Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, China and Taiwan: A Short Primer and our BookBrowse Review of Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. In telling the story of Jun and Zhen, Zhuqing Li's Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden imparts an enormous amount of historical and political information. How does focusing on an individual's story change or reconfigure your understanding of political and historical events?
2. In Longdi, Zhen's son, Jiyue, stops eating when he realizes that each mouthful of food that he eats is one mouthful less for the impoverished villagers, that "kindness to him demanded a huge sacrifice from these poor people" (p. 210). Does kindness always demand a sacrifice? Why were the villagers willing to deprive themselves for Jiyue?
3. What preconceptions about China, Taiwan, and their histories did you have going into Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden? How has your perspective changed? Did reading this book raise new questions for you? If so, what are they?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of W.W. Norton & Company. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.