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In the musical “Aida,” the pharaohess begins her narration with the line “Every story is a love story.” In China, I would have to argue that “every story is a sad story.” In the course of my East Asian Studies classes, I have read several translated Chinese novels by such famous authors as Lao She, Mo Yan, Lu Xun, and Ma Jian, and I am now embarking on a new adventure, reading my first Chinese novel in Chinese. It seems that all of these writers love to embrace the tragic. In fact, most Chinese authors I’ve read, including the celebrated Chinese-American author Amy Tan, describe the most extreme of sorrowful situations… horrible deaths (such as drowning in a vat of feces), social or political injustice, suicide, abuse and beatings, mothers drowning babies, starvation and dire poverty, even cannibalism. Needless to say, there has been a lot of cruelty, injustice, and suffering in the course of human history, no matter what civilization, that deserves attention. What I don’t understand is that I have not once come across a Chinese novel that is not absolutely tragic. The book I am reading now is called the Age of Tattoos. I have only read the first 12 pages, but this is what has happened so far: Pregnant woman falls through frozen lake on her way to night shift at a Lime factory. Somehow she gives birth in the icy water and manages to save the infant before she dies (by page 2). By page 5, that infant, who is now nine years old, is hit by a train and has his leg amputated. That nine year old’s older brother is partially responsible, and the father beats him relentlessly. Older brother decides to take revenge on father, has his gang of friends beat up his own father. Then the brother’s gang gets in a fight with another gang, and the older brother is stabbed multiple times until his intestines are falling out. He dies.

Anyway, that’s as far as I have read, and I’m almost afraid to continue. It can only get better from here, right?

My theory is that in the West, we love to live vicariously. Watching people on TV with lives better than our own is a way of gaining a little bit of pleasure. I feel that in China it is the reverse, watching or reading about characters with lives much more miserable than your own is a way of making you life seem relatively good. I’ll have to test out this theory.

In the meantime, enjoy your feel good movies and books!