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Rickshaw: The Novel Lo-t'o Hsiang Tzu

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Rickshaw, also known as Lo Tuo Xiang Zi, is considered as a classic in the world of modern Chinese literature. The author of this book is Lao She; the book was written in 1936. The story is set in Beijing. Time passes swiftly in this novel; the beginning to the end of the story is roughly five years. This novel is not just a story about rickshaw pullers, but a story about the social miseries in early modern China. Lao She's work is a real depiction of the ugliness and cold-heartedness of this world. The writing and description itself is what makes this novel an incredible reading experience. Lao She's literary prowess enables him to portray Xiang Zi's world to life. He describes the world of Xiang Zi, including the dust, the rain, the heat, the cold, the hearts of people, and the harrowing streets of Peking in vivid details. Insidiously, a political theme is implemented by Lao She. The condemnation voiced in the final lines of the novel clearly indicates his hate on individualism and left wing ideas. Nevertheless, the locus of focus in Rickshaw is Xiang Zi. Moment by moment, Lao She's eyes are fixed on Xiang Zi, and Xiang Zi's attention is always on the rickshaw.

This book absolutely deserves it's honor to be a Chinese classic. Yes, this book is a required text by many asian study courses, but there is a significant, and a great reason for it. Lectures only talk about the lives of the emperors and the lord of the dynasties. They lived wealthy lives, but what about the common people? even though lectures normally don't discuss the lives of the working people, that doesn't mean they aren't important.

Rickshaw brings the hardships of the labors to life through a somewhat humorous and satire tone. It's is worth reading, both for a class or not. The main character Hsiang Tzu will take your emotion on to a roller coaster ride!

Rickshaw, also known as Lo Tuo Xiang Zi, is considered as a classic in the world of modern Chinese literature. The author of this book is Lao She; the book was written in 1936. The story is set in Beijing. Time passes swiftly in this novel; the beginning to the end of the story is roughly five years. This novel is not just a story about rickshaw pullers, but a story about the social miseries in early modern China. Lao She's work is a real depiction of the ugliness and cold-heartedness of this world. The writing and description itself is what makes this novel an incredible reading experience. Lao She's literary prowess enables him to portray Xiang Zi's world to life. He describes the world of Xiang Zi, including the dust, the rain, the heat, the cold, the hearts of people, and the harrowing streets of Peking in vivid details. Insidiously, a political theme is implemented by Lao She. The condemnation voiced in the final lines of the novel clearly indicates his hate on individualism and left wing ideas. Nevertheless, the locus of focus in Rickshaw is Xiang Zi. Moment by moment, Lao She's eyes are fixed on Xiang Zi, and Xiang Zi's attention is always on the rickshaw.

I had read, before starting this novel, that Lao She was influenced by Dickens. Perhaps he was, but this novel is not as much reminiscent of Dickens as of Zola at his bleakest, or of Frank Norris' McTeague.

Just like McTeague (Norris' San Francisco unlicensed dentist), Hsiang Tzu is an inarticulate man.

The greatness of Lao She or Frank Norris' writing is that they allow us to get inside men who are so out of touch with their own feelings. Not mockingly or judging them in any way. Just deeeeeply.

It is difficult to be a man. One would almost think it has become more so, as men now are expected to be strong but caring too. But exceptional novels like Rickshaw or McTeague show that even in previous societies, with different challenges, men were already ravaged by inner contradictions.

Of course, the description of early 20th century Peking is fascinating, as are the omens of revolution.

But what made the book a special experience for me is the psychological accuracy.

(This book is also known as Camel Xiangzi and Rickshaw Boy, and has had different translators. I read the version translated by Shi Xiaoqing and illustrated by Gu Bingxin that I bought in China. ISBN 7-119-00512)

This is the great classic novel of exploitation in Old China, before the 1949 Revolution. It's also anti-individualist. It's the early 1930s and Xiangzi arrives alone in Beiping (Beijing) with dreams of making a living as a rickshaw puller. He is a loner who constantly struggles against forces beyond his control. On more than one occasion his rickshaw is destroyed and each time he tries to bounce back. Class struggle is woven throughout the tapestry of this story.

I read this after Nawal El Saadawi's Woman at Point Zero. So what really caught my attention was the character, Joy, who enters in the last third of Camel Xiangzi. I decided to use both of these novels in my thesis on women forced into prostitution. Joy is sold to an army officer by her lazy greedy father. Joy learns that temporary "marriages" are the MO of her officer "husband." Each time he is transferred he just buys a new wife, because it's cheaper than hiring housekeepers and prostitutes, and he leaves them with the bills.

When Joy returns home she's damaged goods and her father forces her to prostitute in order to support his drinking habit and her two younger brothers. Her life becomes hell on earth. I don't really want to spoil the ending. Let me just say that Chinese novels rarely have happy endings.

In his 1954 afterword Lao She reflects back on how much China has evolved since those dark days and how "Today, nineteen years later, the working people have become masters of their own destiny." Tragically more than half a century later, while China has the fastest growing economy in the world, many of its citizens, especially girls, are much worse off. The great exploitation novel of 21st century China would be called SWEATSHOP GIRL or HOSTAGE HOOKER. The protagonist would be a teenage girl from one of the inner provinces like Sichuan or Hunan. She would be forced to leave school and migrate to a city like Guangzhou. She would lie about her age to obtain a job in a sweatshop working around the clock, for pennies an hour, to support herself and send money home. Another worse, but unfortunately very common scenario (in Russia as well), she would be abducted walking home from school by a pimp from organized crime. When her parents try to find her the police sit back and do nothing because they are working with organized crime. A search engine turned up numerous articles about this. China is also the only country where more females than males commit suicide. Its one-child policy has led to a birth ratio of 119 males to 100 females. Rather than leading to a greater appreciation of women, who "hold up half of the sky," it has fueled a higher demand for trafficking in women.

I am reading Will the Boat Sink the Water: The Life of China's Peasants by Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao. It was written in the last few year by a husband and wife who are journalists from Anhui Province. The suffering of China's billion peasants seems even worse than in Lao She's day. I also recommend The Garlic Ballads, a novel by Mo Yan.

Rickshaw: The Novel Lo-t'o Hsiang Tzu, a 1936 novel penned by Chinese author Lao She, depicts the struggle of the unskilled, lower class worker in early 20th century China with painstaking accuracy. The story is a commentary on the corruption of Chinese society and its impact on the people, but it develops to reveal an additional message: Individualism and selfish ambition lead to downfall, failure, and misery. Hsiang Tzu is the victim of his times and circumstances, but not completely; he is also his own worst enemy. What begins as a sympathetic tale of the rickshaw puller's plight gradually turns into a moralist's warning of the catastrophe spawned by individualism and the danger of a society which promotes it.

The old rickshaw man, Hsiao Ma's grandfather, sums up Lao She's point the most succinctly: "any poor guy who thinks he can succeed by himself will find it harder than going to heaven. How far can one man hop? [A grasshopper] can go a long way in one hop by itself. Let a small boy grab it and tie a thread around it and it can't go anywhere. But if it joins up with a whole lot of other grasshoppers in a horde and they all move together, whew!"
According to Lao She, in a society that promotes and necessitates individualism, people will never be able to truly succeed. When people serve only themselves, corruption and deceit flourish, which in turn promotes individualism, which then begins the cycle anew.

Rickshaw is a condemnation of Lao She's corrupt China and the selfish people that it produced. However, it also serves as a vivid and historically accurate account of the hardships faced by the lowly rickshaw puller. This book will not tell you, it will SHOW you how an honest and upright man can be beaten down into the most degenerate of scumbags.

Highly recommended.

In "Rickshaw" the protagonist Tsiang Tzu leaves the countryside and finds work as a rickshaw puller in Peking. He is a hearty young man with aspirations of owning his own rickshaw and creating a stable life for himself. Misfortune, illness and his own willful nature eventually lead to his physical and moral destruction. Is he a victim of social forces beyond his control? Is the novel an indictment of the China of Lao She's time and those like Tsiang Tzu that it had produced? The brunt of the condemnation voiced in the final lines of the novel seem clearly to indicate the latter, a position that will inevitably be challenging to accept for many readers. The political themes of the novel are engaging and relevant. However, the writing itself is what makes this novel a remarkable reading experience. Lao She brings Tsiang Tzu's world to life in vivid detail, the dust, the cold, the bleak harrowing streets of Peking. A panoply of minor characters are deftly portrayed, a kindly intellectual and his family, a young prostitute struggling to feed her younger brothers, Tsiang Tsu's bullying wife, a decadent functionary and his mistress, a blckmailing police officer, derelict prostitues and rickshaw pullers old and young. In description and characterization, the book clearly displays the literary prowess of Lao She. At plot level the novel is eventful and reads quickly. For those seeking an "idea" book, there are the aforementioned themes; but, again, what makes this book a truly strong novel is the artful writing that so masterfully portrays the world of Tsiang Tzu. Readers new to Lao She who are drawn to great writing will, having read "Rickshaw," relish the prospect of exploring his other works.

I first read this book in a Chinese Literature class ten yearsago. I enjoyed it then, but only now after a second reading did Ireally savour it. Lao She tells the story of how a society based on survival of the (financially) fittest turns many "ambitious" citizens back into animals with no need of a mind or heart left. Lao She does not portray them as victims but products of a society based on "individualism". Seems one could compare the USA of 2000 (where school boys kill each other for mass marketed tennis shoes and school girls starve themselves to death for media illusions of beauty) with the Peking of 1920 we just have more wealth to pay with. This is not a fairy tale, but dark reality as the truth often is :-)

Rickshaw, written by She Lao tells of the complex life of Xiang Zi and his struggles to survive during a tumultuous time in China during the mid 1930's.

She Lao writes a remarkable story, full of societal/cultural details contrasting those of privilege and those of poverty. It is a writing style which demanded attention to the nuances of personal relationships, class struggle, traditions, and of the ugliness, horrors, and dangers lurking amidst a relegated society. In this regard, She Lao's description of life among rickshaw pullers was especially insightful and multilayered.

Through the tormented character, Xiang Zi we learn about the hardships suffered by the rickshaw pullers in Beijing, and the stark realities of trying to survive amid harsh conditions. Most compelling was the author, She Lao's ability to convey the complicated psyche of Xiang Zi and the misery he suffered and tried to overcome - simply trying to make a living and figure out his desires and purpose.

This is a well written book which required focus, because [for me] it raised questions about one man's inner quest for understanding and acceptance of his lowly fate.

Rickshaw: The Novel Lo-t'o Hsiang Tzu, by She Lao addresses important philosophical questions, and for this reason it is a book I plan to read again.

Maizie Lucille James
January 13, 2012

I tried to read this book again after my first attempt several years ago, but the quality of the translation removed so much from the original, and was so wooden, that I had to put it down. Avoid this edition.