Talented, intelligent and highly educated, author Xujun Eberlein shares her deep understanding of China's tragic 20th-century in Apologies Forthcoming, Stories Not About Mao (2009, Blacksmith Books, Hong Kong, 204 pages, HK$95). This award-winning collection of eight short stories doesn't always enthrall, but it does overflow with insight.
The book title implies wishful thinking. Despite the ill-conceived policies and collective insanities for which China's Communist Party bears responsibility, its leadership never apologizes, but only blunders forward.
Whether urban or rural, China's pragmatic people, then like now, faced a struggle to survive while trying to make sense of their own lives. “At this moment I felt – not just thought – that human life is such a rare thing, a treasure…. I saw such a lifestyle like the horizon – the harder I walked toward it, the further it receded.”
The first story, “Men Don’t Apologize”, follows Ou Hong, a bus-factory worker, seeking a long-lost Mr Lui to thank him for past goodness. Each story proves memorable in different ways. There's “Snow Line” about a poet's passion; “Pivot Point” about illicit love; “Feathers” about a child coping with a sister's death; “Watch the Thrill” about repressed anger leading to murder; “Discipline of the Masses” about scarce food rations; “The Randomness of Love” about repressed desires; and “Second Encounter” about unexpectedly meeting an old foe.
Some stories unfold in the 21st century, but most emerge straight from the 1960s. All have their roots in the mayhem of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) when universities closed, “unemployed” youth went to work in the countryside and food supplies dwindled. Officially, the word “love” could apply only to Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Youngsters fought and even killed to prove who loved Mao the most.
“Fun things used to happen more often on the big street, like Red Guard demonstrations, faction fights, or truck parades exposing criminals and counter-revolutionaries, with arms tied high behind their backs and heavy name boards strapped around their necks.”
Things of beauty went unnoticed or faced destruction: “The professor raised his palm for silence. ‘This is poetry, understand? Poetry! The twin-brother of mathematics!’ Then he sighed, ‘I have not seen a real poem in ages.’ ”
“ ‘Winter plum? Ah!’ Zhou Sixth said. “I remember seeing those flowers when I was a bare-buttock kid. All cut down, long ago in the Great Leap Forward.’
‘All Cut? Winter plum?’
Zhou Sixth threw her a disapproving glance. ‘What's the fuss? Can flowers fill your belly?’ ”
As the authorities promote ugliness, it gains a false importance. “The public execution will take place tomorrow, in the Da Tianwan Stadium, immediately after the public trial. It is the biggest thrill ever. All of my playmates and I plan to go watch it. And we have to get up early in order to occupy good spots in the front, so that we won't miss a thing.”
Eberlein, like many of her leading characters, witnessed the Cultural Revolution when young. Her sister died as a Red Guard, a fact echoed in the story “Feathers”. The author grew up in Chongqing, a river-port city in Sichuan Province. In 1988 she moved to the United States, later earning a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.
In Apologies Forthcoming, Eberlein excels. An earlier edition of this, her first book, won the 2007 Tartt Fiction Award.
The readers glean new understanding about the Cultural Revolution, its aftermath and how it affected everyone there. “What was heroic, just and glorious then, is ignorant, criminal and shameful now. It seems only those who survive the waste can understand, dooming new generations to repeat it in different places, for different causes.”
The impact of those turbulent times lingers, still affecting hundreds of millions of Chinese. “My mom said she never once got enough to eat that whole year and she didn't have milk to nurse me. I was always crying with hunger. I lived, but I’ve got a stomach problem.”
Any meaningful apologies for past misdeeds come not from national leaders, but at the level of individual citizens to each other. Apologies Forthcoming is an important book about China's past and the repercussions.
Approval rating: 83 per cent.
For more information: www.blacksmithbooks.com or www.xujuneberlein.com
(April 10, 2009)
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