Most of the duped graduates had hopes of state employment, often the only source of advancement in small towns and rural areas. Without the dangan that hope evaporates. What is even worse is that the parents of such unfortunate graduates are hounded by officials, even sometimes incarcerated for daring to question officialdom. China, no matter how often we hear that there will be a crackdown on corruption, does little about it and punishes those who dare to question the system.

The above appears to have absolutely nothing to do with the book on review here, The Vagrants by Yiyun Li. Yet it is simply a variation on the theme that runs through the book. She has set it in the late 1970s in a small town, Muddy River, where the effects of the Democracy Wall in Beijing are slowly seeping into the lives of various individuals. Of course, the Democracy Wall, like so many other supposed encouragements towards a freer society, totally failed. Consequently, those touched by it in Muddy River as well as various other characters who fail to fit the 'communist' pattern, find themselves either marginalized, or worse, in front of a firing squad.

Li, Chinese born but now living in the United states, has created a novel that consisting of the stories of a variety of individuals who seem to have nothing in common other than being residents of Muddy River. They may seem incongruous to those who have no knowledge of China, now, 30 years ago, or 1,000. It has to be appreciated that she has simply brought us a story that is as old as China. The corrupt use of power has been woven into the fabric of this over-populated country since before Confucius, and has invariably been hardest on the poor, or those who dare to voice opposition.

The first victim we encounter indirectly in Li's book is 28-year-old Gu Shan, a former Red Guard, who ended up denouncing Chairman Mao, spent 10 years in prison for doing so, and now faces execution following a denunciation ceremony in the town's arena for being an unrepentant counterrevolutionary. We learn her story through the eyes of her parents, Teacher Gu and his wife. He accepts the circumstances stoically, the mother is determined to mourn her child, even defying authorities by following an ancient custom of burning her child's clothing to provide her with an easy journey into the afterlife. Teacher Gu tells his wife, "It's superstitious, reactionary—it's all wrong." To which Mrs. Gu replies, "What is the right thing to do? To applaud the murderers of our daughter?"

Just from this brief exchange the reader soon realizes that The Vagrants is not a book that will uplift. Instead, it is a well-observed chronicle of sadness, of lives grasping for hoped-for change only to find that it is a chimera.

For some this book may seem a burdensome read, yet I found it only too true to life and hard to put down. The Chinese are always smiling, as if happy. To me, however, it is a cover-up for a deep sadness that cannot be expressed. When I suggested this to a colleague at the college in northern China where I taught, she replied, "We smile on the surface, but underneath we are always full of tears." This is because in China the arbitrariness of officialdom makes people feel very insecure, even the apparently successful ones. One never knows when what is okay today is punishable tomorrow.

But back to The Vagrants. In the crowd gathered to witness the denunciation ceremony are those whose fates are invisibly interwoven. Included are Nini, a deformed girl, who faces daily rejection and Kai, a radio announcer, a model citizen who has made an advantageous marriage to a high-ranking official. This one time Red Guard rival of Gu Shan, finds herself championing her cause after it is revealed that the execution was hurriedly staged so that Shan's organs can be harvested.

One has to read this book as a series of vignettes that are linked with the occasional good deed, some unexpected tenderness, even joy, but none of which offer a happy ending. That includes Kai, who has sadly misread the Democracy Wall. At the same time, Li's slow, monotone, yet strangely illuminated style is a perfect instrument for the depiction of rural China, where superstitions, corruption, and class differences (yes, China has class distinctions based on party affiliation) are continuous aspects of Chinese society, then as now.

By Alidė Kohlhaas

China is a country that seems constantly to be changing, and yet never changes at all. All the changes we see in the most populated nation in the world are only on the surface. Beneath that surface, not much has altered in two thousand years. Ah, you say, that is really presumptuous. Well, if you read Lydia Kwa's Walking Boy, and if you know anything about China, you will know what I mean. Her beautiful novel is placed at the end of the 7^th and the beginning of the 8^th Century BC, China, when the Empress Wu Zhao (who to posterity would be known as Wu Zetian) had seized power, declared herself '' emperor' and ruled with methods that may sound very familiar to modern Sinologists.

Kwa took real historical events and wove an imaginary tale so fine that it resembles the gowns spun of gold thread worn by some of the female characters in the novel. Hers is a seductive tale, one that has an amazing ring of truth to it, even though we know that it has grown out of Kwa's imagination. It is filled with dream demons, with ghosts, but also with love and gentleness. It captures China as it was then, and finds its echo in the now. And finally, it proves once again that the fascination that we in the West have with China ever since Marco Polo returned from there in the 13th century still holds true today despite all we know of its darker side.

Spring 2002

By Alidė Kohlhaas