History review - Book Report/Review Example

Yu Hua's To Live, is unquestionably a work that describes the conflicts that are intrinsic to change in modern China. When one considers how much has changed historically through the twentieth century, that is, from the transitions from the old Imperial order, through the Second World War and then the victory of Mao, and the subsequent introduction of communism, it is important to consider how difficult it is for conventional customs to adapt to such turmoil. Such is the case with the family who is at the center of the plot in Yu Hua's story.

In many senses, the story of the family, is the story of the transformation itself. Xu Fugui who is the main protagonist, is the son of a wealthy landowner. His father is vividly described by the peasants who work his land as “sir” and “master” because of his “high social status”1. This is the 'old world' so to speak, as his wealth and property eventually become the holdings of a “commune”2 because of a problem he had with gambling. Xu Fugui who is essentially spoiled, accumulated a gambling debt so severe that it cost the family their property3.

They had to pay xu Fugui's debt, and this in turn, caused his father to die given that he could not deal with the dishonor that the loss of his title and prestige that resulted from the loss and he collapsed and died on a “manure vat”4. For Xu Fugui, the loss also meant that he would be put into exile my his mothers family following the loss and shame that resulted from losing everything. After being “forced into the army”5., was far worse for xu than his experiences through the Cultural Revolution.

From being initially on the position of the defensive, by 1948, the Communists began their insurgencies. By the end of 1948 they had secured, under Lin Biao, the norther town of Mukden and at the same time, the forces under Chen Yi defeated the Guomindang in the province of Shandong6. Between November 1948 and January 1949, the Guomindang lost over half a million soldiers in the battle of Huai-hai, which had the consequence of securing central China for the Communists, out of which, Beijing fell followed by Shanghai.

This sealed the Communist victory, and on October 1, 19497, the People’s Republic of China was declared, marking in turn, the exile of Chiang Kai-shek to the shores of Taiwan. This is a watershed period in the history of China, and from it, emerges both modern China under May and Taiwan which is created for the losers, so to speak or the nationalists. While Xu Fugui's experiences during the conflict are pretty horrific, arguably, things get worse for him when he returns home. Following the war which he was “forced into” a war with Chiang Kai-shek maintained himself, along with his supporters in Chongquing.

There, he was supported by American troops, and in turn, by the use of American arms. Similarly, with the Communists, although largely supported during the war, they too played a waiting game, in terms of working on the assumption that the Americans and the allies would eventually defeat Japan, which of course happened in 1945 following the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For his role in that conflict, Xu Fugui was awarded respect by the time of the Cultural Revolution a few generations later, what he was once respected for, becomes inverted.

With greater relations with the U.S. during the 1960's, came also a boom in the area of high technology, and such industries as textiles and plastics and so forth. And, in a sense, this has as much to do with American economics, as it does with Taiwan policy. First, in the United States, the de-regulation of manufacturing, along with the increase in labor costs, has prompted American Corporations to seek to establish plants elsewhere, that is, in places such as Mexico, Taiwan or the Philippines, where, the labor costs are significantly lower, and there are few tariff restrictions along with pollution control.

In other words, as the relations between Taiwan and America stabilized, the need to find cheaper manufacturing locations was also characteristic of American business at that time. Thus, foreign investment and a branch plant economy emerged in Taiwan during the period in question8, and unlike the model of Hong Kong, where investment was favored in contrast to branch plants, the Taiwanese have not retained as much of a controlling interest in the ownership of companies doing business in Taiwan as their Hong Kong counterparts.

Xu Fugui struggled against the American supported Nationalists, and would up becoming a generation hated by the Red Guard. But this transformation was nothing compared with what he endured at the personal level. He disgraced his family and then looses them all to death. Is it a story about the state or the lives of the individual – it is a tale of two forms of endurance. Works Cited: Hua, Yu. (2003). To Live: A Novel. Translated by Michael Berry. New York: Random House. Schirokauer, Conrad and Clark, Donald. (2003). Modern Asia: A Brief History.

Detroit: Wadsworth. Spence, Jonathon. (1991) The Search for Modern China. New York: W.W. Norton. A Review of To Live written by Yu Hua. Situating Political and Historical Contexts.