Once Our Lives

No other word fits Qin Sun Stubis’s latest memoir, Once Our Lives, better than the word odyssey. The index of characters and opening timeline let readers know that they are in for an unbelievable ride as the eras of Imperial China unfold. Born during a tumultuous segment of challenging experiences, Ya Zhen, the matriarch of the Sun family, gives birth to An Chu, her first born son. He will not only become the author’s father, but he’s a child doomed to be cursed by a mysterious beggar who re-appears on the family doorstep for the seventh and final time the night before An Chu is born. In fact, An Chu’s life does suffer an inconceivable series of setbacks, but his union with Yan Gu and the subsequent birth of their four “Golden Phoenix” daughters was not among them as far as he was concerned.

The birth of each daughter marks a notable stop in the odyssey of the Sun family. Ping comes along during China’s Great Leap Forward (1958-1961), the failed four year economic plan devised by Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party to modernize agriculture. Daughter Qin is born in this same period of famine, but in a Shanghai shantytown, soon to be joined by her sister Min. During China’s Cultural Revolution, a period of tight governmental restrictions, sister Wen makes her appearance. By this time the family has sought refuge in Shanghai’s French Quarter.

Filled with Chinese history, Stubis’s memoir is sprinkled with ancient lore blended with family stories, her greatest inheritance. If there hadn’t been so many governmental atrocities aimed mostly at her father, the memoir could read as an enjoyable historical novel. Readers will care about these “characters” while realizing they are real people impacted by rivers of great change. In 1000 B.C, China, or Zhong Guo, was referred to as the Middle Kingdom because it was encircled by natural barriers on all sides. In some ways, this sentiment of entrapment encroaches upon Stubis’s memoir itself. However, in 1989, the author becomes the first in her family to traverse the barriers and leave China with hopes for a better life.

In my mind, the best memoirs teach something, and Stubis skillfully manages this throughout. She writes:

As a woman, Yan (the author’s mother) was grateful that the Communist Party had worked to promote equality between men and women. It punished discrimination against women as severely as prostitution and opium addiction…. At the family level, however, the reality was quite different…. The importance of the woman in a family was minimal. When a woman got married, she left her own clan and joined her husband’s…. Often, a married woman wasn’t even addressed by name. She was merely referred to as ‘the daughter in law of the Sun family, or the mother of So and So.’ Gradually no one would remember her real name.

And this: “A family unlucky enough to have only daughters was a family in danger of dying out—of extinction. A woman was pressured to have sons to honor and strengthen her husband’s name. A man with at least four sons was the proudest of all…. He has four boys to carry the four corners of his coffin… his cup was full, his life was secure, and he had everything he needed for the rest of his life.”

I highly recommend this book to readers interested in Chinese history and women’s studies. One cannot help but feel buoyed by the incredible strength and resilience of the families portrayed within this memoir.