This is life! (2-2)

The timeline of Chinese author Mai Jia’s novel *Life* begins in the early 1960s, when the narrator was ten years old, although the main characters had already begun their lives in the 1920s. The Colonel, the novel’s central figure, joined the army of the Republic of China in 1935, twenty-one years before the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The narrator delays revealing the village’s name, but describes it according to his grandfather’s account as being situated at the foot of a mountain range, whose origin the locals believe to be a legendary dragon. The peak looming over the village is called “Tiger’s Rump.” When the village name is finally disclosed, it is Shuangjia, home to approximately 5,000 residents belonging to two families, accompanied by the presence of ghost dwellers. Although the ghosts do not exist in physical form, they are constantly present in the minds of many villagers, particularly the elderly. Most of the main characters are not known by their names but by their traits or by nicknames (in Kuwaiti dialect, “‘uluqa”). The narrator’s friends are: Dwarf Tiger, Little Blind Man, the Foundling, and Giraffe. His grandfather is the Old Diviner, and his friend is the Old Policeman. Most of the novel’s characters live through the 1960s, a period during which Chinese people suffered through the Cultural Revolution launched by Chairman Mao to eradicate “impurities” from the communist ideology that had come to power in China in 1949. The intellectuals suffered most from the injustices of this Cultural Revolution. I recall that when I traveled as part of a delegation in August 1988, I managed to find an English story by a famous Chinese writer, and I remember reading it during our train journey from the capital, Beijing, to Inner Mongolia. I have been unable to locate this story in my library since then, but I believe it was by the novelist Mo Yan, born in 1955, who is described as “one of China’s most renowned writers, and whose works are among those least favored by Chinese authorities for publication.” I still remember the story’s cover; it was a critique of the Cultural Revolution.

*Life* consists of approximately 470 pages, which I read in six days, despite my slow reading pace. Dr. Yahya Mokhtar’s translation undoubtedly contributed to the fluidity of the prose and my spontaneous immersion in the novel. In addition to being an outstanding literary work, the novel offers readers a concise overview of Chinese history from the early twentieth century up to 2014. The Colonel, the central character, was captured by the Japanese in 1943 while serving as an officer in the army of the Republic of China, which had entered into war with the Communist forces led by Mao Zedong after World War II. One character who inevitably attracts the reader’s attention is the narrator’s grandfather. In addition to his fear of evil spirits, which he avoids by frequenting temples and visiting graves, he expresses profound opinions; he describes some people as tree bark, noting that “the bark of an old tree is extremely thick, but the skin of a shameless person is the thickest in the world.” The narrator describes certain experiences he underwent as resembling scars left by a hot iron that burned his flesh, and he says the memory never leaves him. I also appreciated the author’s description of workers on an assembly line who master only a single skill, rendering them unqualified to take the initiative in establishing their own private businesses. It is worth noting that the psychological and economic conditions of workers on assembly lines were issues raised in the second half of the twentieth century. Numerous studies on this topic were published by sociology, psychology, and philosophy departments at many universities.

The Colonel’s relationship with his wife, Lin, is one of the most compelling aspects of the novel, inviting readers to reflect deeply on these two characters. The narrator wonders how Lin chose to come to the village to take the Colonel, who had then lost his mind, and accompany him to Shanghai. However, the reason for her loyalty is revealed to the reader at the end of the novel. In their final meeting before her death, she urges him to embrace life. Before taking her last breath, she addressed him: “Remember, life is like a turbulent sea, and rushing toward death is not bravery; rather, it is life that requires courage. Do you remember what you said at the beginning of our acquaintance? There is only one heroic act in this world: to remain committed to life, recognizing its true nature.” She did not forget to mention that she had learned this from reading a book by Romain Rolland.

The narrator was forced, by his father’s arrangement, to leave the village at the age of sixteen, after a scandal engulfed the village, which his grandfather had instigated. His father took him to the nearest port and put him aboard a ship, leaving him to find himself weeks later in the port of Barcelona. There, he disembarked and worked for a shoemaker for several years without being able to improve his material conditions. Circumstances eventually forced him to leave that job and survive on food scraps from garbage bins. He gradually became familiar with the garbage bins in affluent neighborhoods and began selling some of their contents to poorer districts. Slowly, he entered the business of sorting garbage, exporting some materials from bins back to China. His trade flourished, he opened an office in China, and he returned to his village, enabling him to complete the novel’s narrative. Perhaps I should stop detailing further events so that readers may be encouraged to discover them for themselves.

I must also add that I visited China twice after my first trip in August 1988, and I was struck by how much the country had changed—by 180 degrees. In some areas, it has become more modern than Europe and the United States. Yet, what remains dearest to my memory about this great country stems from my first visit. I still remember the Chinese man with whom I climbed a mountain in Jinan, who told me that Mao Zedong was more of a politician than an intellectual. I also recall the men and the only woman who accompanied us during our visits to several villages and towns in a small bus. To combat boredom, I took it upon myself to teach them numbers in Arabic. I took a seat at the front of the bus and recited: “One, two, three,” and they would repeat after me. I still remember the laughter of the late Dr. Abdulrahman Salman (“Abu Fawaz”), who was amused by the way I staved off boredom by teaching Chinese people the Arabic language.

Dr. Hamed Al-Humoud