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David Wong

I, Life & Meaning

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Book review by Jeremy Trafford

A book review on The Evergreen Teahouse by Jeremy Trafford in PEN International Magazine in Vol. 54 of 2004

The author describes this as a Hong Kong novel, but the scene extends to include mainland China, Taiwan, North Korea and South Vietnam in a narrative that spans the thirty three years between 1952 and 1985, and, through the reminiscences of the older characters, the earlier period of the Japanese occupation. The focus is wide, and the viewpoints are varied – the thrusting individualism of a young Hong Kong entrepreneur, Xavier, who is impatient with the religious and cultural traditions of the past that his parents venerate, is tellingly contrasted with the political aspirations of the Communist party activist, Cheng Ching, the portrait of whom is one of the distinctive achievements of the novel. The detailed picture of Hong Kong capitalism with its big business ethos and occasional corruption, is countered by a balanced criticism of the British administration with all its canny opportunism and racial condescension as well as by the squabbles and frustrations of the Communist High Command which are so convincingly depicted.

David Wong has all the powers of empathy that a novelist requires above all other virtues. He is able to project himself into the old Buddhist and Confucian values of the older generation, with their emphasis on compassion and benevolence, as well as into the ambitions and disappointments of Communist party officials from mainland China. Cheng Ching starts off as a naive sixteen year old villager recruited into the People’s Liberation Army to fight in Korea, where even at that age he is critical of the wastage of human life the fighting involved. Haunted by the loss of his comrades he falls in Jove with a young nurse, but later, when taken from his unit to attend the May Day celebrations in the capital, she is stolen from him by the womanising Chairman Mao, whose charisma at first had so overwhelmed him. Twenty years later, with Mao dead, Cheng Ching, feeling disabused, experiences the intrigues and shifting alliances that attended the Cultural Revolution and the downfall of the Gang of Four, though he nevertheless agrees to go to Hong Kong as an Communist agent intent on infiltrating the capitalist system and securing information about Western weapons and technology. There he comes across the Hong Kong capitalism ruthlessly typified by Xavier, whose emotional coldness has by now lost him the love of his Chinese American wife Lucille.

Another contrasting well-drawn figure is the British journalist, Simon Baxendale, who falls in love with Lucille. Baxendale who is familiar with Chinese thought and feeling – the orderliness of Confucianism, the quietism of the Taoists, and the Buddhist surrender of all worldly attachments – attracts the sympathies of Lucille, whose son has turned against the relentless business methods of his father, as has Xavier’s own mother, whose attachment to the old ways is movingly depicted. These emotional involvements give a needed alternative dimension to this otherwise mainly political novel: Xavier’s retreat into his youthful past in Taiwan in search of a lost lover, the daughter of fisherman, with the tragic consequence that result, is woven in with the developments leading up to the signing of the Sino-British joint declaration on the future of Hong Kong (in which Margaret Thatcher herself makes a fleeing appearance.) There are one or two rather stereotypical figures in the novel, especially among the British officials, and the long time span makes for a rather disjointed narrative. It is the breadth and detail the political picture and the imaginative involvement in such contrasting and opposing points of view that give this novel its fascination – especially for those with knowledge of the history of the Chinese world in the second half of the last century.

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Biography
The Evergreen Tea House

Click to Download Chapters

  1. Catching Snakes - July 1952
  2. Letter From The Blue - August 1952
  3. Father To A Village - August 1952
  4. War of the Hills - May 1953
  5. Aftermath of Peace - September 1953
  6. Between Two Worlds - September 1953
  7. Dinner With Father - April 1954
  8. Days In May - May 1954
  9. Sugared Liquids - June 1955
  10. Conversations - July 1956
  11. Awakening - July 1956
  12. Fei-Fei - July 1956
  13. When Old Friends Meet - March 1960
  14. Lucille - July 1962
  15. Picking Up The Pieces - August 1965
  16. Evergreen Tea House - August 1965
  17. Pipe Dreams - April 1965
  18. The Battle Of Loudspeakers - July 1966
  19. Bombs And Banquets - September 1967
  20. Debits And Credits - April 1968
  21. The Meditation Room - August 1968
  22. Mortal Coils - February 1970
  23. Rallies And Riots - July 1971
  24. Law And Disorder - July 1971
  25. Plotters In Peking - March 1974
  26. Chance Encounter - April 1974
  27. Revelations - June1976
  28. Coups And Countercoup - October 1976
  29. The Puppet Master - May 1978
  30. The Work Committee - July 1978
  31. Shifts In The Wind - October 1978
  32. Dr. Chow - February 1979
  33. Reverse Osmosis - May 1980
  34. Sweet Sorrow - June 1981
  35. Another Stroll In The Garden - March 1982
  36. More Revelations - January 1984
  37. The Chief Secretary's Dilemma - September 1984
  38. Confronting The Past - November 1984
  39. Alarm Bells - December 1984
  40. Friendly Advice - December 1984
  41. Bill Of Sale - December 1984
  42. Fallouts - January 1985
  43. Life and Death in Su-Ao - February 1985
  44. Farewell - March 1985
  45. Author's Note

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