The Land of Sorrow (悲情大地) by Shuping Yao (姚蜀平)
Touching, heart wrenching, thought-provoking, exceptionally educational. That is what The Land of Sorrow impresses me. It is like a time machine bringing its readers back to the traumatic Great Cultural Revolution. It is a novel, but it is also a history book. The major events that form the background of this book are as accurate as any scholarly work. The stories may be fictitious, but identical or similar versions happened in real life.
The Land of Sorrow offers a powerful way to understand the profound impact of the Great Cultural Revolution. The 10-year long Great Cultural Revolution was a political movement full of tragedies, violence and absurdity. Up to 100 million people suffered from it one way or another. The estimated death toll ranges from 1.5 million to 20 million. One can easily find plenty of documents about the Great Cultural Revolution. The facts can be mind boggling and abstract in some sense. The tremendous suffering of people in various ways is hard to be reflected by a few numbers. Many personal stories have been told, but tragedies vary from one family to another. Diving into one person’s story may lead to losing sight of the big picture. For people who did not live through the Great Cultural Revolution, the Land of Sorrow may provide the best way to understand it by allowing living through it in an engaging manner.
Yao is in the best position to write such a book. She grew up, went to college and worked at the center of the Great Cultural Revolution– Beijing. She personally experienced typical tragedies of the brutal and absurd revolution – her mother was beaten to death, her father – a graduate of the elite Whampoa Military Academy – committed suicide, her brother lost one eye… More importantly, Yao is a widely respected scholar, and considered one of the leading Chinese intellectuals among such people as Prof. Lizhi Fang who helped the awakening of an entire generation in 1980s. She is a scientist turned historian and novelist. One can easily see the systematical and rigorous approach in her works; The Land of Sorrow is no exception.
I lived through the Great Cultural Revolution, but I was too young to know or understand what was going on. Though I have limited interest in fictions, but Yao’s book grabed me immediately. To me, the stories of the book are as if there were real, not fictitious because I know many true events are almost identical to them. I heard that Yao did extensive research to gather materials for the book and ensure nothing contradicts historical facts.
The focus of the book is on the Great Cultural Revolution, but the stories span three decades providing a holistic understanding of the Great Cultural Revolution including its cause and ramifications. The book depicts people from almost all walks of life – intellectuals, government officials, workers, peasants, students, military officers… It brings its readers to all types of locations – the national capital Beijing, small cities, towns, countryside, labor camps... It truly provides a 360º view of the Chinese society during those tumultuous years. Although the book is a novel, but it has plenty of historical facts including accurate data. One can treat this book as a collection of meticulously selected actual events during the dramatic period.
The main character Shang, a doctor and beauty, embraced her after graduating from a medical school, but soon a well plotted rape by a senior official broke her dreams and ruined her young life. Seeking justice led to even more injustice to her. The victim of a crime is the one to be punished. That is normal in China. She witnessed the darkest side of the Chinese regime, but also experienced the most beautiful aspects of human beings – love, kindness, generosity, courage, persistence… Her house rest at a guest house is something still happening in China today. Her life in a labor camp provides a close-up look at an institution of totalitarian regime that is frequently mentioned in all kinds of literature, but understood by few.
The family suicide of Xia, Shang’s friend and confidant who lent her a hand when she needed the most, represents a wave of suicides resulted from the Great Cultural Revolution including many prominent people of China: Lao She - one of the most famous writers, the most prominent translator Fu Lei and his wife, popular actress Shangguan Yunzhu, renowned educator Li Guangtia, Mao’s secretary Tian Jiaying… There must have been at least tens of thousands of suicides resulted from the brutal physical and mental abuse during the Great Cultural Revolution. Xia’s son Dongshen who was adopted by Shang eventually went to the US to study. His tracing of his parents’ time in Cambridge where Harvard and MIT are located makes the tragedy even more heartbreaking.
The armed fight between different factions was demonstrated vividly by what happened in a county where Shang lived during the early part of the Great Cultural Revolution. This gives readers a good sense about the militant aspect of the Great Cultural Revolution.
Shang’s romance and 10-year long marriage are twisted; another tragedy resulted from the Great Cultural Revolution.
Though many events in the book are dramatic and heart-wrenching, the author also depicts the day to day life of ordinary people in a very realistic manner. The food ration, the residence registration system, the provision of housing, the primitive transportations, etc. are all documentary like.
Maybe due to my interest in having this book as a history-novel, I wish the book could briefly depict the internal struggle of the CCP leadership showing how Mao plotted and managed to purge his rivals one after another in order to maintain his power.
Again, the book describes major historic events with high fidelity like a scholarly book. I have noticed only one error or typo. The Chinese population at the start of Great Cultural Revolution, I believe, was about 700 million, not 900 million.
This is a book well worth reading, especially for those who did not experience the Great Cultural Revolution. For those who lack the background of Chinese culture, this is a particularly good read for learning a part of modern Chinese history that had a profound impact on all aspects of China, and is still highly relevant today.