Summaries of the China Coin
The China Coin
Suggested answers
Suggested answers to research activity
Source 1 Biography: Wild Swans by Jung Chang, Flamingo Publishers, 1992, Chapter 7
Wild Swans is a personal account of three generations of women in China. In this chapter Jung Chang records the experience of her mother on the Long March across China to spread the ideas of the communist leader, Mao Zedong. After traveling from Jinzhou to Tianjin by train they had to continue their journey on foot. The route was fraught with danger as there were bandits and units of retreating Kuomintang soldiers ready to attack the marchers. They ‘had to walk long distances every day, often on rough paths, carrying their bedrolls and other belongings on their backs.’ Jung Chang’s mother’s feet were covered in blisters and she stumbled often in the slippery mud when it rained. They had to climb a steep mountain and she nearly toppled over the cliffs a number of times. She nearly drowned crossing a fast-flowing river. Her husband was allowed to travel in a jeep, with his bodyguards and he was not very sympathetic to his wife’s misery. Later she suffered a miscarriage as a result of this hardship and trauma.
Language features are used to create a picture in the responder’s mind about the experiences of the marchers. Adjectives describe the journey in vivid detail: ‘The endless, magnificent, precipitous mountains were a stunning novelty after the flat plains around Jinzhou.’ To Jung Chang’s mother the local peasants were ‘horribly dark, bony and tiny, with much sharper features and much bigger and rounder eyes than the people she was used to.’
Similes are used to help the responder imagine the hardships Jung Chang’s mother endured. After trudging miles in heavy rain and hot temperatures her bedroll weighed on her ‘like a huge stone’. Later, sick and exhausted, she struggles on, ‘her legs like lead’.
A record of a conversation with her husband is also used to highlight the fear and intimidation used by the
Suggested answers
Suggested answers to research activity
Source 1 Biography: Wild Swans by Jung Chang, Flamingo Publishers, 1992, Chapter 7
Wild Swans is a personal account of three generations of women in China. In this chapter Jung Chang records the experience of her mother on the Long March across China to spread the ideas of the communist leader, Mao Zedong. After traveling from Jinzhou to Tianjin by train they had to continue their journey on foot. The route was fraught with danger as there were bandits and units of retreating Kuomintang soldiers ready to attack the marchers. They ‘had to walk long distances every day, often on rough paths, carrying their bedrolls and other belongings on their backs.’ Jung Chang’s mother’s feet were covered in blisters and she stumbled often in the slippery mud when it rained. They had to climb a steep mountain and she nearly toppled over the cliffs a number of times. She nearly drowned crossing a fast-flowing river. Her husband was allowed to travel in a jeep, with his bodyguards and he was not very sympathetic to his wife’s misery. Later she suffered a miscarriage as a result of this hardship and trauma.
Language features are used to create a picture in the responder’s mind about the experiences of the marchers. Adjectives describe the journey in vivid detail: ‘The endless, magnificent, precipitous mountains were a stunning novelty after the flat plains around Jinzhou.’ To Jung Chang’s mother the local peasants were ‘horribly dark, bony and tiny, with much sharper features and much bigger and rounder eyes than the people she was used to.’
Similes are used to help the responder imagine the hardships Jung Chang’s mother endured. After trudging miles in heavy rain and hot temperatures her bedroll weighed on her ‘like a huge stone’. Later, sick and exhausted, she struggles on, ‘her legs like lead’.
A record of a conversation with her husband is also used to highlight the fear and intimidation used by the