Becoming Madame Mao

Becoming Madame Mao, by Anchee Min

"Well, I won't surrender. When I was a child my mother used to tell me that I should think of myself as grass - born to be stepped on. But I think of myself as a peacock among hens. I am not being judged fairly. Side by side Mao Tse-Tung and I stood, yet he is considered a god while I am a demon. Mao Tse-Tung and I were married for thirty-eight years. The number is thirty-eight."

Anchee Min's follow up to the popular Empress Orchid is a fictional account of the life of Jiang Ching, wife of Chairman Mao and leader of the infamous Gang of Four. Although a work of fiction, the novel is based around historical events, and Anchee Min displays great imagination and empathy in portraying a little-known but highly influential historical figure. She presents a character whose constant defiance of Chinese society's oppression of women results in a resentful, angry and proud character who, even unto Mao's death, struggled for recognition and what was invariably unrequited attention. Although not as colourful as Empress Orchid, Min's writing style in this second novel is much bolder. Quick, short sentences reflect the protagonist's temperament, and she continuously shifts the narrative perspective between the first and third person, often contrasting Jiang Ching's own perspective on events with historical fact. The second half of the book is not as effective as the first, partly because the narrative style is difficult to maintain, and because the earlier years are arguably more interesting, despite the fact that the historical repercussions of the later years are far more significant. Nevertheless, this is a highly accomplished and original work.

Amuse Queues

Those of you who are not yet convinced that the English have made a sport out of queuing should try lining up for the Wimbledon tennis championships. Forgetting about those individuals who camp overnight, who clearly need to have their head examined, people get there at 5am to score Centre Court tickets, waiting for some five hours for the gates to open. The queues at Wimbledon have a degree of organization unseen in any other facet of English life. You get a queue card with a number, so you can leave the line and go to the numerous portaloos or patronize one of many refreshment stands. Newspaper vendors walk up and down the line offering you your paper of choice. You get a free fan/hat/raincoat (as climatically appropriate) with your copy of the Daily Telegraph. You get enthusiastic offers of free Rachel's Organic yoghurt and Tropicana Original samples. There are even people collecting donations for various charities. By 8am, stewards walk down the line offering colour-coded wristbands to Centre, Number 1 and Number 2 courts for those insane enough to make it sufficiently close to the front of the line (being the lightweight that I am, I only got there at 6.30am, so only managed tickets to Court 2). Despite the fact that people queue there for as long as it takes to fly to Turkey, the wait itself is surprisingly bearable (provided, of course, that it's not pouring). For one, stewards go around waking up all the overnight campers and asking them to pack their tents so that, despite the fact that it takes some four hours to progress the 800 metres from the car park at Gate 10 of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to the turnstiles at Gate 3, you do find yourself advancing slowly to take up the space occupied by campers' sleeping bags. A good, long, playlist on your iPod obviously helps, and I survived thanks to the prologue and first two chapters of Anchee Min's excellent Becoming Madame Mao.

You would think that queuing for five hours would be enough to satisfy even the most ardent queuer, but once inside the grounds, there's all manner of queuing to be had. You can queue for seats on courts 3, 13 and 18, the larger of the outside courts, queue for a 2GBP bowl of strawberries and cream, or a 4GBP crayfish and rocket sandwich, or a jug of Pimm's, you can queue for the restroom, and you can queue at the ticket re-sale booth to try and get returns for Centre Court. And once you've had a satisfying day's queuing, you can queue at the gates to leave the grounds, queue for a cab or a bus of your choice, or form one long queue all the way down Church Road, until you get the Southfields tube station, where you can queue for a tube ticket, queue to get through the turnstiles, and join another queue at the platform to get onto your train. Queuing truly is an endurance sport. I hear it will become an Olympic event in 2012, for which team Britain might actually have a chance of winning a gold medal.