Ba Jin (or Pa Chin) is the penname of writer Li Yaotang (or Li Feigan) who was born in Chengdu, China. He rebelled against his traditional family, left for Shanghai, and eventually went to France to study. His best known novels are Family and The Love Trilogy: Fog, Rain and Lightning. He was the most famous living Chinese writer when he died at the age of 100 in 2005 and continues to be read widely in China, Taiwan, France, as well as other countries.
Why is Ba Jin's novel, Family, so popular?
Family became popular as a "coming of age" novel for youth, and though it and his other works were banned during the Cultural Revolution, it has been compulsory reading in China for junior high for a long time now. The main characters are three young brothers: Chueh-hsin, Chueh-min and Chueh-hui (Hsin, Min and Hui for this book review). Hsin was the "perfect" elder son who follows his father's demands to give up college, obediently succeeds to his father's job, and accepts an arranged marriage, even though he was in love with his cousin, Mei. Hsin's way of coping was "the philosophy of compliant bows" by swallowing his pride and agreeing to his father's demands with a prim bow.
On the other hand, the younger brothers, Min and Hui were allowed to finish college. Unknown to their parents, they were able to take part in a school newspaper that criticized past traditions and promoted social change for both men and women. College educated young people at that time were reading classic Russian novels and plays. They wanted to have the freedom to make their own choices, unlike older generations in China. This stance included rebelling against the tradition of arranged marriages as well as promoting college classes and short hair for young women. Min was in love with a girl named Chin who was a keen student, and they hoped to get married when they graduated. She was influenced by Norwegian Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and the poetry of Japanese tanka poet, Yosano Akiko.
Meanwhile, Hui was becoming successful in writing articles for the college newspaper to inspire and shake up other students. Because he felt close to a servant girl in his home, he longed to break free from the hierarchical society. Unknown to the brothers, their father promised her to an old, lecherous neighbor man. When Hui found out, it was too late, she had just drowned herself in the river to escape her misery. Their father immediately replaced her with another family servant girl, and off she went in terror to the neighbor the next day. The brothers were shocked and revolted by their father's actions. Soon Min was told that their father had made an arranged marriage for him. Since Min and Hui had witnessed how much Hsin had suffered and continued to suffer; Min decided to leave home and refused to come back until his father agreed to his marriage with Chin; he said, "I'm doing what no one in our family has ever dared to do before - I'm running out on an arranged marriage." Both of Min's brothers admired his courage.
Author Ba Jin Challenged Chinese Writers
Hui's character is somewhat autobiographical. Like Ba Jin, he left home, became a writer and a revolutionary in the capital of Shanghai. Family was written in 1931, close to 20 years before the Communist revolution in 1949. The novels of Leo Tolstoy and the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov influenced Ba Jin's writing. Ba Jin promoted individualism in a way that the growing number of communists did not. He "witnessed and participated in many of the momentous social and political changes that have shaped modern Chinese letters," according to author Robert E. Hegel in his article "A 'Golden Age' for Chinese Writers." "Moreover, he had been persecuted relentlessly during the decade of the Cultural Revolution from 1966-76." Unlike some writers who were broken by their treatment during the Cultural Revolution, he began writing again soon after his "official rehabilitation."
As reported by Hegel, in the speech by Ba Jin for the Fourth National Congress of Chinese Writers Association, Ba Jin "chose to inspire his colleagues by offering a challenge: if China's athletes and musicians can take top honors all around the world, why not Chinese writers as well? Good works will not suffice. . . China should produce another Li Bai, Du Fu [poets], a Guan Hanqing (playwright), a Cao Xueqin (author of The Story of the Stone [Dream of the Red Chamber]) or even her own Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, or Tolstoy!"
References:
Chin, Pa (Ba Jin). Family, translated by Sidney Shapiro, Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, INC, 1972.
Hegel, Robert E. "A 'Golden Age' for Chinese Writers," World Literature Today, 59:3 (Summer, 1985), pp. 386-389.
Carmen Sterba - Carmen Sterba has a B.A. in Far East Asian Studies and an M.A. in Literature. She is keen about Japanese history & Asian American ...
