My Account | RSS
| ||
|
||
Socialism is Great!
by Lijia Zhang
Reviewed by John D. Van Fleet
Among the blizzard of books related to China, autobiography has become a flurry of its own, with works ranging from the self-absorbed White Swans, to the gritty and compelling Red Dust, to the jaw-clenching horror of Life and Death in Shanghai and Born Red. With Lijia Zhang's Socialism is Great!, the genre gains a charming picaresque with a tongue-in-cheek title.
At the end of 1980 and the beginning of her tale, 16-year-old Lijia is hauled out of school and forced to work in a Stalinist nightmare of a factory in Nanjing. Not a promising start on charming. But with a crisp, accessible style, Zhang evokes an exceptional young woman who doesn't put one off by asserting that she is so, illuminates grinding poverty without pleas for pity, and introduces a touchingly human cast of characters:
An increasingly frail, bound-foot grandmother Nai, daughter of a long-gone Chinese era, whom Zhang obviously loves dearly; Mother Yufang (`fragrance of clouds'), who has suffered much, both from the banal evil of the system (including torture during the Cultural Revolution) and a ne'er-do-well husband, yet maintains a rigid pride; brash younger brother Xiaoshi, on his way toward delinquency and dissolution; and friends, and boyfriends, and malign managers at the factory, and a Dickensian host of others.
Zhang's quest for her dream of higher education and a career as a journalist seems doomed at the beginning of the work. Her description of the roundabout way she gained the education she yearned for, and learned some lessons she hadn't sought to, becomes a TripTik through a country changing at breathtaking speed -- rough, dynamic, running as much from the past as toward the future. Alternative universities, train marathons to the north, unfaithful lovers and faith-inspiring literary works (Charlotte Bronte underpins an unforgettable scene, which I won't spoil), all feature along the way.
When asked whether the book will be published in Chinese, Zhang laughs, and says she'd be reluctant to have her mother, who doesn't read English, discover some of the author's sexual escapades. Another reason why we won't be seeing a Chinese version anytime soon: at the end of Socialism is Great!, Zhang relates a speech she made under Beijing's Drum Tower in the spring of 1989, at a demonstration she organized, as the Tiananmen massacre was brewing. "We workers are supposedly the masters of the nation. But do we have a say in our government? Can we express our views freely?" She recalls this speech while under detention and interrogation following the massacre.
Socialism is Great! leaves Zhang in a similar state to that in which we found her at the beginning of the decade and the tale: losing her freedom and in danger of having her dreams destroyed. From her subsequent career as a journalist with the BBC and others, we know she overcame the post-Tiananmen oppression, just as she overcame the life sentence, at 16, of lifetime employment at the factory.
The close of Socialism is Great! begs for a sequel -- one wants to know how, precisely, Zhang overcame. But start from the beginning -- read Socialism is Great!, get to know a remarkable young woman, and through her the Nanjing and China of the 1980s, the decade that saw the country launch a great leap, head first and eyes closed, into sanity and modernity.
--
John D. Van Fleet leads a business based in Shanghai, and serves as adjunct faculty and advisor at the Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai JiaoTong University.
by Lijia Zhang
Reviewed by John D. Van Fleet
Among the blizzard of books related to China, autobiography has become a flurry of its own, with works ranging from the self-absorbed White Swans, to the gritty and compelling Red Dust, to the jaw-clenching horror of Life and Death in Shanghai and Born Red. With Lijia Zhang's Socialism is Great!, the genre gains a charming picaresque with a tongue-in-cheek title.
At the end of 1980 and the beginning of her tale, 16-year-old Lijia is hauled out of school and forced to work in a Stalinist nightmare of a factory in Nanjing. Not a promising start on charming. But with a crisp, accessible style, Zhang evokes an exceptional young woman who doesn't put one off by asserting that she is so, illuminates grinding poverty without pleas for pity, and introduces a touchingly human cast of characters:
An increasingly frail, bound-foot grandmother Nai, daughter of a long-gone Chinese era, whom Zhang obviously loves dearly; Mother Yufang (`fragrance of clouds'), who has suffered much, both from the banal evil of the system (including torture during the Cultural Revolution) and a ne'er-do-well husband, yet maintains a rigid pride; brash younger brother Xiaoshi, on his way toward delinquency and dissolution; and friends, and boyfriends, and malign managers at the factory, and a Dickensian host of others.
Zhang's quest for her dream of higher education and a career as a journalist seems doomed at the beginning of the work. Her description of the roundabout way she gained the education she yearned for, and learned some lessons she hadn't sought to, becomes a TripTik through a country changing at breathtaking speed -- rough, dynamic, running as much from the past as toward the future. Alternative universities, train marathons to the north, unfaithful lovers and faith-inspiring literary works (Charlotte Bronte underpins an unforgettable scene, which I won't spoil), all feature along the way.
When asked whether the book will be published in Chinese, Zhang laughs, and says she'd be reluctant to have her mother, who doesn't read English, discover some of the author's sexual escapades. Another reason why we won't be seeing a Chinese version anytime soon: at the end of Socialism is Great!, Zhang relates a speech she made under Beijing's Drum Tower in the spring of 1989, at a demonstration she organized, as the Tiananmen massacre was brewing. "We workers are supposedly the masters of the nation. But do we have a say in our government? Can we express our views freely?" She recalls this speech while under detention and interrogation following the massacre.
Socialism is Great! leaves Zhang in a similar state to that in which we found her at the beginning of the decade and the tale: losing her freedom and in danger of having her dreams destroyed. From her subsequent career as a journalist with the BBC and others, we know she overcame the post-Tiananmen oppression, just as she overcame the life sentence, at 16, of lifetime employment at the factory.
The close of Socialism is Great! begs for a sequel -- one wants to know how, precisely, Zhang overcame. But start from the beginning -- read Socialism is Great!, get to know a remarkable young woman, and through her the Nanjing and China of the 1980s, the decade that saw the country launch a great leap, head first and eyes closed, into sanity and modernity.
--
John D. Van Fleet leads a business based in Shanghai, and serves as adjunct faculty and advisor at the Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai JiaoTong University.
Available in Asia from Paddyfield.com
|
