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BOOK REVIEW • CHINA IN TEN WORDS have developed through past decades, in the pro- cess revealing forgotten contours of China’s recent Chinese whispers history. Novelist Yu Hua’s history of 10 words in China Green shoots As a novelist, Yu has a natural advantage in cap- is a revealing and deeply personal portrait of a turing the speci#c. "e book is organized like a complex country series of musical movements, each with soloists and small groups playing renditions on a theme. In China, this tactic would seem likely to result in cacophony, but Yu’s narrative device of the 10 hina’s history words keeps the storyline simple and focused. over the last "e 10 words are more than just commonly 50 years often used terms; many are central to Chinese identity. Cappears fractured and “People,” or renmin, for example, arguably has a disjointed beyond repair. broader signi#cance in Chinese than in English. Few if any continuities "e same word used in “People’s Republic of are apparent between China,” “People’s Square,” and renminbi (“the peo- the barefoot doctors and ple’s money”), renmin used to be a weighty phrase. big character posters of But since China’s reform and opening, “the people” the Cultural Revolution, has fractured into many di!erent identities: neti- and the gleaming sky- zens, stock traders, fund holders, migrant laborers scrapers and profusion and so on, Yu writes. “‘"e people’ has become of knock-o! products nothing more than a shell company, utilized by today. Most of the time, di!erent eras to position di!erent products in the Chinese simply gloss marketplace.” over their thorny past, "e discussion of renmin, which leads the book, preferring to focus on revolves around the pro-democracy rallies in Bei- the material wealth of jing in the spring of 1989, where Yu's experiences the present. taught him “the real meaning of ‘the people.’” To "is willful forget- the author, the meaning of “the people” is not the ting of China’s recent state-down organization that has occupied its past has given birth to name, but the mass of individuals that sometimes several dissimilar o!- stands in opposition to it. spring. It has resulted "is theme echoes throughout the book. "e in the idea that China more modern terms, including “grassroots,” “copy- has no unifying value cat” and “bamboozle,” similarly emphasize the system, beyond getting ingenuity and chaos of democratic forces that have rich. It has also given sprouted up through the cracks in a repressive China in Ten Words rise to pockets of revolutionary nostalgia – such as political environment. Yu Hua former Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai’s cam- In Yu’s eyes, China’s “copycat” (shanzhai) cre- Pantheon, 240 pages paign to revive Cultural Revolution songs – that ations, like Blockberry phones, Nibe shoes and US$25.95 jar with modern reality. fake degree programs, represent the grassroots Yet certain qualities must have endured challenging the elite, the popular challenging between centrally planned Communism and the o$cial and the weak challenging the strong. capitalism with Chinese characteristics, for the He paints the “grassroots” element – the disad- simple reason that some Chinese people have lived vantaged multitude that are not always welcome through, and sometimes thrived, through both. Yu in the societal establishment – as one of China’s Hua, the celebrated author of novels including “To greatest strengths. Live” and “Brothers,” is one such person. In “China For example, much of China’s current wealth in Ten Words,” his #rst non-#ction work, Yu draws has been created by grassroots entrepreneurs heavily on personal experiences to knit together exploiting opportunities that no one else would be China’s ruptured history. willing to. Examples abound of Chinese who have Part memoir and part linguistic history, the grown rich on empires of trash recycling and but- book centers around 10 iconic terms in modern ton manufacturing. “China’s economic miracle of China: people, leader, reading, writing, Lu Xun, the past thirty years, it’s fair to say, is an agglomera- revolution, disparity, grassroots, copycat and bam- tion of countless individual miracles created at the boozle. “"is tiny lexicon gives me ten pairs of eyes grassroots level,” Yu writes. with which to scan the contemporary Chinese Here again, Yu traces a fascinating and often scene from di!erent vantage points,” Yu writes. overlooked connection with China’s revolution- "e book maps how the meanings of these words ary past. "e Cultural Revolution also cultivated a 20 China Economic Review • November 2012 ADAPTATION: Yu Hua, center, speaks at a press event for the film adaption of his book "To Live" maginechina I Chinese doing their best to avoid appear- boy but utterly bizarre to a foreign reader. The book presents ing on “rich lists” for fear of becoming For example, he recounts the anxiety he targets of government inquisitions. felt over not knowing what to report as the ability to survive "e book presents the ability to sur- his own revisionist actions during self- through uncertainty as a vive through this uncertainty as a de#n- criticism sessions and his childlike pride ing strength of the Chinese people. Yu in the big character posters he authored. defining strength of the quotes Mencius in saying that “adversity During that period of inverted values, has a way of enhancing our existence, bullying and mischief masqueraded as Chinese people while ease and comfort tend to hasten revolution, and Yu was sometimes heart- our demise.” ily commended for criticizing his teach- grassroots element by inducing people in ers. Body politic the social underbelly to “throw caution to As a doctor, he often employs meta- the winds, and in a revolution where ‘to "e book is more loosely organized and phors of illness and the body. Yu sees pain rebel was justi#ed’ they gained opportu- impressionistic than most non#ction and empathy as de#ning characteristics nities to soar.” works about China, and it has few sta- of the Chinese experience. “Nothing in While China today is drastically dif- tistics designed to stun foreign business the world, perhaps, is so likely to forge ferent, Yu argues it is as much engaged in partners. But for readers seeking more a connection between people as pain, a mass revolutionary movement today as color and context about China’s recent because the connection that comes from it was decades ago. "e arrival of capital- history, “China in Ten Words” is a worth- that source comes from deep in the heart. ism has spawned incidents reminiscent while read. So when in this book I write of China’s of the Great Leap Forward, for example Yu’s account is deeply and self-con- pain, I am registering my own pain too, provincial governments eagerly consum- sciously personal. Many of the 10 sec- because China’s pain is mine.” ing their resources in a quest to report tions revolve around fascinating stories Yu clearly believes in the power of ever-higher GDP #gures. Development from Yu’s childhood in the Cultural Rev- personal stories to convey truth. In this also contains echoes of the revolution- olution, a bloody period that foreigners book, they do: “China in Ten Words” ary upheavals of the Cultural Revolution remain intensely curious about and many instills the reader with a deeper and more that tore apart communities by inverting Chinese would rather not discuss. emotional understanding of China’s existing social structures, elevating some Several of Yu’s novels address vio- recent history. "e book’s value is that it members of China’s grassroots contin- lence, and this book is no di!erent. In resurrects this troubled past and knits it gent and ruining others. one section, for example, Yu describes the together with the present, in the process Many early bene#ciaries of the Cul- experience of watching public executions shedding light on China today. tural Revolution were cut down just as as a child and later a vivid nightmare of “If literature truly possesses a mysteri- fast as they had risen by shifting power his own execution he had in the last days ous power, I think perhaps it is precisely and the vagaries of its enforcement. “In of 1989. this,” he writes, “that one can read a book that era, destiny did not rest in one’s own He also intimates the psychological by a writer of a di!erent time, a di!erent hands; everyone found himself swept pain of coming of age during the Cultural country, a di!erent race, a di!erent lan- along in the current, and nobody knew Revolution. "e familiar guilt and mis- guage, and a di!erent culture and there whether fortune or #asco lay ahead.” "is conceptions of childhood occur in a land- encounter a sensation that is one’s very trend continues today, with many wealthy scape that is status quo to the author as a own.” China Economic Review • November 2012 21 .

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