To Live

Fugui starts by saying, “Those years after I returned home were difficult, but I guess you could say they went smoothly. Fengxia and Youqing got bigger by the day, and me, I got older and older” (87). Fengxia is now 17 and beautiful, but she most likely won’t get married because she is deaf and mute, and Youqing is 12 and going to school in town. At first, Fugui didn’t think he’d have enough money to send Youqing to school, so in an effort to save money, he sent Fengxia away to live with an elderly man in town. However, Youqing was devastated by the loss of his sister, and Fengxia kept coming back home in the middle of the night, crying. Eventually, Fugui realized that he couldn’t live without Fengxia by his side, and he allowed her to come back home.

By the time Youqing is 10, Fugui feels that their fortunes are improving: “Fengxia could carry her own weight. We were raising two lambs, and Youqing was in charge of cutting grass to feed them” (98). Youqing grows attached to the lambs and continually runs back and forth from school to home to feed the lambs. This makes his shoes wear out incredibly fast, and Fugui gets upset at Youqing over his shoes. It’s clear that in many moments, Fugui is too harsh with Youqing.

Eventually, Fugui and his family experience another setback: “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. The village head was no longer called the village head—he was now called the team leader” (100). After this change, the villagers line up in a row each morning and then go out to the fields to work. Jiazhen is upset about losing their land because it has allowed their family to survive for the past 10 years. They even lose all their cooking utensils to the commune. The team leader says:

The village is setting up a communal dining hall. Smash your pots and nobody will have to worry about cooking at home anymore. You’ll save a lot of energy and at the same time we’ll all be on our way to communism. If you’re hungry, just pick yourself up and head on over to the dining hall. We’ve got fish and meat—so much you’ll choke to death (102).

The village takes everyone’s supplies of rice, salt, firewood, and any animals. Youqing is devastated by the loss of his lambs.

At first, there is plenty of food in the dining hall, and Youqing is allowed to visit his lambs every day. Everyone in the village is happy and well-fed. Then, the team leader comes back from town with a cauldron for smelting. All the smashed pots and iron sheets are collected into a pile, and each person in the village is expected to help smelt the iron, which is a long and tedious process.

During this time, Jiazhen gets sick and is unable to walk or work without getting tired. On the night that Fugui and his family are to watch the smelting pot, Fugui falls asleep and Jiazhen falls down, unable to get back up. The cauldron falls over and burns everything around it. While this initially seems like a disaster, the intensified heat miraculously smelts the iron, leaving Fugui a hero. The team leader says, “We’ll be able to make three bombs out of this iron, and all of them are going to be dropped on Taiwan” (118).

A town doctor diagnoses Jiazhen with soft bone disease, or the adult equivalent of rickets. The doctor says there is no cure and tells Jiazhen to rest. However, she refuses to rest because she doesn’t want to be a burden on the family. Around this time, the food reserves in the communal dining hall are diminishing, and Youqing’s lambs are slaughtered. After all the animals have been eaten, the team leader says, “[T]he dining hall will be closed. Everybody better hurry up and go into town to buy pots. It’ll be just like before: Every family will cook for themselves” (120). This is when the village starts keeping track of work points, which is a “unit indicating the quantity and quality of labor performed and the amount of payment earned in rural communities” (120). Even though Fugui is a strong worker, they aren’t able to earn that many points due to Jiazhen’s illness.

Fugui goes to Youqing’s school to surprise him, but after realizing that he isn’t studying, Fugui beats Youqing in front of his teacher and classmates. The teacher throws Fugui out and calls him a fascist and a nationalist. Fugui feels bad for embarrassing Youqing at school. Youqing doesn’t talk to him for a month. In an attempt to reconcile, Fugui uses the last of their resources to buy Youqing a lamb, which once again makes Youqing happy. Youqing’s gym teacher comes to the house and tells Fugui that Youqing is an amazing runner and that one day he might compete nationally.

After it rains for an entire month, the rice crops are ruined. The older people in the village think they will surely starve, but the younger generations think the government will save them. The team leader continually goes into town to get help but always comes back empty-handed. As a result, Fugui and Jiazhen decide to sell Youqing’s lamb. Fugui promises Youqing that he won’t sell the lamb to a slaughterhouse, but he does anyway. In return, he receives 40 jin of rice, which, thanks to Jiazhen’s resourcefulness, lasts nearly three months. With nothing left to eat, the people in the village begin eating old roots. Jiazhen disappears into town and comes back with a coveted small bag of rice. That night they feast on a bowl of rice, but the villagers surround their hut and demand that Fugui share with them. The team leader shoos them away and then asks if Fugui can spare any rice. Jiazhen gives him a small handful.

Finally, the rice harvest comes along, and although it’s not a plentiful harvest, it’s enough to feed the people in the village. Jiazhen’s health gets worse, and she now has to stay in bed. Jiazhen talks a lot about death, and Fugui says to her, “I probably should have died long ago. So many people died during the war, but somehow I survived. Every day I told myself that I had to stay alive so I could come home and see you. And now you’re just going to abandon us?” (148). Around this time, Youqing’s principal, the wife of the county magistrate, loses too much blood while giving birth. As a result, the schoolchildren are brought to the hospital to donate blood. Only Youqing is a match. To save the principal, the nurses just keep taking Youqing’s blood despite the fact that his face has turned white and his lips blue. Fugui recalls, “Youqing had already given more than his body could take, but out came another doctor saying there still wasn’t enough blood. The fucking asshole doing the blood work extracted almost every drop of blood from my son’s body” (151). Youqing dies as a result of the hospital’s negligence, but the principal lives.

Fugui rushes to the hospital and finds out the magistrate is none other than his old war friend Chunsheng. The nostalgic reunion helps calm Fugui’s sadness, but Fugui tells Chunsheng that he owes him a life. Fugui buries Youqing next to his father’s grave and is afraid to tell Jiazhen about Youqing because of her own declining health. Fugui tells her that Youqing is in the hospital, but after many nights she comes to realize he’s gone. Fugui carries her to Youqing’s grave and, instead of goodbye, she says, “Youqing won’t be able to run down this trail to school anymore” (161).