Moment in Peking by Lin Yutang – Liu Chunhui

Before writing a review of this book, I took some deep breaths. Finished in 1939, the novel was a saga revolved around the withstanding of the life of a highborn girl, Mulan, literally means magnolia, during the most critical moment in thousands of years of Chinese history, from 1900 to 1938, when the rotten empire collapsed, the Chinese people were impacted on by the western culture and intruded by the Japanese, and a new epoch and generation germinated. Reading this book was like undergoing the life of our forefathers so that as an educated Chinese, a father and an individual who is relishing the modern China, it is not easy to be phlegmatic about the story of people who fought for felicities for themselves and their descendants.

Born and grown up in an extremely well-to-do family in Peking, today’s Beijing, Mulan was lost and kidnapped during the exodus from The Boxer Rebellion in 1900, at the age of ten. Dramatically, she was saved by a friend of his father’s, a high official in the government of the Qing Dynasty. She married a son of the official, although not voluntarily, she had a happy marriage and three children. The collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the end of the ruling by an emperor since 1911 did not seem to bother people much. On the contrary, her father, the heir of an affluent family, managed to buy a baron palace from a once-Prince and employed Manchu maids. When her life was ostensibly well off, her eldest daughter, a patriotic student who participated in the demonstration against the warlords at May 30, 1925, was shot and killed. The demonstration was called Wusa Movement, which means May Thirtieth Movement. Moreover, her beloved sworn sister committed suicide at the moment when the Japanese soldier intruded into her room in 1938, during the The Second Sino-Japanese War, or the Counter-Japan War which is called by the Chinese people. With all the tragedies, the novel ended with a silver lining that the Chinese won the war and lived in peace again.

From today’s point of view, the Chinese history in those years were as dramatic as Mulan’s life. One drastic change was the relationship between family members. “As long as the parents are living, no one likes to break up the family. It should not be done.” Mulan professed. But in nowadays, family is no longer  essential for the society. People lived independently and individualism thrived. The life of women were also emancipated by the infusion of the western culture. For example, for a lady, having some “fun” with other men out of matrimony was normal, and taking a concubine, which was not only legitimate but also obligatory for a large family to prosper, could be denigrated and considered inappropriate, and it is illegal in modern days. Finally, the most radical change was that the youths became a juggernaut that spearheaded the revolution in China. Have not the students, Shandong province could have been sold forever.

All in all, the moral system had broken down and the women and youths were no longer bonded by the traditional rituals. The social classes dissolved, and the politics was opened to the society, instead of being pressed by the Manchu regime. In Mulan’s opinion, the collapse of the empire was better off than the corrupted China that ravaged by a treacherous government and bestial intruders. As long as the empire was irretrievable, the old China must be turned upside down.

However, one thing was not changed, or should not be changed, and lasted to nowadays. It is that the obsession of the unification of the precedent territory and the identity of being Chinese. Some people accuse China and the Chinese people for their patriotism or nationalism, but that is the very essence of the Chinese culture.

About one thousand year ago, Fan Zhongyan, a well known litterateur and politician in the Northern Song Dynasty, advocated that “to be apprehensive before the All Under Heaven become apprehensive, and to be happy after the All Under Heaven become happy”. The All Under Heaven, or Tianxia, which indicated an ideal synthesis of culture and territory, was a raison d’etre of all the classes, hierarchies and rituals of the Chinese. The patriotism or nationalism was so strong that it was sublimed and became an attachment of the All Under Heaven that disseminated among the Chinese people, especially the intelligentsia.

So the Chinese people like to accept those who accommodate to the Chinese culture, which is a living style combines the majority of Han culture and minorities. As it is said: “When the foreigners come into China, then China them.”

And so the Chinese do not agree those who disparage the Chinese life style, calling them barbarians, and extremely hate those who betrayed, calling them Hanjian, or the traitor to Han, and Wagkuonu, literally a “sell-country slave.” It is about what people believe — selling one’s country is to be condemned whatever it is good or bad.

It is said that novel bears the secret history of a people. This book is a tour de force that bears witness to the life of people during the most dismal times of China. The readers would not only enjoy the delicacy of the Chinese culture and the sensation of the Chinese history, but also the author’s prowess of English writing as a guru of both English and Chinese literature.

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