Chronicle of a Blood Merchant – An Artfully Written Story of a Family’s Will to Survive Malevolent Forces of History

“Since it’s my birthday, I’m going to cook a meal for each of you with my mouth, and you can eat it with your ears. You won’t be able to eat it with your mouth because there’s nothing to eat, but prick up your ears, because I’m going to start cooking any moment now…”

In the 1980s, Yu Hua wrote short stories that were known for its ‘incisive lyricism’ and established himself as a key figure in Chinese avant-garde literature. Born in 1960, Yu Hua was working as a dentist when he started publishing stories. In 1990s, there was a major shift in the author’s style as he wrote two best-selling novels, which depicted the extraordinary struggles of the ordinary Chinese men and women. To Live, Yu Hua’s first novel (published in 1993), was adapted into a critically acclaimed movie by Zhang Yimou. His second novel, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (published in 1995 and translated to English by Andrew Jones in 2004) follows a small-town factory worker, from his youth to old age in the second half of the 20^th century – a period that marks the early days of Chinese socialism (1950s), the ambitious yet brutally forced collectivization of the Great Leap Forward (in 1958) and the famine that ensued as a result, the bloody Cultural Revolution (1966-76), and the relatively better (economically) post-Mao era.

Like To Live’s central character, the no-good-gambler Fugui, Xu Sanguan of Chronicle of Blood Merchant is a unheroic figure, molded by the regressive sociocultural practices and restricted by financial instability. He earns meager wages, working as a cart-pusher in a silk factory, situated in his small rural town. Xu Sanguan hears from his favorite fourth uncle that people in their village sell blood to hospital and earn money, the amount even if they toil six months in the field can't dream to earn. Selling blood was traditionally a taboo subject in China, but in the 1980s Chinese authorities and commercial companies set up a network of blood plasma collection stations in public hospitals especially to tempt the impoverished peasants. When Yu Hua wrote this novel the malpractices and corruption surrounding the system didn’t come to light (the unhygienic blood-buying practices led to HIV infection, afflicting at least half a million peasants in Henan province). Yet, Yu Hua’s portrayal of Xu Sanguan giving blood till he is too weak to even stand presents an alarming picture.

Earlier in the novel, the writer treats us to painful description of things-to-do before donating blood. Xu Sanguan meets two peasants on the road who asks him to drink lots of water to dilute their blood so that there’s more to sell (“drink until our stomachs are so swollen that it hurts and the roots of our teeth start to ache”). Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, however, isn’t a story steeped in misery and melodrama. Yu Hua details Xu Sanguan’s crisis-ridden life in the provincial village with a caustic wit. He is definitely not a likable character in the early chapters. Learning that the first of his three sons, Yile, is actually the child of his rival, He Xiaoyong, he abuses his wife Xu Yulan and bullies the boy. At one point, Xu Sanguan calls up his sons, Erle and Sanle, to promise him that they would rape He Xiaoyong’s daughters when they have grown up.

Xu Sanguan also often offers his twisted logic on why he can’t treat Yile as his son (ladened with casual misogyny). He leaves Yile at home during the famine and takes the rest of the family to eat noodles at a local restaurant. The image of hungry Yile stumbling through the streets, searching for his family, enrages us. Quite a few readers may get offended by Xu Sanguan’s absurd logic and callous deeds (strengthened by regressive social and cultural thinking). Even the other characters’ behaviors and motives may baffle our politically correct bourgeois sensibilities. But gradually Xu Sanguan takes the path of redemption that largely avoids blatant sentimentality. And as the state deprives the family of private existence, the political and social turmoil of the nation also invades their domestic space in myriad ways.    

Despite a clear-sighted portrayal of a vicious totalitarian world, what distinguishes Yu Hua’s novel is the humane portraits of the unenlightened people, who gradually learn to set aside their prejudices and false sense of pride. With this novel, the author has deftly mixed his humanistic notions with his early stylistic innovations (credit also belongs to the translation work of Andrew Jones). The result is a vivid story of flawed people who emerge from the period of intense fear, finding joy in small things and solace in family unit.