About The Memoir
Spring Flower, by Jean Tren-Hwa Perkins, MD, and edited by her son Richard Perkins Hsung, portrays life in China from 1931-1981, with vivid descriptions of the mundane details of daily life that provide a vantage point into the horrors and ideals of a half-century of world history.
Book-1: Spring Flower: A Tale of Two Rivers ISBN-13: 978-9888769223
This is the story of the author’s journey from poverty to privilege and then to persecution, and her determination to survive. Tren-Hwa ("Spring Flower") was born in a dirt-floored hut along the Yangtze River during the catastrophic floods of 1931. Her father was so upset she was a girl that he stormed out of the hut, and a year later, she was given up for adoption to a medical missionary couple, Dr. Edward and Mrs. Georgina Perkins. Renamed Jean Perkins, she attended English-speaking schools in China and then elementary and junior high school in Yonkers, New York, along the Hudson River. After World War II, the family returned to China. Spring Flower is both eyewitness history and the eloquent memoir about growing up during the brutal Japanese occupation followed by the Communist takeover of China. In 1950, with the Korean War raging, Jean's adoptive parents had to flee China, leaving her behind.
Book-2: Spring Flower: Facing the Red Storm (ISBN-13: 978-9888769681)
At the height of the Korean War, with anti-American animus at a fevered pitch, Jean Tren-Hwa Perkins' adoptive parents fled China, encouraging their daughter to stay behind and serve her country and her people in whatever ways she could. Determined to fulfill their wishes, Jean tried to shed her American accent and studied the culture and history of the land of her birth. Following in the footsteps of her father, a physician, she became an ophthalmologist, practicing in Shanghai, a city relatively unscathed by Mao's ideologically driven economic policies. But her daughter was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and then the Cultural Revolution came, decimating China physically, spiritually, and morally. As the Red Guards ramped up their campaigns, Jean's husband, Paul Hsiung, a renowned agronomist, was imprisoned for criticizing the government. And through it all, she found the courage to survive, thanks to the kindness of colleagues and the help of the “guardian angels” who lived next door. Book Two ends as Paul is released after four years in a labor camp, worn but not discouraged, and he and Jean are dancing on the verandah of their apartment to the music of Bing Crosby while their son Eddy (Richard) frolics in the falling snow.
Book-3: Spring Flower: Torn Between Shifting Worlds(ISBN-13:978-9888769711)
President Richard Nixon visited China, bringing hope to Jean Tren-Hwa Perkins that she might someday be able to return to America and see her adoptive parents again. But the Cultural Revolution was still wracking the country, and Jean's troubles only grew as she faced endless hardships and indignities. Finally, a breath of fresh air as Western delegations began visiting China, and Jean was invited to interpret for their conferences. She even served as an interpreter for Communist Party Chairman Hua Kuo-Feng. The Westerners she encountered were drawn to this demure doctor who spoke fluent American English with a New York accent, and her stories of being raised in rural China by Connecticut missionaries and attending school in Yonkers. One New England physician offered to help her get to America. In 1981, Jean's dream came true, and she and her teenage son were among the earliest post-Mao émigrés from China to the United States. But her struggle didn't end there. Despite all she had endured, America did not embrace her. Jean had to work eighteen more years to overcome bureaucratic impenetrability and outright racism before finally becoming an American citizen. Yet through it all, Jean Tren-Hwa Perkins never abandoned her ideal of America as “the shining city on the hill.”
