A saga of family life in China and America

17th March 2022

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu, a saga of family life in China and America.

“To have an orchard is to honour the generations that came before and will come after”

Peach Blossom Spring is a family saga that ranges wide in terms of time (1938 to 2005) and location (various parts of China to various parts of America). The story starts in Changsha City in central China. Dao Hongtse is the patriarch of the Dao family with a comfortable middle class existence. His grandson, Renshu, is devastated when his father, Xiaowen, is killed far away from home fighting the invading Japanese army which is making its way West – with great brutality. It is soon too dangerous to stay in the city, and Renshu leaves with his mother, Meilin, his uncle Longwei, his wife and two daughters.

As they leave, the city burns behind them. Their aim is to reach Chongqing, the provisional capital a lot further West and, they hope, out of Japanese range. The journey is long and arduous, much of it on foot – and takes many months. When the war is over, Meilin and Renshu head back East to Shanghai and life feels a little more positive. But trouble is not far away… the war between the communists and the nationalists is brewing… They, and many thousands of others, flee Shanghai and head for Taiwan, where they prosper.

Renshu, now Henry, moves on to America, thrives there and creates a family. He feels ambivalent about his Chinese heritage and so when his daughter wants to learn more about her background, he is reticent. This is a wonderful portrayal of making a new life and the tugs of the cultural past.

Peach Blossom Spring is a work of fiction. But many of the events are based on the real life experiences of Melissa Fu’s family. It is not hard to identify Lily with Melissa herself. It feels a very personal book…And it is very thought provoking. How much does anyone who has experienced such horrendous events in the childhood, made a new and good life in a faraway land, wish to revisit (literally or metaphorically) their past. I would suspect the Dao family story, as well as Melissa’s own family experiences, are much replicated across the world. A great and far-ranging story.

Tony for the TripFiction team

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