The True Story of Ah Q: Depiction of a Chinese archetype of the 1920s

Cho Kwan-hee Professor, Department of and Literature Sangmyung University

t is said that a novel is a story created in the imagination of an author. A novel reveals human nature and an image of society through the actions and ideas of its characters. An author’s thoughts I are reflected clearly in a novel. A novel representative of an era is particularly intertwined with history, and there are many such novels within contemporary Chinese fiction. The novel discussed in this article explores the reality and issues of an era in , and the authors’ solutions to those issues.

○● Faltering people in an era of turbulence From the Chinese perspective, Chinese contemporary history, which started with the Opium War with Great Britain in 1840, is filled with extreme self-contempt. Until the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, not a day passed in China without internal troubles, including the Taiping Rebellion, and external troubles, such as imperialist

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military intervention for influence over China. In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution spearheaded by Sun Yatsen (孫文) led to the end of Chinese feudalism, which had lasted for more than 2000 years, since Emperor Qin Shi unified China. Even after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, however, troubles persisted. In order to prevent civil war, Sun Yatsen gave up his presidency to Yuan Shikai (袁世凱), the strongest military figure of the time. Yuan aspired to become emperor, and Japan spared no effort in aiding him, offering financial backing and cooperation. Japan submitted a list of 21 demands to Yuan Shikai’s government, and Yuan, desperate for outside help to maintain his power, accepted these demands. On January 1, 1916, Yuan finally declared himself emperor. The Western powers that had been implicitly supporting him turned their backs on his anachronistic return to imperialism. Warlords who had been Yuan’s trusted followers betrayed him and declared independence. Forced into a corner, Yuan Shikai retracted his declaration in March of 1916, only two months after he took power as emperor. He died in June of the same year, disappointed and angry. Following his death, warlords in various parts of the country controlled their own territories, and China fell into a state of anarchy. The warlords sought horizontal and vertical alliances, dividing the country at whim to satisfy their interests. Failing to comprehend the state of affairs, the people of the country were left bewildered and helpless.

○● An outcry by from the “iron house” Lu Xun (魯迅), a prolific Chinese writer, was a young man with pent-up anger about this era of turbulence. He went to Japan to study medicine, determined to become a doctor to alleviate the suffering of the Chinese people. He soon realized that the suffering of the Chinese people came not from their bodies, but from their minds. He quit studying medicine and returned to China, but he failed to make a breakthrough in his cause for

135 Summer 2012�POSRI Chindia Quarterly some time. When a friend suggested writing, he responded as follows:

“Imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation. But you know since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a good turn?”

My friend’s reply was decisive. “But if a few awake, you can't say there is no hope of destroying the iron house.” - Excerpt from the Preface to Call to Arms

Lu Xun ended up bending to his friend’s will, and his first story, A Madman’s Diary, was published. The new writing style and shocking plot of this novel made Lu an instant celebrity. He later joined the ranks of contemporary Chinese writers.

○● Ah Q, the embodiment of typical Chinese self-hypnotism After the success of his first short story, Lu Xun released one novel after another. The True Story of Ah Q (阿Q正傳) was first published as a series in the Beijing Morning News from December 4, 1921. Lu stated that he wanted to disclose the general weakness of the Chinese people. Intellectuals in a country that has been devastated by a more powerful country face the law of the jungle, where only the fittest survive. According to social evolutionists, this is the underlying law of history and development. Lu also had this idea in the beginning. The problem was that the general public did not try to understand the real issues, nor were they even aware of them. To make this point, Lu published a series about a fool, Ah Q, whose exact name

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is not given, who lives in a rural farming village.

In addition to the uncertainty regarding Ah Q’s surname, personal name, and place of origin, there is even some uncertainty regarding his “background.” This is because the people of Weichuang only made use of his services or treated him as a laughing-stock, without ever paying the slightest attention to his “ background.” - Excerpt from The True Story of Ah Q

Ah Q is a day laborer with no home or regular job. He lives on odd jobs, from cutting barley and pounding rice to paddling a boat. However, Ah Q cannot put himself in anyone else’s shoes, and believes himself to be better than others, when actually he is being ridiculed. Ah Q represents the common man in rural China at that time. This fact made many readers of the Beijing Morning News feel uneasy. They were moved, as the story of Ah Q was a story about them. Ah Q, a common man in an unremarkable environment, is certainly as unimportant as a grain of sand, but despite his trivial existence, truth is revealed through his connection to the world. There is a saying, “To see the world in a grain of sand.” Before the old social institutions are abolished and a new society is created, the public must be awakened to build the power that can change society. Perhaps Lu Xun’s message in The True Story of Ah Q was this: a revolution that fails to awaken the public is false; the true goal of revolution is to awaken the public, not to topple autocracy.

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