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Mr. China's Son · Feb 8, 07:52 PM

Mr. China’s Son is a unique autobiography.

He Liyi belongs to one of China’s minorities, the Bai, and he lives in a remote area of northwestern Yunnan Province. In 1979 his wife sold her fattest pig to buy him a shortwave radio. He spent every spare moment listening to the BBC and VOA in order to improve the English he learned at college between 1950 and 1953. For “further practice,” he decided to write down his life story in English. Humorous and unfiltered by translation, his autobiography is direct and personal, full of richly descriptive images and phrases from his native Bai Language.

He was labeled an anti-Party rightist after the Communist revolution, and sent to a state labor farm for thought-reform in 1957. His life is full of struggle and brutal injustice, but his writing is very hopeful and doggedly optimistic, even when he writes about abandoning his only dreams and walking away from love (Chapter 8—Unconquerable Problems Lead to Marriage) and desperately surviving the Cultural Revolution (Chapter 12—Stealing Other People’s Shit).

He’s online at Mr. China’s Son Cultural Exchange Bridge, and I hope to visit him in China.

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  1. Sounds like Liyi is from the “Greatest Generation” as Tom Brokaw would drawl, while “Soul Mountain’s” Xingjian is from the Chinese Generation X. The Gen X’s are far too selfish to be “Great”. But their far more likely to win Nobel prizes…

    Chris    Feb 9, 10:31 AM    #

  2. Soul Mountain is on my reading list.

    Tom    Feb 9, 02:11 PM    #

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