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---------------------------------------------------------------------<br>Friday, September 19, 2008 (SF Chronicle)<br>'The Ancient Ship' by Zhang Wei<br>Vanessa Hua<br><br>The Ancient Ship By Zhang Wei; translated by Howard Goldblatt<br>
HarperPerennial; 451 pages; $14.95 paperback<br> A country-boy entrepreneur fetes Communist party officials to win their<br>backing. Authorities investigate impurities tainting noodles. An old woman<br>scavenges in the garbage while her hometown prospers.<br>
Though Zhang Wei's novel "The Ancient Ship" was first published in 1987,<br>the challenges that its characters - and China - face remain much the same<br>two decades later. Translated for the first time into English, the novel<br>
is witty and poignant, an epic spanning half a century of life in the<br>fictional town of Wali. The story tracks the fate of the Sui, Li and Zhao<br>clans, who embody the tumultuous modern chapter of China's history. With<br>
their homeland rapidly transforming, the characters choose whether they<br>will seek a different life from what was handed down to them.<br> The narrative jumps back and forth through time, circling around events:<br>the day an ancient ship was raised from the river, the night a mother ate<br>
poison and lit her house on fire rather than turn it over to militiamen,<br>and many other horrors.<br> Zhang shows that much of this history exists in no official record, only<br>in the anecdotal, fragmentary stories the people of Wali tell each other.<br>
"What's most terrifying is not the sky falling in, or the earth opening<br>up, or the mountains topping; it's ourselves. It's true. Just look at the<br>town's chronicles if you don't believe me. Whatever is left out of the<br>
chronicles remains in people's minds," one of the characters tells his<br>younger brother.<br> Zhang seems to be cataloguing a way of life, to preserve what is rapidly<br>being lost. He describes in great detail how to make noodles, how to make<br>
dishes called Melons on the Vine, Monkey Pouch and Muddle-Fuddle Eggs and<br>how to make soy sauce. On fermenting soy beans: "When touched, it is warm<br>as a child's head; two more days of waiting are required, when it no<br>
longer feels warm."<br> Readers who are not versed in the intricacies of Chinese history may find<br>themselves seeking outside sources for clues and dates about the Great<br>Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Sino-Vietnamese War and the<br>
stirrings of a market economy. Though it's not the job of the author to<br>explain history to an international audience, footnotes would have been<br>appreciated.<br> The cast is sprawling, and the narrator dips in and out of the<br>
perspectives of different characters, including the evil Zhao Duoduo, a<br>former orphan who gained power during class struggle and goes on to run<br>the noodle factory; the saucy, bootlegging widow Zhang-Wang, who ensures<br>
that the old traditions and rituals live on; and the Sui brothers Baopu<br>and Jiansu, who struggle against their clan's reputation of cowardice and<br>bad luck. Out of the many threads, the narrative most closely follows<br>
Jiansu as he tries to strike it rich in the city - and the minutiae of his<br>machinations and failures are fascinating. To attract business to his<br>shop, Jiansu places three-legged stools in the corner, offers instant<br>
coffee and paints a sign with the words "Gentleman" and "Lady" in artsy<br>purple characters, which attracts throngs of customers.<br> At times, the novel's multitude of characters can be distracting, with<br>
some stories touched upon for a couple of pages and revisited chapters<br>later. A thread involving the rape of Jiansu's sister Hanzhang by Fourth<br>Master - and her attempt at revenge decades later - is underdeveloped.<br>
It's perhaps a symbol of larger events, but it could have had a stronger<br>emotional resonance. And in this novel of ideas, sometimes characters<br>engage in dueling monologues. Though the speeches are compelling, some of<br>
the material might have been more effective presented in scene or<br>narrative.<br> International interest in China is stronger than ever, and readers will<br>find "The Ancient Ship" reveals the human stories behind the newspaper<br>
headlines, past and present.<br> "[W]e have no reason to brag about how wonderful our country and our lives<br>are if we can stand by and watch an old woman live like that, even if<br>there's only one like her," Sui Baopu tells his brother. In this beautiful<br>
and vivid novel, Zhang ensures that the stories of the "only one" are not<br>forgotten. {sbox}<br><font color="#888888"><br>Vanessa Hua is a writer in Southern California. E-mail her at<br><a href="mailto:books@sfchronicle.com" target="_blank">books@sfchronicle.com</a>. ----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
Copyright 2008 SF Chronicle<br><br></font></div><br></div>
</div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>~~~~~<br>Ching-In Chen<br>THE HEART'S TRAFFIC (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press forthcoming 2009)<br><a href="http://www.redhen.org/arktoi.asp">www.redhen.org/arktoi.asp</a><br>
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