hey-- read this!

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/joyluck/context.html


Related Historical Events: In the novel, Suyuan flees China as a young woman, when Japanese forces invade the city of Kweilin. This reflects actual historical events in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which was fought between 1937 and 1945. During the eight-year war (which overlapped with World War II), Japan aggressively attacked mainland China, hoping to expand the Japanese empire onto the Asian continent. Over twenty million Chinese citizens were killed or displaced during the ground invasions. Japan succeeded in capturing many major Chinese cities until it became involved in World War II in 1941, fighting against the United States and other Allied countries. Japan surrendered to Allied forces in 1945, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing millions of Japanese citizens. As part of the surrender agreement, China regained all its seized land in 1946.