A Hundred Flowers Study Guide

Gail Tsukiyama was born in San Francisco to a Japanese father from Hawaii and a Chinese mother from Hong Kong, who was a painter. She attended San Francisco State University. Originally a film studies major, she turned to English literature and creative writing when she decided they allowed more artistic freedom for the kind of storytelling she wanted to do. Her literary career began with poetry, later transitioning to the publication of short stories and, to date, nine novels. Many of these focus on the emotional lives of Chinese, Japanese, and Asian-American protagonists. She teaches at San Francisco State University and writes for journals like Ms. magazine.

The main context for A Hundred Flowers is the history of the Chinese Communist Revolution and the Maoist era, when the country was under the sway of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong. The Chinese Communist Party formed in 1921, and it grew more powerful during the years of the Chinese Civil Wars until it captured control of the country in 1949. Under Mao, the country devolved into fascism and a personality cult centering around Mao. It engaged in brutal campaigns to imprison or execute wealthy landowners, capitalists, intellectuals, and anyone who disagreed with its polices; increase agricultural and industrial production; and purge traditional practices from Chinese culture. These campaigns often led to tragic suffering, such as the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–1961, in which the Party’s foolish and ill-informed policy decisions led to a 70 percent drop in agricultural production and the deaths of 15-55 million people. Soon afterwards, the Party launched the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966 and ended only with Mao’s death in 1977. This period was characterized by chaos and violence. Mao’s call for young revolutionaries to rebel against anyone and anything accused of failing to support the Party or its aims (even Party members) led to multiple massacres, the destruction of priceless cultural artifacts, mass incidences of public humiliation, and the exile of scholars, professionals, and intellectuals to the countryside to perform manual labor.

The years leading up to and following the Chinese Communist Party takeover in 1949 were full of political upheaval and social turmoil in China; they have provided rich fodder for authors of fiction and non-fiction alike. While A Hundred Flowers looks at a narrow slice of this period, just a few months in 1958, it also refers back to the time before Communist Party rule, and it hints at the impending crackdowns and failed policies that marred its rule in the 50s and 60s. Jung Chang’s 1991 Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China covers this broad sweep of time and its massive changes through the lives of the author’s grandmother, who grew up in the 19th century’s warlord era and had bound feet; her mother, who joined the Party during its early years; and the author herself, who came of age during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Chinese author Yu Hua’s novel, To Live, published in 1994 and translated into English in 2003, follows Fugui, the indolent son of a wealthy landowner, as the Communist takeover forces him into the life of an impoverished peasant. Despite facing unimaginable tragedies, often thanks to the cruelty and short-sightedness of Party policies, Fungi’s suffering transforms him into an honest and caring man who learns to find hope and strength even in the darkest of circumstances. Vanessa Hua’s 2021 novel, Forbidden City, also examines the cruelties and shortcomings of the Communist Revolution, through the eyes of Mei, a true believer who later becomes disillusioned and flees not just the Party but the country and her own history.