Opium Family

Opium Family
Simplified Chinese	罂粟之家
Traditional Chinese	罌粟之家
Literal meaning	The Family of the Opium Poppy[1]
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Yīngsù zhī Jiā

Opium Family (Chinese: 罂粟之家; pinyin: Yīngsù zhī Jiā) is a novella by Su Tong, first published in 1988.[2]

The novella was translated into English by Michael S. Duke, and this translation was published as a collection of stories by Su Tong, named Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas, published by William Morrow & Company in 1993. This collection also includes the novellas Raise the Red Lantern and Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes.[3]

This story is about an opium poppy-growing family that experiences hardship; this work is told in both the first and third person perspectives.[4]

Opium Family and Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes take place in a fictional location called "Maple Village". Yingjin Zhang of Indiana University compared it to Yoknapatawpha County.[5] This location is in the south of the country.[6]

Story

It includes a landlord named Liu Chencao[note 1], who was born to a man named Chen Mao[note 2], but has another landlord, Liu Laoxia[note 3], as his adopted father.[2]

Chencao is attracted to men, but does not reveal it to others.[1]

Later, a character named Lu Fang[note 4] executes Chencao.[2]

Reception

In regards to Opium Family and Nineteen Thirty-four Escapes, Duke had stated "that wherever the English seems strange it is because the Chinese was also purposefully so".[3] Gary Krist of The New York Times felt the translations had a "rambling nature" that became "merely awkward, unrevealing and occasionally tedious."[3] Because of Duke's statement, Krist was unsure whether the awkwardness came from Su Tong or from Duke.[3] Publishers Weekly praised how Opium Family shifts perspectives and wrote that Opium Family is "the most structurally and thematically complex of the novellas."[4]

Notes

Names in other languages

1. Liu Chencao: simplified Chinese: 刘沉草; traditional Chinese: 劉沉草; pinyin: Liú Chéncǎo
2. Chen Mao: 陈茂; 陳茂; Chén Mào
3. Liu Laoxia: 刘老侠; 劉老俠; Liú Lǎoxiá
4. Lu Fang: 卢方; 盧方; Lú Fāng

References

• Choy, Howard Yuen Fung (2008). "Remapping the Past: Fictions of History in Deng's China, 1979 -1997". BRILL. ISBN 9789004167049.
• Zhang, Yingjin (December 1994). "Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas by Su Tong, Michael S. Duke". Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews. 16: 185–187. doi:10.2307/495325. JSTOR 495325.

Notes

1. Lu, Tonglin (1995). Misogyny, Cultural Nihilism & Oppositional Politics: Contemporary Chinese Experimental Fiction. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2464-4, ISBN 978-0-8047-2464-7. Cited: p. 150
2. Choy, H. Y.F., p. 139.
3. Krist, Gary (1993-07-25). "The Junior Wife's Story". The New York Times. Retrieved 2022-09-08.
4. "Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas". Publishers Weekly. 1993-06-28. Retrieved 2022-09-16.
5. Zhang, p. 185.
6. Choy, H. Y.F., p. 138.

External links

• Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas - HarperCollins