0 ↓ Wild Swans UK Edition
1 ↓ My grandfather, General Xue Zhi-heng, chief of police in the warlord government in Peking, 1922-1924.
2 ↓ My mother (left) with her mother and stepfather, Dr Xia; Jinzhou, c. 1939. Standing Centre is Dr Xia's second son, De-gui, the only member of his family who approved of Dr Xia's marriage to my grandmother. Dr Xia's eldest son shot himself in protest. Standing far right is De-gui's son.
4 ↓ Dr Xia
5 ↓ My mother as a schoolgirl, aged thirteen, in Manchukuo, 1944.
6 ↓ Cousin Hu, my mother's first boyfriend. On the back of the photo is a poem he wrote: Wind and dust are my companions, The end of the earth is my home. - The Exile After Cousin Hu was bought out of prison by his father in 1947, he gave this photograph to a friend and asked him to give it to my mother, so that she would know he was alive. Because of the siege, the friend did not see my mother until after the Communists had taken Jinzhou; seeing her in love with my father he decided not to give her the photo. He only passed it to her after a chance meeting in 1985; it was then that she learned that Cousin Hu had died in the Cutltural Revolution.
7 ↓ My grandmother's sister Lan and her husband 'Loyalty', with their baby son shortly after 'Loyalty' joined Kuomintang intelligence, Jinzhou, 1946.
8 ↓ Communist soldiers walking below Kuomintang slogans on one of the city gates which survived the siege of Jinzhou, 1948.
9 ↓ Painting slogans on the soles of 'liberation shoes' during the civil war - 'Safeguard Our Land' (left) and 'Beat Chiang Kai-shek'.
10 ↓ Communist forces attacking Jinzhou, October 1948.
11 ↓ My parents in Nanjing, the former Kuomintang capital, en route from Manchuria to Sichuan, a few days before my mother's miscarriage of her first child, September 1949. They are both wearing Communist army uniforms.
12 ↓ My parents (back), with my grandmother (left) holding Xiao-hong and my wet nurse (holding me), shortly after we arrived in Chengdu, autumn 1953.
13 ↓ My grandmother holding me (aged two with ribbons in hair) and Jin-ming; my mother holding Xiao-hei, Xiao-hong standing. Chengdu, late 1954.
14 ↓ My father, in a photograph which I think catches his mood paritcularly well, during the journey from Manchuria to Sichuan, late 1949.
15 ↓ My mohter making a speech, Chengdu.
16 ↓ Aged six.
17 ↓ My mother with (from left) Xiao-hong, Jin-ming, Xiao-hei, and me, Chengdu, early 1958. This photograph was taken in a hurry for my father to bring with him to Yibin to show his mother, who was gravely ill. Signs of haste show in my mother's hair, which has not been brushed down, and in the handkerchief still pinned (as was customary for young children) to Jin-ming's sailor suit.
18 ↓ With Xiao-hong (left), Xiao-hei (behind), and Jin-ming (right), at the annual Chengdu flower show, 1958. Soon after this photograph was taken famine struck. My father was constantly away in the countryside, so for several years there were no family photographs.
19 ↓ On Tianamen Square, Peking, as a Red Guard (front, second from left), with friends and air force officers (including one woman) assigned to train us. I am wearing a Red Guard armband, my mother's 'Lenin jacket', and patched trousers to look 'proletarian'. We are all holding the Little Red Book in a standard posture of the time. November 1966.
20 ↓ The last photograph of my father before the Cultural Revolution, spring 1966.
21 ↓ My father in the camp at Miyi, with Jin-ming, late 1971, just after the death of Lin Biao.
23 ↓ My mother in her camp at Buffalo Boy Flatland, in front of a field of corn she helped plant, 1971.
23 ↓ My grandmother's brother Yu-lin with his wife and children in front of the house they had just built for themselves after ten years' exile in the country, in 1976. It was then they decided to get in touch with my grandmother aftewr a decade of silence. They sent the photo to tell her they were all right, not knowing that she had died seven years earlier.
24 ↓ On the eve of being expelled to the edge of the Himalayas (standing second from right); with (standing from left): Jin-ming, Xiao-hong, and Xiao-hei; front row (from left): my grandmother, Xiao-fang, and Aunt Jun-ying; Chengdu, January 1969. The last photograph of my grandmother.
25 ↓ With the electricians' work team in the machinery factory, Chengdu (front row, centre). The Chinese characters read 'Seeing Off Comrade Jung Chang to University, 27 September 1973. Electricians' Work Team.'
27 ↓ Army training as an undergraduate at Sichuan University (back row, second from right). The Chinese characters read 'Fish-Water Link [a slogan describing the relationship between the army and the people], English Class I, Foreign Languages Department, Sichuan University, 27 November 1974.'
28 ↓ With male comrades and Filipino sailor (centre) on a trip to practise English, Zhanjiang, October 1975. The sailors were the only foreigners I ever talked to before I left China in 1978.
29 ↓ WIth my class (front row, third from left) outside the gate at Sichuan University, Chengdu, January 1975.
30 ↓ Before my father's cremation, supporting my mother with Jin-ming. Opposite us Xiao-hong. Chengdu, April 1975.
31 ↓ At the memorial service for my father (I am standing with my family, fourth from right). An official is reading the Party's valedictory. Chengdu, 21 April 1975. this speech was extremely important, as it was the Party's assessment of my father, and would determine his children's future even though he himself was dead. Becasue my father had criticised Mao, who was still alive, the original version was ominously negative. My mother fought for changes and won a much improved compromise. The memorial service was organised by a 'funeral committee' of my father's former collegues, including people who had helped to persecute him. It was carefully staged down to the last detail, and was attended by about five hundred people, according to a prescribed formula. Even the size of the wreaths was specified.
32 ↓ In Peking, September 1978, just before leaving China for Britain.
33 ↓ In Italy, summer 1990. (Photo by Jon Halliday)
