Li 1

Capstone Third Draft

Mr. Vigil

P1

Haodong Li

2.8.2018

Mo Yam and his works

The book "Frog" was mainly talking about the Chinese "family planning" policy during the

past 30 years. Other than talking about it in a macro point of view, Mo Yam focus on describing

how does this policy influence normal people. Mo Yam not only reflects the policy, but also

develops the idea of the holiness of life. The novel "Life and Death" talks about the development

of Chinese rural in the past 50 years. It mainly convey the tough and optimistic of Chinese

farmer. The book was written in a magic-realism style, which the idea " life and death" comes

from a theory of Buddhism. Before the creation of the “Life and Death”, Mo Yam was visiting a

famous local temples. When he saw the mural about the metempsychosis in the temple, he

thought it's a good idea to describe human society in animals perspective. Mo Yam writes a

series of local works which include these two books. This series is full with "homesickness" and

"hatred" complex emotions, which convey the hardness of Mo Yam when he works outside of

his hometown. Even though someone argues that the topic is too complicated and controversies

for a novel as a work to convey home sick, just I will mention later in this passage, criticism is

important for a literature work, and a novel can combine both homesick and serious topic.

“Life and death” described 50 years history of Chinese rural from 1950 to 2000, the main topic

of the novel is “land” which is the specific land that farmers were working on. “Life and death”
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illustrates the relationships of peasants and land, and through the art image of death and rebirth,

shows farmers' life and their strong, optimistic, tough spirit since the founding of the Chinese

which was a hard time for the country:

Before I go to the grave of his table, jump, sink, sink until the lights bright blue palace.

The ghost who are whispering in the temple. The lobby on God of death, it is a strange

face. He says “Have hate this world, too many people too much. We don't want to let

have the soul of hatred, metempsychosis again, but there will always be those who harbor

hatred soul hook.” (Mo, yam. Life and Death wears me out. Penguin Books. 2015. Page

19)

The purpose of writing this novel is because Mo Yam wanted to write a novel that is relatively

complete and can outline the core issues of the countryside during the first few decades since the

founding of China, which hadn’t been done by any of the Chinese authors. Since the 80 s, the

start of the new period literature, most of written in rural were focusing on the devastating

consequences of the "cultural revolution", the collapse of the economy and the change of the

rural people’s spirit. However, there was no book which completely described the situation

during this 50 years. During an internet interview, Mo Yam talked about how he wrote the novel

and the story behind it:

An unknown questioner asked him that “It is said that you have finished writing this novel in

43 days. How did you conceive the novel?” Mo Yam answered that “I went to Chengde last

year, and some local people took me to visit a folk temple. I saw s lot of very vivid

sculptures which showed metempsychosis. At that moment, I suddenly realized that the

metempsychosis can actually become a structure of novel. By using a unique structure, a

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novel which is talking about an old, serious topic can become very attractive.” (http://

live.jcrb.com/html/2006/94.htm).

Mo Yam’s childhood was on China's modern history of the "three years difficult times," at that

time, as what Mo Yam recalled on speech in University of Hong Kong “18 people in our village

starved to death in one day". So that’s the reason Mo Yam feel it’s necessary to write novel

about countryside during that hard period. This topic connected to one of the most important

period in a person’s life----childhood, which impressed Mo Yam, and all of his childhood is

about the people and environment in his hometown.

Mo Yam's novel "the frog" was mainly talking about the "Chinese Family Planning". The

work described the life experience of a rural female obstetrics and gynecology doctor. The novel

reflected Chinese nearly 60 years of rural reproductive history. On a higher level it showed the

hardness of the implementation of national policy of "Chinese Family Planning" through the

difficult and complicated historical process, in order to control the population sharp growth. On

the other hand, behind the center word "Chinese Family Planning", Mo Yam implied his awe of

natural reproduction, breeding and worship of greatness of life. Since this novel had been

awarded one of the most famous literary award, Mo Yam had been interviewed which

specifically talked about this novel. The content of frogs is particularly controversial, because it

related with the most sensitive topic in china which is the policy of the government. In the

beginning of the book Mo Yam had indicated why he would talk about such sensitive problem in

his novel:

My aunt is the person who delivered him. After I started to write novels, I want to write

about my aunt in my novel. 30 years of family planning must be involved into this novel,
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because it is a social background. Furthermore, my aunt’s work and fate was significantly

close to this social background, so I have to write this problem, because the need to shape.

(Mo, yam. Frog. Penguin Books. 2016. Page 3)

Mo Yam’s "Frog" showed us another policy perspective: the perspective of normal people

which can help you feel the hardness of the policy is extremely important:

How many children a woman bears in her life is controlled by fate, Mother said. Who

needs your planning? To me you people are like a blind man lighting a candle, just wasting

wax. As Mother said, my aunt and the others were wasting their effort and money and

creating a bad name for themselves. They began by giving free condoms to the heads of

women’s associations in every village to pass out to women of childbearing age and ask their

husbands to wear them. The condoms wound up in pigpens or were blown up like balloons,

some even painted, for children to play with. (Mo, yam. Frog. Penguin Books. 2016. Page

68)

Mo Yam uses more than sixty years of reproductive history in rural China as the main line,

which highlighted the conflicts between the country’s mandatory family planning policy and the

Chinese traditional ideas. Watching for that particular historical period and of life in the

meantime, there is a deep frustration and sympathy within normal people. In order to prevent

China's population explosion, numerous life was strangled. Story reveals the life of Chines in the

past which is people can't decide their own life, or destiny is controlled by the others. All in all,

this great story, and proper emotional expression gives us a new way of thinking about politics

and reflect what we have gone through in the past, especially we may did something wrong.
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Mo Yam rise since the middle of 1980 s with a series of local works, full of "homesickness"

and "hatred" complex emotions. He is classified as "root-searching literature" writer. Through

his real experience of life and the description of general living conditions, he successfully

conveys a certain content of universal human nature and the human survival condition. However,

someone says this topic too controversial and serious. Mo Yam wrote a great sentence in his

work “Life and Death”: Deal with mock and irony, the most effective way is to be dumb, his wit

into casting pearls before swine sing to the pig. (Life and Death 525) In his biography, Mo Yam

has replied these queries:

For all the controversy to his works, Mo Yam said: "I think the criticism is a important

function of literature, which a writer in the writing process should pay attention to the

society, the people's sufferings, and convey these reflected in his works." (Hung, Xiaoming.

“Biography of Mo Yam.” Chengdu Times 23 Mar 2012 A2. Printed)

I agree with this statement, because as a writer their job is to reveal the truth to this world, and

convey their ideas of how to make this world better by using their pens. These ideas are souls of

the literature works which makes them more than combination of words and sentences. Other

than the literature achievement. “Frog” and “Life and death” which are both considered as

"rootsearching literature" works also reflects Mo Yam’s personal life experience. His homesick

was fully conveyed in these works, which makes them more than what it originally means for

Mo Yam. In response to his homesick he has said in his book: The world is like a book, every

page will be the past. We should look forward, focus on the future.(Life and Death 546) As

conclusion, these two book as great novels reflects serious politics topics and conveys the

homesickness of Mo Yam.
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Works Cited

Mo Yam. Frog. Penguin Books. 2016. Page 3

Mo Yam. Life and Death wears me out. Penguin Books. 2015. Page 2, 525, 546

http://live.jcrb.com/html/2006/94.htm

Hung, Xiaoming. “Biography of Mo Yam.” Chengdu Times 23 Mar 2012 A2. Printed