Life and Death in Nanking
Peggy Kordick
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2004 Noble House
ISBN: 1561678244

1946: An American missionary family sail to China just before Mao Tze Tung closes the nation to foreigners.

From 1937 to 1947 China was rocked by cataclysmic social, political & economic upheavals, not the least of which was Japanese invasion, famine, revolution & unimaginable poverty.

Life and Death in Nanking evolved from the author's letters to her parents on her way to China with her husband & children. Born in Iowa in the 1920s, Peggy Kordick was an idealistic teenager. During WWII she worked for the FBI before leaving to study Chinese at the Peking Lanuage School at the University of California at Berkeley, where she attained her Bachelor's degree. Married in 1942, she set sail, in 1946, for the adventure of her life.

In this memoir, complete with candid snapshots, Peggy Kordick offers unforgettable insights of her two years as a teacher during the post-WWII & Revolutionary era, & ends with her forced departure down the Yangtze River to sail from Shanghai, crammed into a converted hospital ship escorted by a U.S. Navy Destroyer.

Life and Death in Nanking reflects the time & attitudes of both the observer & the observed, & in that Peggy Kordick's letters are a unique time capsule. Set your recently acquired political correctness aside, & relish the ride! It is one of sheer naivete & racism, courage & poignancy.

As I read Peggy Kordick's letters,I knew she was often polite & careful about how much she exposed of a nation where life had come unraveled. She works hard to belie the fear & danger, injecting humor in a language particular to her family, or transliterating how her Chinese amah & cook spoke. One can only imagine the clash of cultures, the terror of sick children, or when events take a turn for the worse, & her family was herded out of the capital to freedom, just as Chairman Mao closed that great nation to the world.
(04/04/04)

Rebecca