Rickshaw boy by Lao she

Lao She began the novel in spring, 1936, and it was published in installments in the magazine
Yuzhou feng ("Cosmic wind") beginning in January, 1937.[2] Lao She returned to China from the
United States after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In an afterword
dated September, 1954, included in the Foreign Languages Press edition of Rickshaw Boy, Lao
She said that he had edited the manuscript ("taken out some of the coarser language and some
unnecessary descriptions") and he expressed regret for the lack of hope expressed in the original
edition.

In 1945, Evan King published an unauthorized translation of the novel. He cut, rearranged,
rewrote, invented characters, and changed the ending. The girl student and One Pock Li are
King's, not Lao She's. King also added considerable embellishment to the two seduction scenes.
Despite the liberties taken, the book was a bestseller in the United States and a Book-of-the-
Month club selection.

Rickshaw Boy (Chinese: ) is a 1982 Chinese movie directed by Ling Zifeng, based upon the
novel of the same name by Lao She. The film stars Siqin Gaowa, who won a Golden Rooster for her
performance, and Zhang Fengyi.

Plot
Set in the 1920s, the novel's protagonist is an orphan peasant who leaves for Beijing to earn a
living. Xiangzi is a young, hardworking, well-built rickshaw puller who dreams of owning his
own rickshaw. Just when he has earned enough to buy one, it is confiscated by warlord soldiers.
By a twist of fate he comes across some camels during his escape from the military, which he
later sells, earning the nickname Camel. However, the cash Xiangzi obtains from this is not
enough for him to buy another new rickshaw - providence decrees that he must toil once more. A
police secret agent later extorts him into paying him his savings, leaving Xiangzi impoverished
again. Left with no choice, Xiangzi returns to work for Old Master Liu, the boss of a thriving
rickshaw rental company.

Although he tries to be honest and down to earth, Xiangzi finds himself entangled between Old
Master Liu and his stout, manipulative daughter Tiger Girl, ten years his senior. Tiger Girl, who
is carrying a torch for him, insists on marrying Xiangzi after pretending to be made pregnant by
him. Her father disowns her and the couple live together, progressively made poor by her
spendthrift ways. Later, Tiger Girl becomes pregnant by Xiangzi and grows even fatter as she
awaits her delivery due her laziness and greediness for food.

When Tiger Girl dies during childbirth and Xiangzi's infant child is stillborn, Xiangzi is
distraught. He later finds meaning in life again in a female neighbour, the meek and long-
suffering Little Fuzi, who is forced into prostitution by her idle father. When Xiangzi has earned
enough to redeem her from the brothel, he is devastated to find she has committed suicide.

The harsh realities of life taught Xiangzi that decency and hard work have little meaning in this
pragmatic, dog-eat-dog world. He becomes a lazy, degenerate and unscrupulous good-for-
nothing, no different from those he looked down on early in his life, spending his days gambling,
cheating and whoring.

Subject matter and themes

The major subject matter of Rickshaw Boy is the way in which the hero makes his living pulling
a rickshaw, the options he faces and choices he makes, and especially the fundamental issues of
whether to work independently or as a servant to a family, and whether to rent or own a
rickshaw.

Additionally, the novel describes a series of adventures he has and his interactions with a number
of other characters.

Beijing -- "filthy, beautiful, decadent, bustling, chaotic, idle, lovable"[3]:240is important as a

backdrop for the book. "The only friend he had was this ancient city." (p. 31)

The book explores the intimate relationship between man and machine (the rickshaw), and the
evolution of that relationship. The relationship is both financialrequiring months and years of
calculation to graduate from being a renter to being an ownerand physical. "His strength
seemed to permeate every part of the rickshaw. . . . he was energetic, smooth in his motions,
precise. He didn't appear to be in any hurry and yet he ran very fast . . . . " [3]:7

An important theme of the book is the economic precariousness of the hero's life. "No matter
how hard you work or how ambitious you are, you must not start a family, you must not get sick,
and you must not make a single mistake!" [3]:185 "If you avoid dying of starvation when young,
good for you. But it was almost impossible to avoid dying of starvation when old." [3]:95

Further, the book explores personality characteristics and their relationship to economic
existence, especially tolerance for risk, tolerance for hard work, and assertiveness, and personal
standards of human dignity. "He had a strong body, a patient disposition, ambition, yet he
allowed people to treat him like a pig or a dog and he couldn't keep a job." [3]:48

Isolation and individualism are important themes in the book. "His life might well be ruined by
his own hands but he wasn't about to sacrifice anything for anybody. He who works for himself
knows how to destroy himself. These are the two starting points of Individualism." [3]:237

Historical significance
The characterization or point of view in Rickshaw Boy reflects the influence of Russian literature
in China in general, and particularly on the way that influence was transferred to China by Lu
Xun in stories such as The True Story of Ah Q and "Diary of a Madman".[4]

The subject matter of Rickshaw Boy aligned with concerns of Chinese leftists and the Chinese
Communist Party. For instance, the final sentences read, "Handsome, ambitious, dreamer of fine
dreams, selfish, individualistic sturdy, great Hsiang Tzu. No one knows how many funerals he
marched in, and no one knows when or where he was able to get himself buried, that degenerate,
selfish, unlucky offspring of society's diseased womb, a ghost caught in Individualism's blind
alley." [3]:249

Lao She went on to play a leading role in literary associations endorsed by the government, such
as the All-China Federation of Literature and Art. According to the introductory section of the
Foreign Languages Press (Beijing) English translation, "Before Liberation [Lao She] wrote many
works of literature, including his best novel Camel Xiangzi (or Rickshaw Boy) to expose and
denounce the old society.

While he now enjoys prestige in China and was named a "People's Artist" and "Great Master of
Language", at the beginning of the cultural revolution he was severely persecuted. The Red
Guards paraded him through the streets and beat him in public. Being humiliated both mentally
and physically, he, according to the official record, committed suicide by drowning himself in
Beijing's Taiping Lake in 1966.[5]

English translations
Reynal & Hitchcock (New York) published an English translation by Evan King in 1945 under
the English title Rickshaw Boy ("by Lau Shaw"). According to Jean M. James ("Note on the Text
and the Translation" in the James edition), "King cut, rearrange, rewrote, invented characters,
and changed the ending."

The University of Hawaii Press published an English translation by Jean M. James in 1979 under
the English title Rickshaw: the novel Lo-t'o Hsiang Tzu.[3] It is based on the 1949 edition.

Foreign Languages Press (Beijing) published an English translation by Shi Xiaoqing in 1988
under the English title Camel Xiangzi.

The most recent full translation is Rickshaw Boy: A Novel (New York: Harper Perennial Modern
Chinese Classics, 2010) by Howard Goldblatt (ISBN 9780061436925). Goldblatt went back to
the 1939 first book edition and consulted the 1941 edition while working on the translation.

Adaptation
The story was filmed as Rickshaw Boy (1982) directed by Zifeng Ling. Composed by Guo
Wenjing, an opera based on the novel was created at the National Centre for the Performing Arts
(China) in June 2014.
Notes
1.

Song (2013), pp. 164-165.

How I came to write the novel "Camel Xiangzi", included in Foreign Languages Press
edition.
Lao She (1979). Rickshaw: the novel Lo-t'o Hsiang Tzu. Jean M. James (trans.). Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press.
Douwe W. Fokkema, in "Lu Xun: The Impact of Russian Literature," in Merle Goldman, ed.,
Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era (Cambridge: Harvard, 1977), writes, "The
heroes in these stories are all outcasts and underdogs, in varying degrees . . . . Xiangzi, the main
figure in Luotuo xiangzi (Rickshaw boy [1937]), who becomes the victim of his own stubborn
toiling, fits into this category." (p. 100)