WOMEN IN TWENTIETH CENTURY CHINESE LITERATURE

Born of the Same Roots is a collection of stories by Chinese authors published in America in 1981. The volume deals specifically with women in twentieth century China, with contributions from both male and female writers. Many of the stories are by writers who are relatively unknown outside the confines of their own countries: writers who worked under the strict censorship of the Kuomintang and the Communist régime, writers who were persecuted by the Gang of Four, writers of the new, rebellious generation in Taiwan and other intellectual emigrés living in the United States. Despite their disparate backgrounds, however, all these writers have one thing in common: their concern with social injustice and in particular, the status of women.

The collection contains nineteen stories about women in a country in which, over the space of two generations there has been a shift from believing that "it is better to raise geese than daughters" to an acceptance that women "hold up half the sky". These stories invite us into the world of the Chinese woman over the last century, offering a window on her sorrows, her struggle, her courage, her victories and her fatalism. The book provides a livelier account than history itself as, according to the anthology's editor, "this literature is the flesh and breath to the bare bones of history".

"Born of the Same Roots" - the story used for the title, is by Yang Ching Chu, born in Taiwan in 1931. An active proponent of human rights, Yang was consequently imprisoned under the government of Chiang Kai Shek's son. In "Born of the Same Roots" he describes three sisters. The oldest was born when the family was living in poverty and had carried her sisters on her back while working in the fields: "From the age of eight, she'd never eaten a meal at home she hadn't earned". The two younger sisters benefitted from the later wealth of the family (as the wheel of fortune turned their father became the owner of two flourishing factories) and had an entirely different upbringing: they studied, had a trousseau, a dowry and could make auspicious marriages. In contrast, the first daughter had married a pedicab driver whom she had only met on her wedding night. Later on she was to reflect: "He was pretty good looking but straightforward to the point of being slightly doltish".

Although Yang Ching Chu's story may not be the most accomplished of the collection, it was most certainly chosen for its symbolism. Throughout the nineteen texts, women consistently appear as victims of male prejudice and macho traditions regardless of their social position. In the story described above, it is the oldest daughter of a poor family who is abused by those nearest to her and sacrificed to paternal control. In "Little Liu" by Ling Shu Hua (born in 1900) a girl of noble birth educated in an expensive college rejects a traditional marriage in favour of more liberal trends. At twenty five, spent and resigned to her fate, she has a selfish, voluble husband, several daughters and a son who has been brought up as a little emperor.

"A Rose in June", by the prominent Taiwanese writer Chen Ying Chen (born in 1936) who has also suffered political persecution, is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful stories in the collection. It is set against the backdrop of the Vietnam war: a black American soldier falls in love with Emmy, a sentimental bar girl. The position of blacks in the United States is juxtaposed against Emmy's fate of loving men while denied the right to setup her own home: "I'm a bartered bondmaid... a bondmaid is a girl who was sold by her family as a small child". She has been sold as was her mother before her and her mother's mother. Born of the Same Roots tells the story of all women, all equal before the injustice they face and their destiny: to serve men, reproduce, obey and remain silent, generation after generation, century upon century.

Born of the Same Roots reflects the history of Chinese women forty years ago. It is an anthology of stories from the twenties, thirties and forties when the scandalous condition of women was beginning to awaken the interest of both Chinese intellectuals and the men and women who wrote these stories, having left their home country for Taiwan, Hong Kong and the United States of America.

Not all of them left, however. In the early twenties, Lu Xun, the founder of modern Chinese literature, wrote his masterpiece "The New Year Sacrifice", the story of a woman cursed by her own misery. The protagonist, a maid who has lost both her husband and only son, is forbidden from touching the dishes for the new year's dinner. Effectively her mistress scolds her as she prepares to lay the table for the dinner. Her employer hurries to burn incense to purify the air contaminated by the poor maid's disgrace. In the evening of the first night of the year, the maid loses her senses. According to popular tradition she should be cut in two in the netherworld and each of her men given a half. These are not only the words of the ignorant common people but also those of her educated, even scholarly, employers. The maid goes mad from persecution and dies of misery. "The New Year Sacrifice" was not the only story of this genre to come from the pen of Lu Xun. As he himself stated: "I dedicated myself to writing in the hope of awakening the sleeping soul of my people". Originally a doctor, he changed his profession to that of a writer because he believed "first we must heal the spirit and then the body".

Similarly, in the twenties, the writer Ding Ling, who was to be hailed and reviled throughout the Revolution, created a daring female character in her bookThe Diary of Miss Sophie. Miss Sophie is a young woman concerned not only with affairs of the heart (although this in itself would constitute daring) but also with sex. The fact that the protagonist has been given a foreign name already indicates some kind of deception, perhaps a way to conceal the feeling of a new generation of Chinese women or even her own feelings. In the thirties, in another novel entitled When I Was in Xia Village, Ding Ling writes about an adolescent girl who has been raped by Japanese troops during their invasion of China and on orders from the Chinese governor, remains with the enemy to collect intelligence. When the war ends, her village refuses to let her return: women who have never experienced rape stone her in a scene which was later echoed during the Cultural Revolution when even children were taught to spit on mistresses and single mothers.

Another important writer of the period, and one who is still alive, is Ba Jin. Born into a feudal family in 1904 he studied in Europe as did Lu Xun. His disgust at the way women and youngsters were treated by a despotic gerontocracy was so great that the larger part of his work revolves around this theme and the decline of feudal society. His novels have been widely translated and include Trilogy of Love, The Family, The Garden of Repose and Snowy Night.

Following the Liberation of China in 1949 there arose an almost miraculous recognition of women as equals, which began by their being given a name. From that point on, First Daughter, Second Daughter, Third, Ninth (just as soldiers or prisoners were referred to), Older Sister, Younger Sister, Li's Wife, Chu's Daughter, Her, Little One became obsolete and each woman became the dignified possessor of a name. In the ranks of guerilla units women giving birth to female babies were as likely to give them symbolically heroic names reflecting their faith in a better world, in preference to the gentler, feminine names.

After receiving a name came, naturally, a place in society for Chinese women. The marriage act forbade marriages arranged between children at birth and it also abolished both match-makers and concubines. In the same spirit, women were allowed to retain their maiden names and the minimum age for marriage was set at eighteen. In addition, widows were advised to remarry thus gaining their freedom from the traditional head of the family.

Many stories tell of brides who committed suicide on the eve of their wedding day or on their wedding night or of women who were handed over to the family of their fiancé even if he had died, condemned to live as widows, ('widow' really meant 'maid') and abused for having brought bad luck to the marriage. There were also stories of poor wives contracted out as concubines to rich men to give them male heirs if their own wives were sterile, such as occurs in "Slave Mother" by Rou Shi, a writer executed by the Kuomintang in 1931. In this particular tale, after the three-year contract expires, the slave mother leaves the son she bore for her master and who will cry for her to return home to her husband and their child who no longer recognises her.

In fact, all these stories show us an entirely different view of Chinese women from the common Western perception of them as apathetic, unfeeling and prepared to do anything. Rather they are shown as women in pain, their hearts torn to shreds, despairing and completely alone under the yolk of submission to which fate has condemned them. Off they were sent, their faces covered in the wedding sedan, to be jostled over the hills into the hands of an unknown despot of a husband and the tyranny of the in-laws. Cut off from their childhood homes, separated from their children as is the case in "Slave Mother", isolated from each other and sold to men who oppressed them, they were treated consistently as saleable goods, hostages. The thirties in China were years of suffering and social collapse followed by the announcing of the Revolution and its success, years in which Chinese literature flourished.

In fact, from 1949 onwards, writers accompanied the changes taking place in their country with the exception of the Cultural Revolution when they were suppressed. However, the Cultural Revolution would come to an end and the spirit of the nation, purified by its suffering, was to reappear strengthened. Now that the barriers created by traditional mentalities had been more or less removed, women began to take part in public life, work together and compete with men. Not as fast as was to be hoped nor as fast as they deserved. Nevertheless, in the field of literature their determination and depth made them equals to their male comrades.

In 1982, while I was living in Beijing, I interviewed Shen Rong, one of China's most famous modern writers and the author of Middle Age, a work which has been translated into several languages. According to Shen Rong, the best writers in China were women. This is an opinion shared by the public. Can we interpret this as meaning that the radical political reforms of the Middle Kingdom have really brought Chinese women independence? Absolutely not! Rome was not built in a day and Shen Rong's response was that although Chairman Mao had claimed that women held up half the sky, in reality they hardly supported even a tiny comer.

To turn once more to literature, however, the 1978-79 volume of Award-winning Chinese Stories includes a few female writers producing works in the so-called "scar literature" genre in reaction to the Gang of Four's government. Once out of prison, these writers took up their pens with renewed fervour even though some of them had been imprisoned for so long they could hardly remember how to write the characters. Ding Ling, for instance, suffered from night blindness after having been kept for so long in a dark cell. Nevertheless, this is still a rather bleak period in the history of Chinese literature. After having been forcibly silenced up till now, what writers were concerned about was recounting what had happened, what the Chinese people had gone through during that ill-fated government. Because of this, their work depends more heavily on reportage than actual creativity, making it more documentary than literary.

In the 1980-81 volume of Award-winning Chinese Stories there is visible progress in the art of fiction. There is freer use of the imagination and the emergence of firmer structures with a perfecting of style. Stories are more leisurely, calmly marking the start of a new literary trend. The themes dealt with also become broader and include private conflicts, love, humour and even psychological problems. The writers themselves, under the influence of foreign literature, leave behind realism and romanticism to adopt a modem style, or at least a more original style with greater purity of language.

In 1982 seven female writers were finally featured in an anthology of their best known work. Nevertheless, the number of women writing in China today is much lower than that of men. Out of 3016 professional writers only 279 are women although in a country with such deeply-rooted male traditions this is fairly representative. These female writers cover a wide variety of subjects, particularly those involving women.

Yan Mo, in her novel Song of Youth denounces the senselessness of the woman's lot in China. In Yan's opinion, the greatest virtue of women lies in their ignorance. Song of Youth tells the story of a woman who has been married in the old tradition but who falls in love with a modern, idealistic man. She leaves her husband and ends up being imprisoned. Yan Mo's work focuses in detail on marriage, women's lowly status in the home and divorce.

Xiao Hon, who died at a young age, demonstrated a sharp perception of the fate of women in her novel The Field of Life and Death while Chang Jie whose renowned work Leaden Wings is famed for coining the expression: "If you are the most unhappy person in the world it must be because you are a woman".

Tie Ning gave up her university studies while still a young girl to become a professional writer. Her stories have attracted special attention both at home and abroad with their blend of calm and inner tension weaving stories within stories. Her novel Haystacks focuses on women in their suffering, courage, frustrations and determination.

It is not only women who write about the plight of women: there are also male writers such as Zhang Xian, author of A Remote Corner Forgotten by Love. The novel tells the story of a family of peasants living in the Chinese hinterland. Their first daughter, born in the year of a good harvest, is called Cunni or "middle foot" while the second, born during a drought, is called Huangmei meaning" born in a year of famine". The fate of the two girls differs drastically. Cunni has a secret boyfriend with whom she has a child. After this event she is punished and lives out her life in drudgery. Huangmei is married off to a wealthy man although she is really in love with a poor neighbour. One fine day, the comrades from the Party arrive to criticise the doctrines of Confucius. Rounded up obediently, the peasants listen attentively and with admiration. Huangmei, however, has expected another kind of talk, perhaps in the hope that somebody would rehabilitate her older sister or save her from the rich stranger. Perhaps she hoped that they would talk of love but in reality the word "love" is forbidden as are love songs and intimate gestures.

Zhang Xian portrays the life of peasant women through the lives of these two women, one of them denied love, one of them punished for it. Later on, another law was to arrive in the village. This ordered a public building to be erected where young people who had chosen their own partners could marry by signing a piece of paper with a picture of Chairman Mao on it. For Cunni and Huangmei, however, this law had arrived too late.

Both the short story and the novel have made great strides forward in twentieth century China and there is now an annual award for the best short story. In fact, the short story is a genre which has much in keeping with the Chinese spirit: the sobriety of discourse, metaphorical expression and the influence of poetry.

In bringing to a close this analysis of the role of women in society and their creative role, it is appropriate to turn once more to the words of Vivian Ling Hsu: "Whereas history records the external events, fiction reflects the mind and soul of society". Surely, the Middle Kingdom would not be the country it is today had it not, forty years ago, given its women a legitimate place in society.

*A graduate in English Language, Maria Ondina Braga taught English and Portuguese in Macau and the Institute of Foreign Languages in Beijing (1982). She has produced many works of fiction including, in 1968, a collection of short stories inspired by China entitled A China Fica ao Lado and in 1984 a novel called Angústia em Pequim. She contributes regularly to newspapers and literary reviews and is dedicated to the translation of works by famous authors.