Acknowledgements
Before I write every book and after I have finished it, the names of many, many people come to mind, and all of them need to be thanked. Some of them may not appear in the text or form part of the book, but they are a part of what I have become today, the Xinran who is able to write books.
Aside from my mother and the rest of my family, I probably owe most gratitude to the hands of the midwife who brought me into the world since she was dexterous enough not to drop me on my head and turn me into an idiot. Then there were the 'aunties' of my kindergarten who constantly drilled into me that 'tree leaves don't grow in the ground, and roots don't grow in the air'. Then there were my primary and middle school teachers who taught me truths about nature like 'What is red? The sun at dawn! What is black? Coal underground!' so I learned that as well as people, there were other lives that shared our earth. From them, I acquired basic facts such as that while I was fast asleep, there were other people busy labouring away. There is a Chinese orphan whom I can never thank enough: Yinda had never had a home, but he taught me that by imagining what people were doing behind every door, I could rid myself of the misery of being bullied. Then there are those chattering and twittering flocks of friends at university: among them, the weeping, snivelling 'bad girls', severely punished for transgressing the rules, who were a spur to me to work hard to become a good Chinese woman. They all helped my Chinese heart become reflective and mature.
When I was at the radio station in China, it was those listeners who felt I was talking only to them from their radio set that made me understand that China which I had never seen and of which I had no knowledge.
As for my son, Panpan Xue, from the first Chinese sentence he babbled as a baby, to the first book in English he read about China; from the time, at the age of three, that he asked what China was, to his return to China as a fifteen-year-old volunteer, to teach English to poor mountain children; it was through his growing up that I explored my ability to be a Chinese mother. I want to thank him for being my assistant on the project.
Then there is my husband, Toby Eady, who, although he can only say five things in Chinese (and one of those is a swear word), has gone in search of China's culture and history, and understands, encourages and supports my 'China complex'. Without him, I would probably never have had the strength to finish
All in all, the list of people whom I want to thank is enormously long. You could say that what these names make up is a book of my own life. When I thought that I might be able to write a book like this, I shouted my thanks – to life, to every tiny little bit, breath and ray of light around me.
There is one other factor in these necessary thanks: what exactly is my role in this book? The author with twenty years of investigative achievements to her credit? The scholar who believes she understands China? A guide along the motorways with their forest of signposts? Or an attentive student and listener who, by dint of her familiarity with Chinese culture and her passion for its people, has opened one or two doors for Westerners, and walked into China with them? My head still teems, night and day, with the multitudes of things I saw, books I read and things I experienced. So what am I in this book? What is the information which I am so keen to give my readers? What do I hope that they will feel after they have made their journey through it?
I am actually saying to those who want so much to understand and have things explained to them that time not only forms the construct of our lives, it creates space and clarifies our memories. What has actually happened is that an increasingly clear memory has taken me to the answer to these questions. In May 2006, Toby and I were invited to attend a workshop on literary translation in Holland. For two days, publishers, translators, writers and reporters from thirty-odd countries discussed our different national literatures and argued back and forth about how to get translated works published for the rest of the world to enjoy. The event, enthusiastic, liberating and endlessly thought-provoking, was organised by the NLPVF (the Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature) and the chairman who brought us into this space and made it possible for us to enjoy it was Martin Asscher, a Dutch scholar. As we embarked on the day's agenda, and more and more people launched into what became a single-minded debate on literary issues, I realised that it was our conference 'maestro' Martin Asscher who was guiding and controlling the way in which our three-sided discussions – on literature, translation and publishing – developed. Yet quite unlike most politicians, teachers and other figures of importance so keen to display their wisdom, he was entirely self-effacing. Instead, he became our 'general', allowing each participant's enthusiasm for literature, translation or publishing to blend with his plans, and the needs of world literary thinking to be absorbed by Dutch scholarship. Two days of this and, thanks to Martin, my memory was steeped in debate – and I was just a foreigner and a novice! Through him, I learned to 'mediate' my awareness of other cultures, and to contribute my own building blocks to a shared cultural 'bridge-building'.
Through this book, I hope my own readers, standing like me outside the door looking in at China and its history, will experience these memories of China for themselves. I long for my readers to empathise with the people in this book and their families' stories; and to see how a people have risen from poverty and conflict to assume a new self-respect. And it will not be me – limited as I am to existing within a single moment, a Chinese cell with a single function – it will be the China witnesses who, with their stories, have the real power to persuade.
Without Esther Tyldesley, Nicky Harman and Julia Lovell, who translated this book from Chinese into English (putting Chinese clouds into an English box, as Esther says); without my two editors, Dan Frank at Pantheon Books, who formed my writing into a readable book, and Alison Samuel, who has done so much not only for this book but also my other books published by her Chatto & Windus team; without those Random House people who have worked on this book, and many friends in different countries and the wisdom and dedication they have brought to the project – without all of them these Chinese stories would still be gathering dust in my Chinese memory or even left in the past of China.
Please do not think that I have simply given you a long list of names. In fact, they are not only a part of this book, they are part of China's witnesses today. I thank them, as China will thank them in the future, because they gathered together for us these precious historical records. Every book is imbued with the blood, sweat and reflections of so many people, and forms a building block in the Long March of literature.
Chinese Assistants:
My thanks go to all the following for their help:
Wendy Wu, MBL CEO and
Leo Hao Chong,
Julie Zhu,
