The Dark Road by Ma Jian and Negative Effects of Rapid Economic Development in China - Book Report/Review Example

number 23 April The Dark Road by Ma Jian and Negative Effects of Rapid Economic Development in China The novel The Dark Road written by the London-based Chinese writer Ma Jian is banned in China, and the writer himself has been recently prohibited to enter China by the Chinese government. His latest book, The Dark Road, seems to have finally become the last straw that has broken the camels back. Ma Jian has always been a consistent and harsh critic of the Chinese Communist regime, which is one of the most authoritarian political systems in the world to date, for its oppression of civil liberties in China. His criticism of the political regime in China was reflected in most of his previous works and The Dark Road is no exception from this rule. The only thing that makes this novel different from the rest of Jians books is a considerably wider scope of problems that is dwelled on in The Dark Road and the absence of optimism in the novel. In this essay I will focus on those aspects of the story that are told by Ma Jian in his famous novel, The Dark Road, within the context of the environmental damage, which harms Chinese society, and high price that Chinese have to pay for the rapid economic development witnessed in their country over the past few decades. The way the novel starts might put a reader off keeping on reading. One of the first scenes of the book is a grim and bleak illustration of how the infamous governmental decision on forced abortion and forced sterilization under the so-called one-child policy is being implemented in China. According to the one-child policy, which was introduced in China more than thirty years ago to mitigate social, demographic, economic and environmental problems in the country, the family planning officers are allowed to arrest Chinese citizens for the violation of the aforementioned population control policy that prohibits to have more than one child in a family without an official permission (Hays n. p.). The protagonists of the novel, an arrogant and egocentric schoolteacher Kongzi and his humble and submissive wife Meili, have one child in their family, a daughter named Nannan, and are not allowed to have another baby according to the law. But Kongzi, who is told to be the descendant of one of the most prominent Chinese philosophers of all times, Confucius, is obsessed with the idea of having a son in order to transmit his ancient noble family name to the sole heir (Jian n. p.). He gets his wife pregnant with unauthorized second child and dooms his family to privations and suffering. As it was mentioned above, the story opens with a brutal scene, in which family planning officials storm into the village, where Kongzi and Meili live, in search of women pregnant with unauthorized babies or kids born in violation of the one-child policy. The entourage and dynamics of the scene, even the rhetorical moves that the author chooses to cover the raid of the village by the planning family officials, add on some surrealistic tone to the development that has long been perceived as a norm in Chinese society. Ma Jian describes with complete equanimity and deliberate detachment how Meili watches one of her neighbors is being taken away in order to undergo the procedure of forced sterilization, while her other neighbor is walking the street aimlessly with a plastic package in her hands that contains the corpse of her baby that has been forcefully aborted (Kunzru n. p.). Only Kongzi exclaims in despair, "Abortions, sterilizations, IUDs! What has this country come to?" (Jian 5). In the wake of this terrible mess Kongzi decides to leave the village and hide his family from the authorities in order to save the life of his unauthorized son. That is how the plot of the novel unfolds in an unexpected way and stops being just another story of unprecedented gender inequality, brutal violation of fundamental rights to life, liberty and security of person within the context of the infamous one-child policy in China. The story becomes much more than that by shifting the focus of the novel into new dimensions as Kongzi, his little daughter and his pregnant wife embark on the journey southwards to flee from the persecution of family planning officials in order to give their unborn son a chance to survive. This journey of Kongzi and his family down the Yangtze River contains both subtle irony, according to which the direct descendant of Confucius is denied from the right to have a heir in the modern-day China, and a knife-edged political subtext, within the framework of which the author criticizes the failure of the Chinese government to address the important challenges in a civilized way. First of all, Ma Jian believes that Chinese writers have responsibility to draw attention of the Chinese society and world community to the problems of suppression of civil liberties by the Communist regime in China that has created the atmosphere of total fear in China (Merritt n. p.). Furthermore, Jian urges Chinese writers not to neglect the unbearable price that Chinese citizens have to pay for the boosted economic and industrial development of China that causes slashing environmental damage and unprecedented harm of unimaginable scale to twenty per cent of the worlds population that China tots up to (Anthony 19). And The Dark Road is a bright illustration how all of the aforementioned burning issues of modern-day China could be combined and covered within the framework of one brilliant novel. In this novel Jian has skillfully put the story of moral decadence and spiritual pollution, which he dwells on in his interview to The Guardian (Merritt n. p.), on the background of actual pollution that China suffers due to the rapid modernization and economic development of the country. However, the way Ma Jian mocks the passivity of thinking of people in his novel from time to time proves that he believes it is not only the Chinese government to blame for a bunch of sharp unsettled problems, but every member of the Chinese society as well. The following caustic remark uttered by one of the personages of the novel in a conversation hardens this suspicion: "There is no need to worry about your future. The authorities are going to pay boat pullers like you to tug rafts up a tributary as a spectacle for foreign tourists" (Jian 42). Through the example of The Dark Road Jian shows Chinese writers how both Chinese government and the society can be criticized in a sophisticated and intricate way, when a layer of sharp contradictions can be shifted on the background of a novel without losing the sight of the big distressing picture. According to Jian himself, everything is political in China, even the problem of air pollution, thus, everything can be censored (Ash n. p.). Unfortunately, the fact that The Dark Road is banned in China despite all of the precautions of the author proves how increasingly difficult it gets for Chinese writers to touch upon hard questions in their works like the problem of environmental protection covered in this novel. Before getting down to writing of The Dark Road the now exiled author made a trip down the Yangtze River through the polluted waterways and godforsaken rural wastelands and gathered the information on the depth of environmental crisis that modern-day China is going through (Branigan n. p.). Thus, although The Dark Road is a work of fiction, it still can be relied on as an elaborate documentary fiction when it comes to the scale of environmental challenges that China faces today. Having embarked on the journey down South along the Yangtze River, Kongzi family has to travel through the terribly wracked and decayed landscapes of rural China, which is painted warts and all. The level of the pollution of waterways that is skimmed over by the author has indeed become one of the most alarming environmental threats of the modern-day China. Apart from that, the shocking deterioration of the air quality has long stopped being the problem of big cities in China as the number of cars that contribute to air pollution has increased drastically even in the countryside (Wong n. p.). Obviously, the government is reluctant to tackle the environmental threats, including that of the air pollution and water contamination, partly due to sabotage of big corporations and their lobbyists in the government and the inability of Chinese society to realize the scale of environmental problems (Wong n. p.), some of which are covered in the novel The Dark Road by Ma Jian. This novel is yet another attempt to attract attention of the Chinese and world community to the price that a society has to pay for irresponsible environmental policy and fast moving technological and ill-designed economic development. As a matter of fact, what a reader can see on the background of the story as Kongzi family travels down South to the township of Heaven might really inspire one with misgiving. In spite of a warm and charming name of the town there a bitter irony behind the scenes. The reason why Kongzi family goes to Heaven is terrible environmental conditions of the town that make it hard for women to get pregnant there and, thus, the control of family planning officials is relatively lax in that area (Jian n. p.). Heaven serves an allegory of the high price that China has paid for intense economical development, rapid technological progress and fast-paced modernization of the country. The story of this township shows how much a society that has chosen to step this path should sacrifice in the end. The town the community of which has become rich due to waste utilization has paid huge cost for that. The waterways in town are contaminated; the quality of air that people breathe here is extremely low as it is heavily loaded with various pollutants. On top of that, as it was mentioned before, people say that it is impossible to get pregnant in Heaven. What an irony! The bleak atmosphere of the town, where Kongzi family, who has eventually failed to escape the family planning officials (who, in turn, murdered Meilis unborn son by making a forceful abortion) and failed to find happiness in the huge sea of unhappiness that China has become from the authors point of view, is rendered by Ma Jian colorfully in his novel (Tash n. p.). In fact, although the story of nightmare of forced abortions and horrible environmental conditions that Kongzi family has to go through in the novel is a work of fiction, it might as well be a reality of an ordinary Chinese family these days (Tonkin n. p.). Although the core keynote of the novel dwells on the problems of violation of civil rights and gender issues, Ma Jian has also managed to give an accurate account of the grave consequences of the boosted economical development and high price that Chinese society has to pay for the rapid technological progress and modernization in China. With this novel that contains subtle philosophical allegory the brilliant Chinese writer reminds society of an old homespun, according to which he who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes. Ma Jians The Dark Road shows how irresponsible striving of modern-day society for a fast-paced development and innocent desire to enjoy the benefits of technological progress can take away something that is carelessly taken for granted today but is gone forever without a trace tomorrow, which is green fields, pure water and fresh air. The horrible journey of the protagonists of the novel along the basted countryside damaged by the consequences of a fast moving progress, which has been made a cult in the modern-day China, demonstrates how terrible the face of such irresponsible economic boom might be and makes one think if this high price is really worth of being paid by the next generations. Works Cited Anthony, Marcus T. "Deep Futures and Chinas Environment." Journal of Future Studies 14.2 (2009): 19-40. Print. Ash, Alec. Ma Jian on Chinese Dissident Literature. Five Books. 04 May 2012. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. < http://fivebooks.com/interviews/ma-jian-on-chinese-dissident-literature>. Branigan, Tania. Exiled Author Ma Jian Banned from Visiting China. The Guardian. 29 July 2011. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. . Hays, Jeffrey. One-child Policy Problems: Forced Sterilization and Abortions, Rich People with Lots of Kids and Undocumented Children. Facts and Details. 2008. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. . Jian, Ma. The Dark Road. New York: Penguin Press. 2012. Print. Kunzru, Hari. The Toxic Adventures. Bookforum. June 2013. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. . Merritt, Stephanie. Home Truths from the Exile. The Guardian. 02 May 2004. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. < http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/may/02/fiction.features>. Tash, Aw. The Dark Road by Ma Jian - Review. The Guardian. 02 May 2013. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. . Tonkin, Boyd. Book Review: The Dark Road by Ma Jian, trans. by Flora Drew. The Independent. 26 July 2013. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. . Wong, Edward. "As Pollution Worsens in China, Solutions Succumb to Infighting." New York Times. Web. 21 Mar. 2013. Read More

The entourage and dynamics of the scene, even the rhetorical moves that the author chooses to cover the raid of the village by the planning family officials, add on some surrealistic tone to the development that has long been perceived as a norm in Chinese society. Ma Jian describes with complete equanimity and deliberate detachment how Meili watches one of her neighbors is being taken away in order to undergo the procedure of forced sterilization, while her other neighbor is walking the street aimlessly with a plastic package in her hands that contains the corpse of her baby that has been forcefully aborted (Kunzru n. p.).

Only Kongzi exclaims in despair, "Abortions, sterilizations, IUDs! What has this country come to?" (Jian 5). In the wake of this terrible mess Kongzi decides to leave the village and hide his family from the authorities in order to save the life of his unauthorized son. That is how the plot of the novel unfolds in an unexpected way and stops being just another story of unprecedented gender inequality, brutal violation of fundamental rights to life, liberty and security of person within the context of the infamous one-child policy in China.

The story becomes much more than that by shifting the focus of the novel into new dimensions as Kongzi, his little daughter and his pregnant wife embark on the journey southwards to flee from the persecution of family planning officials in order to give their unborn son a chance to survive. This journey of Kongzi and his family down the Yangtze River contains both subtle irony, according to which the direct descendant of Confucius is denied from the right to have a heir in the modern-day China, and a knife-edged political subtext, within the framework of which the author criticizes the failure of the Chinese government to address the important challenges in a civilized way.

First of all, Ma Jian believes that Chinese writers have responsibility to draw attention of the Chinese society and world community to the problems of suppression of civil liberties by the Communist regime in China that has created the atmosphere of total fear in China (Merritt n. p.). Furthermore, Jian urges Chinese writers not to neglect the unbearable price that Chinese citizens have to pay for the boosted economic and industrial development of China that causes slashing environmental damage and unprecedented harm of unimaginable scale to twenty per cent of the worlds population that China tots up to (Anthony 19).

And The Dark Road is a bright illustration how all of the aforementioned burning issues of modern-day China could be combined and covered within the framework of one brilliant novel. In this novel Jian has skillfully put the story of moral decadence and spiritual pollution, which he dwells on in his interview to The Guardian (Merritt n. p.), on the background of actual pollution that China suffers due to the rapid modernization and economic development of the country. However, the way Ma Jian mocks the passivity of thinking of people in his novel from time to time proves that he believes it is not only the Chinese government to blame for a bunch of sharp unsettled problems, but every member of the Chinese society as well.

The following caustic remark uttered by one of the personages of the novel in a conversation hardens this suspicion: "There is no need to worry about your future. The authorities are going to pay boat pullers like you to tug rafts up a tributary as a spectacle for foreign tourists" (Jian 42). Through the example of The Dark Road Jian shows Chinese writers how both Chinese government and the society can be criticized in a sophisticated and intricate way, when a layer of sharp contradictions can be shifted on the background of a novel without losing the sight of the big distressing picture.

According to Jian himself, everything is political in China, even the problem of air pollution, thus, everything can be censored (Ash n. p.). Unfortunately, the fact that The Dark Road is banned in China despite all of the precautions of the author proves how increasingly difficult it gets for Chinese writers to touch upon hard questions in their works like the problem of environmental protection covered in this novel.

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