Riveting, entertaining and even educational, the novel Hui Gui, A Chinese Story by Elsie Sze (2005, BTS Publishing House, Toronto, 290 pages) overflows with merit.
Oddly, neither the backcover blurb, nor a description on the publisher’s Website, comes close to doing the book justice. A better novel about Hong Kong and its complex relationship with the Chinese mainland would be difficult to imagine.
The Hong Kong-born Sze, a former teacher and librarian living in Toronto, should be fiercely proud of this, her first novel. It’s a product of skill, diligence and sensitivity to history, not beginner’s luck.
The Chinese term Hui Gui (returning home) has come to represent the British handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, an event that culminates this epic novel spanning much of the 20th century. The pages brim with history, hardships, tough decisions and tender moments.
Although the story isn’t autobiographical, Sze’s parents endured harrowing experiences as university students during the Japanese invasion of China more than a half-century ago. So do her fictional characters.
Advancing from 1934 to 1997, the novel follows protagonist Tak Sing, the son of a landlord from Guangdong Province, and his family. Deftly, Sze lifts her readers across time and distances.
Tak Sing matures amid hardships in the war-torn China of the 1930s and ‘40s. “The fields were empty, not from harvesting, but from burning. Everywhere I saw charred remains of dead trees and broken sheds, and land reduced to an ashen grey. We passed farmhouses whose doors and windows had been smashed, roofs fallen in, bearing no sign of life in any form…. Rural Guangdong had become an ugly wasteland.”
After the Communist victory in 1949, Tak Sing arrives as a refugee in Hong Kong. Determined and handworking like most Chinese immigrants, he becomes a street hawker and then a policeman. As Tak Sing ages, his daughter Serena steps in to narrate. Their story probes universal themes that cross cultural and ethnic bounds. Politics divides communities. “You know, I hated Mao for what Communism did to my family. Yet he had good intentions in the early days. So many believed in him….”
Sometimes, the characters struggle to survive, even to eat. “One afternoon in the spring of ’41, by the east town gate, Ah Chu and I saw two men grabbing a white dog and forcing it into a cloth bag, despite its frantic struggles and heart-rending yelps. Before I could react, Ah Chu had pinned me to the gate. ‘They are taking the dog to the river to drown because they probably have not eaten for days and they need food,’ he said. “It’s not for us to stop them….”
Despite the complex story that spans generations, Sze’s writing style is simple and to the point, ideal really. She loves her characters, guiding them with such sympathy and realism that readers will adore them too. They convey plenty of common sense. “Oh, what does it matter? Praying is always good, whether to God or Buddha or Kuan Yin, as long as you are sincere and have a good heart, said Ah Lan, with a wave of her hand….”
There’s humor too. “One of the rules of walking on a Hong Kong street is when you hear ghaaargh from behind, you run before the ptsoi comes because it always does soon enough, and you don’t want to be sprayed by some stranger’s spit….”
Well researched, the book flows smoothly, like Guangdong’s Pearl River. Sze read profusely, conducted interviews and made several trips back to Hong Kong. In part, the book pays tribute to the city of her childhood.
In the final pages, a surprising spiritual aspect emerges, “as comforting as it was uncanny”.
Sze’s such a gifted storyteller that many readers may grow impatient for her next novel.
Approval Rating: 93 per cent.
For more information: www.btspublishing.com
Excerpts: Hui Gui, A Chinese Story
“I want you to know about my past because it is also your past. My roots are your roots. I want you to know my father and mother, the love they gave to me and through me to you. I want to share the memories of my childhood with you. I want you to have a sense of the history that has shaped China in our lifetimes, the blood and tears shed by her people, the sacrifices they made in pursuit of political and personal ideals, and the wars that took away much that I held dear. I have been a part of it all. My daughter, you too are a part of it all.”
Papa and I sat in front of the graves for a long while until darkness shrouded the surrounding hills and fields. All we could hear were the buzz of cicadas on the trees and the occasional barking of dogs in the village. All we could see were the flickers of fireflies around the dark forms of the tombstones under the starless night. “I just want to sit here a little longer, Serena, for I don’t know when I’ll come this way again,” Papa said in a heavy voice.
Hui Gui, A Chinese Story is available worldwide from www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com or www.paddyfield.com. In Hong Kong, the Bookazine stores carry it. So do the Chapters and Indigo outlets in Canada.
(January 29, 2007)
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