and share reflections on the nature of Chinese women. Her nightly program, Words on the Night Breeze, became very popular among female listeners. In somewhat formal and stilted language (perhaps inherent to translation), this is a book that Xinran could not write until she moved to London, for it describes the horrors of the Cultural Revolution in terms of forced marriages, rapes, and general abuse for being of the wrong background. It provided a valuable glimpse into that tumultuous period (which is conceivably the reason for this gift), but this is a work that can easily make one feel pessimistic about men and the persistently unequal gender roles in Chinese culture lest one can detect the slim silver lining in the strength of the women who endured. They are good because they spoke up, not because they followed the Confucian virtue of silence and modesty.
—Sophia

Bạn ơi bạn mua cuốn này ở đâu vậy? Mình cũng muốn đọc mà lên tiki thấy hết hàng lâu rồi... Hồi đó còn sách thì mình không biết là nó hay như vậy để mà mua đọc... Uổng ghê...
—Uy Do

Xinran was the presenter of a radio show in China, during which she would ask women to call her and tell her about themselves. Over the years, she gathered many stories of Chinese women, and this book contains fifteen of them, including her own. It's a diverse collection of stories, including the stories of a lesbian woman, of loveless forced marriages, of hopeless love stories, of women who were raped as children...They're eye-opening, saddening, horrifying. Xinran's matter of fact tone -- though no doubt partly due to the translation -- doesn't do anything to hide that. I wouldn't say that any story in here is actually a happy one.Worth reading, though, yes. If you want to learn about Chinese women through the eyes of a Chinese woman, The Good Women of China will definitely help, while at the same time it doesn't dump information on you in big blobs -- the idea is to give these women of China a voice, really, not to educate the West. Xinran doesn't just speak of other women, and her own story runs through it all, with her own thoughts and reactions contextualising the stories.
—Nikki

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