To Live

“Ever since I was little I’ve been hopeless, as my father would say. My teacher used to say I was a rotten piece of wood that could not be carved. Now that I think about it, they were both right. But at the time that’s not how I saw things. I thought, I’ve got money, I’m the only flame the Xu family still has burning. If I’m extinguished, the Xu family will be finished.”

Although Fugui’s character changes throughout the novel, his self-description is a foreshadowing of things to come. Both Fugui’s children and his only grandchild die, meaning that once Fugui dies, so will the Xu family name. Also important to note is that the extinction of the Xu family line coincides with and represents the end of an era. Fugui’s life spans four decades of Chinese history, and by the end of his life, a new political age is emerging for China.

“I wore a white silk shirt, and my hair was smooth and shiny. Standing in front of the mirror and seeing my head of black, flowing hair, I knew that I looked like a rich man.”

This description demonstrates the differences between the rich and the poor, developing the theme of Political Systems and Class Divides. Not only can the rich afford soft, silk clothes, but they also have the luxury of clean, lustrous hair. This is the antithesis of those living in poverty, whose clothes are rough and made to withstand the fields, and whose hair is often pinned back or under a hat.

“The wildest time was just after the Japanese surrender, when the Nationalist troops entered the city to recover their lost territory. That was truly an exciting day—both sides of the city streets were flooded with people holding small colored flags. Nationalist flags of a white sun against a blue sky jutted out at a slant from all the shops.”

This is an important moment that illustrates the political tensions that serve as the backdrop for the beginning of Fugui’s story. At the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Nationalists rushed to claim the territories the Japanese had surrendered. Fugui, however, here reveals his youthful unawareness of the serious events going on around him. This was an incredibly violent time in Chinese history, but for youthful Fugui, before he loses his wealth, everything is fun and games.

“My wife, Jiazhen, of course knew about my ‘colorful’ romps in the city. Jiazhen was a good woman. For me to have had the good fortune to marry such a virtuous person in this life must have been repayment for having been a barking dog in the last.”

This moment is important because it not only demonstrates Jiazhen’s character but also briefly introduces the idea of reincarnation. While this idea isn’t revisited much throughout the novel, the afterlife and ancestors are recurring motifs that add nuance to the theme of Perseverance in the Face of Hardship, implying that this perseverance potentially spans multiple lifetimes.

“I wondered how many people had died of exhaustion for my ancestors to make this money. It was then that I figured out why my father had insisted on copper coins and not silver: he wanted me to understand this truth. He wanted me to know that money does not come easily.”

This moment comes right after Fugui has lost his family’s wealth and property to Long Er. To pay the debt, Fugui’s father makes Fugui carry load after load of heavy copper coins on his back. This quote is important because throughout the novel the link between the living and their deceased ancestors is a vital component of life. If one fails in life, it doesn’t just hurt oneself or one’s family; it hurts one’s deceased ancestors as well. This is also an important quote because it demonstrates that Fugui’s ancestors worked hard for his wealth—that is, they weren’t born into wealth.

“But actually when your life has been reduced to the level that mine had, you really don’t care about all that much. The old saying ‘Poverty lowers the ambitions of man’ seemed to apply to me.”

Once Fugui becomes poor, he stays that way throughout the novel, and he never tries to attain riches again. For many peasants living in rural China during this time, poverty was a way of life that had been passed down for generations. By contrast, Fugui came from wealth and fell into poverty, but once in that poverty, he couldn’t get out. This illustrates just how difficult it was for poverty to turn into riches, especially during this time in Chinese history.

“We stopped fighting and turned around to see a brigade of Nationalist troops in yellow uniforms standing behind us. There were about ten cannons the size of doors being pulled by horses. The man who had just yelled had a pistol on his belt; he was the official.”

While the Chinese Civil War has been going on in the background, this is the first time it has become a reality for Fugui. When Fugui was younger and wealthy, he was excited by the arrival of the Nationalists. But here, with the weaponry on full display, the severity of the situation becomes apparent.

“When you’re in the kind of situation we were in, bones of the deceased are nothing to be afraid of. If you had to sleep pressed up against them you wouldn’t even have a nightmare.”

Fugui says this of the time when he was nearly starving to death in the tunnels during the Civil War between the Nationalists and the Communists. This description demonstrates just how violent the war was and how the men in the Nationalist Army felt like sitting ducks.

“The Liberation Army let me go home, and they even paid my travel expenses.”

Fugui says this after being freed from the Nationalist Army by the Liberation Army. This moment demonstrates how the Liberation Army, the military arm of the Communist Party, appealed to the common people. While the Nationalist Army conscripts Fugui, the Liberation Army gives him his freedom and even pays for his way home. While this is just one of many acts the Communists took to gain the favor of the people, these initial signs of goodwill toward the poor helped the Communists prevail in the war.

“After I got home, the village began land reform, and I was given the five mu of land that I had originally rented from Long Er. Long Er was really in deep trouble—he was labeled a landlord, and after not even four years of putting on airs, Liberation came and he was finished. The Communist Party confiscated his land and divided it among his tenants.”

This moment occurs after Fugui returns home from the Civil War. Like the previous quote, it demonstrates how the Communist Party appealed to the common man. By taking land from landlords and giving it to the poor farmers who worked the land, the Communist Party became favored by many peasants. However, as this quote also demonstrates, land reform was devastating to the landlords and people who had an abundance of wealth; not only did they lose their property, but many also lost their lives in public executions, including Long Er.

“Youqing was forcing me to lay into him. He was really pissing me off. I hit him with all my strength, and this time he couldn’t take it. He started wailing like a baby, but I didn’t care—I hit him again with all my strength. But Youqing was, after all, still a kid, and before long he really couldn’t take it.”

Right before this moment occurs, Fengxia has been sent away to live with someone in town so that Fugui can afford to put Youqing in school. However, knowing that Fengxia is gone because of him, Youqing refuses to go to school until she is returned home. In the above quote, Fugui is beating Youqing until he agrees to go to school. This moment demonstrates Fugui’s anger, a side not often seen throughout the novel except with his son.

“When Youqing was about ten years old and had been going to school for two years, our life finally seemed to be going a bit better. Fengxia would work with us in the field, and she was at the point where she could carry her own weight. We were raising two lambs, and Youqing was in charge of cutting grass to feed them.”

This describes the typical life of a peasant farmer. Being able to send one child to school (the boy) and afford two lambs demonstrates a level of success and comfort. This moment also portrays the family landscape typical of Fugui’s era and social class, with the entire family living together and working hard to maintain the farm.

“In 1958 the people’s communes were established. Our five mus of land all went to the commune, leaving us only a small plot of land in front of our hut.”

While the first wave of land reform benefitted the peasants by giving them their landlord’s land, the second wave of land reform took that land away and made it communal. This benefited the peasants at first, but after three years of famine the communes could no longer feed the people and they were left starving, without land to farm.

“Up until that time I still hadn’t really given Jiazhen’s illness much consideration; I just thought that ever since Jiazhen married me she had never had a good life. Now that she was getting older, I should give her the opportunity to rest.”

This moment reveals how Fugui’s character has shifted throughout his life. In his youth, he thought only of himself and even physically abused his wife. Here, in his older age, he appreciates Jiazhen and even demonstrates remorse for the hard life she has had with him.

“Back when all this had started, all it took was one word from the team leader and we had all smashed our pots, and now with another word from him we all had to go buy new ones.”

This description demonstrates the hierarchy under communism. The team leader, who has authority over the people in the commune, receives his orders from the higher-ups in town: The revolution has merely replaced one hierarchical system with another.

“The teacher opened her mouth, but instead of yelling back she began to cry. The teachers from the classrooms nearby came over and pulled me out. Once I was outside, the teachers surrounded me and started babbling at me. I couldn’t understand a single word out of their mouths.”

Right before this moment, Fugui had come to Youqing’s school and physically beat him for not studying. In response, Youqing’s teacher calls Fugui a fascist and a Nationalist. Fugui doesn’t understand why she’s so angry, but it’s clear that there is a sociopolitical divide between Fugui and Youqing’s teacher. Youqing’s teacher, a younger, educated woman, is clearly opposed to corporal punishment, while Fugui, a poor peasant farmer, accepts corporal punishment as a fundamental part of raising children.

“After the dining hall closed, no one in the village had any real resources.” 

This illustrates the devastating effects that the Communist land reform policy had on the people whom it was intended to help. Food—or the lack of it—is a persistent concern for the book’s characters, revealing how precarious their existence is.

“When I die, don’t wrap me in a gunnysack. You have to use a fast knot to tie gunnysacks, so I won’t be able to undo it when I get to the other world. Just use a clean piece of cloth and that’ll be fine. And before you bury me, remember to give me a bath.”

This quote comes from Jiazhen, who is giving Fugui instructions on how to bury her after she dies. This moment is important because it demonstrates the emphasis that is placed on death and the afterlife at various points throughout the novel. While religion is never directly talked about, it’s clear that Fugui and others place a heavy emphasis on burial arrangements and the idea of being reunited with the ancestors.

“When the Cultural Revolution hit, the whole town turned upside down. The streets were crawling with people, and there were fights every day. People were even beaten to death. No one from the countryside dared go into town. Compared with what was happening in town, the countryside was much more peaceful. Everything was just like before, except you didn’t feel safe when you were asleep at night.”

Here, Fugui describes the effects of the Cultural Revolution. While life is largely the same in rural areas, the town has been turned upside down with violence. This is because the towns were the hubs of the revolution. The revolution captured the attention of the young and educated people living in towns, while the poor, uneducated peasants living in rural areas were often out of the loop regarding the rapid sociopolitical changes happening as a result of the revolution.

“We were just your average everyday folk. It wasn’t that we didn’t care about national issues, it was simply that we didn’t understand that kind of stuff.”

This quote reiterates the above idea that the uneducated peasants living in rural areas were often out of the loop regarding national issues. The Cultural Revolution relied heavily on rhetorical campaigns and slogans to win the appeal of the people, but many rural peasants were illiterate or too concerned with basic survival to engage with political issues. As Fugui says, it’s not that they didn’t care but that the revolution appealed to the educated people, not the poor.

“The twenty-odd guys who came with Erxi were working hard. Not only were they shaking the heavens with their gongs and drums, but they were screaming with all their might. Their pockets were bulging, and when they saw the village women and children they’d throw them pieces of candy. I was stunned by the extravagance and kept thinking about how much money they were throwing away.”

This quote comes from Fugui, who is describing Erxi and Fengxia’s wedding. Fugui’s focus here is on the money that Erxi spent on the wedding. Erxi’s open and generous display of his wealth reassures Fugui that Fengxia will be taken care of. The fact that Fugui is stunned by Erxi’s extravagance reiterates the idea that it was virtually a lifetime ago when Fugui had access to that kind of wealth.

“When I’d go into town it would be with the same fervor and enthusiasm I had going into town when I was young, only this time I was going for a different reason.”

This quote from Fugui describes how he feels overjoyed and excited when going into town to visit Fengxia and Erxi. Important to note here is the character change that has happened within Fugui. When he was young, the happiness he derived from going into town was self-centered, but now he associates town with the happiness he gets from seeing his daughter. This change demonstrates Fugui’s changed focus from himself to his family.

“Meanwhile, the Cultural Revolution was raging more and more intensely in town. All the streets were filled with big character posters. The people who hung them up were a bunch of lazy bums. When they hung new posters up, they didn’t even bother to take the old ones down.”

This quote comes from Fugui, who is describing the increasingly palpable effects of the Cultural Revolution on the town. While Fugui continues to venture into town to visit Fengxia, the violence and political rhetoric of the revolution are only intensifying. By calling the people who hang the posters “lazy bums,” Fugui is demonstrating his disconnect with the people at the very heart of the revolution. While he has spent most of his life laboring in the fields just to survive, here the young people can’t even bother to remove the old posters. In this way, this moment reflects the cultural divide between the rural peasants and many of the town residents.