#ben liff

[fictionblog]

Designed by Blair Romain

[fictionblog]

Dispatches from China: Part One

(Above) Lu'shan, China.  Photo by Ben Liff.

Zhao Ya Xin never fought back against the Japanese. She didn't sneak off in the middle of the night to plot with guerrilla bands or have forbidden trysts with a sympathetic Japanese soldier.  She and her family lived their lives and survived.   Narrative can be found anywhere. Historical narrative brings together a love of history and an irresistible urge to record the stories that have been ignored or marginalized so often in the past.  Zhao Ya Xin's story contains drama and tension due mainly to her life circumstances.    Zhao Ya Xin is 84 years old.  She was born in northern China and most of her childhood memories are from growing up in Japanese-occupied territories.  They learned Japanese in school; not to improve relations with a neighboring power, as when Chinese children learned Russian during the Cold War, and not to increase economic opportunities like they do now with English.  They learned Japanese because they were a conquered nation. I first met Zhao Ya Xin a few weeks before my wedding in 2009.  Kunming, my wife's hometown in southern China, is higher in elevation than Denver.  The thin air, along with my pack-a-day habit at the time, meant the climb up six flights of stairs to get to Zhao Ya Xin's apartment was a struggle.  She greeted us at the door and we left the world of colorless concrete walls and rusted metal stairs and entered an apartment that housed three generations. Zhao Ya Xin wore a red sweater that she knitted herself.  A few age spots and freckles marked an otherwise unblemished face covered in laugh lines.  She led us into the living room, explaining that her husband and daughter were sleeping, so we needed to be quiet.  As we sat, she offered some of the ubiquitous fresh fruit found in almost every Chinese home.   My wife translated as Zhao Ya Xin asked us questions about America and what we were planning to do when we moved there after the wedding.  She smiled often and didn't seem at all uncomfortable or overly excited at having a foreigner in her home.  I was surprised when she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one before placing another between her lips.  My pitiful Chinese skills were mentioned and we all agreed that it was fortunate that most Chinese people learned English in school.

Zhao Ya Xin never learned any English, she said.  The only languages she had any knowledge of, beyond Mandarin, were Russian and Japanese. 

As an American, it's difficult to truly understand the conditions a huge percentage of the world's population lives in or has lived through.  In China, anyone over the age of sixty experienced and remembers the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward as a teenager. Millions died. There were countless causes of death.  Many were murdered for reasons ranging from being overly intellectual to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Most just starved.   Historical narratives often focus on extremes, such as heroic deeds or inhuman acts of violence and murder.  Wars between nations and diplomacy between the Great Men of their time have countless books, journal articles, memoirs, and oral histories devoted to them.  The study of history tends to magnify that which is magnified in our imaginations, often ignoring the vast majority of human beings who simply live their lives, regardless of who is in charge of the land they find themselves on.   I intend to interview as many people as I can before returning to America.  Instead of simply focusing on an oral history project, I hope to use the memories and experiences they're willing to share to create a narrative that invites the reader to experience history, rather than just observe it.   There are benefits to personally knowing the subjects of your research.  Getting to know their families, watching them interact with their children and friends, discussing things that have nothing to do with the research itself—it all contributes to making them more than just historical figures or characters in a story.   We received an invitation to Zhao Ya Xin's granddaughter's wedding before we returned to Kunming this past November.  It was held just down the street from our apartment right after Christmas on a cold and rainy day. I was sick, so I couldn't go.  A few days later, Zhao Ya Xin's daughter and granddaughter, the new bride, came by our apartment because they wanted to meet me, but more importantly they wanted to see my son again.  When I introduced myself to her, Zhao Ya Xin's granddaughter smiled and said, “Hello.”

—Ben Liff