Chinese National Character
Uploaded by bulldawg on Oct 27, 2011
This essay discusses the flaw in the Chinese character, as seen by Chinese writers Lu Hsun and Lao She
I Introduction
It’s probably not fair to characterize an entire nation by describing some of the traits noticed in individual members of the population; that way lies stereotyping and bigotry, and gives rise to sayings like “all Irish are drunkards,” “all Asians are smart,” and “all Germans are regimented.” Some are, some are not.
However, in the writings of Lu Hsun and Lao She, we can discern that these authors had a definite opinion of the Chinese people, and it’s very unflattering. Both men write about what they see as a fundamental weakness of the Chinese character: the Chinese preoccupation with themselves to the exclusion of all else. This self-centeredness is clearly the main point of Rickshaw and The True Story of Ah Q. The main characters of both these novels are so egocentric that they are almost completely unaware of the events that take place around them, unless and until those events impact them directly. Their self-absorption also makes them ineffective as human beings: they fail in jobs, in relationships, and in life.
This paper will look at Rickshaw and True Story of Ah Q, and some lesser works, to analyze the way in which the authors describe this weakness of character.
II Rickshaw
Rickshaw is one of the most powerful books I’ve read; it’s also strange and in some ways, repellent, because Hsiang Tzu is not a particularly likeable man, and yet he is the protagonist. We spend all of the novel with him, and it’s difficult to watch his life unfold. It’s even more distressing because what we’re seeing is the gradual destruction and complete corruption of a human being, someone who starts out with high hopes and high standards, and becomes utterly degraded by the hardships of his life, and the grinding poverty in which he lives.
His life is also a textbook example of how not to set goals. We hear a lot today from various self-help gurus about setting goals, breaking projects into small pieces and tackling them one at a time, etc. Hsiang Tzu sets a goal--to own his own rickshaw—and sticks to it no matter what. He sacrifices everything to this one objective: his health, his family, his self-respect, possibly his life (though we don’t know how...