History and Zhang Wei’s The Ancient Ship

2008.10.22

What is Chinese history, and where is it going? In his epic novel The Ancient Ship, Zhang Wei explores the nature of history and memory against the tumultuous years of the post-Liberation period: the land reform programs, Great Leap Forward, the famine of 1959-61, the Cultural Revolution, and the market reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s.

First published in 1987 and recently released in English (with a lucid translation by Howard Goldblatt), The Ancient Ship is centered around the rise and fall of three families—the Sui, the Zhao, and the Li clans—in the fictitious northeastern village of Wali as they undergo one dramatic period after another. Once an important trading center, Wali’s fortunes begin to decline when the river on which it relies begins to dry up. Based on the author’s own experience of small town life in his native Shandong province, Wali is a typical Chinese village, ancient and sleepy, lurching towards modernity as the events of the latter half of the 20th century overtake it.

Against this environment, the characters struggle to assert themselves and take command of their destiny, only to be beaten back by their family background, the political climate of the time, or, more often than not, their own personal flaws as indecision and the past paralyze them. Suffering is never far at hand, and as the chapters unfold, the violence and horrors visited upon the characters are revealed as the residents of the town give voice to their memories. The only ones that do not suffer are the ones committing the crimes.

In China the past is never simply the past. While the Western concept of history is a fairly linear one of causal events marching through time, an ancient timeline of China’s history depicts the centuries and imperial dynasties as a seashell, with a prehistoric ancestor of the Chinese at the center, and successive years spiralling endlessly into the future.

Like this fluid rendering of Chinese chronology, the structure of Zhang Wei’s novel The Ancient Ship spirals in and out, elliptically moving back and forth to certain key moments in the town’s history. Driven by forces that they themselves do not necessarily understand, the characters seek to understand their own painful histories as the narrative repeatedly revisits certain events: the night the Sui family’s mother died, the night forty-two people were buried alive in a yam cellar, and the day the ancient ship that gives the novel its title is unearthed, amongst others.

By revisiting these pivotal events again and again, one question that The Ancient Ship poses obliquely is this: is it ever possible to author a truthful history, especially against the production of official histories by those in power? To struggle against and oppose men who create their own narratives to maintain their hold over the town? It’s no coincidence that the most literate man in Wali, Fourth Master, is also one of the most corrupt beneath his refined persona, while other characters spend much of their time analyzing three texts (a seafaring manual, The Communist Manifesto, and Qu Yuan’s Heavenly Questions) in their attempts to articulate their own memories and destinies.

If there is a true Chinese history, Zhang Wei makes the argument that it is one that is shared and half-remembered by each witness, with their own perspective of events and own motivations. These memories contradict and counteract the official narratives. For instance, the circumstances leading up to the yam cellar incident are slowly and carefully revealed, first beginning with what appears to be a throwaway line, and then building up to one of the most traumatic moments in Wali’s history.

The history of the town—known, shared but not spoken of—takes its own toll on the inhabitants. Sui Baopu, the head of the Sui family, keeps his menial job toiling away for Zhao Duoduo, a man who does everything he can to make sure that the Sui family loses its prestige. When Baopu finally breaks his silence on the past to his brother Jiansu, he says passionately, “I’m going to tell you things that have been stewing in my heart for decades, but I’m actually afraid to reveal them. This is the first and last time I’ll talk to you about the past.”

The Ancient Ship was written in 1987, which, as the back cover copy painstakingly points out, was two years before the events in Tian’anmen Square. It was a time of national soul searching as the Chinese sought to examine and understand the excesses of the Mao years. Twenty years later, after two decades of more great changes, The Ancient Ship is as pertinent to modern readers as it was when it was first written.

Many of the issues that plagued the characters in The Ancient Ship are still present, thus lending the novel a startling relevance on the problems facing modern China. There are corrupt local officials who wield an unusually high degree of power in their small towns. Men from the countryside leave for the big city in hopes of making it big. At the Wali glass noodle factory, Sui Baopu fights against the adulteration of starch in the noodles, a scheme dreamt up by Zhao Duoduo to squeeze out more profit. Land reform and the rights of farmers are issues that the Chinese government is still trying to resolve even today.

In the end, after decades of suffering, Zhang Wei’s characters finally break free of their paralyzing histories and attempt to make their peace with both their past and the issues that are haunting their town. The Ancient Ship ends on an optimistic note as the characters face a hopeful future, but only after the characters have the courage to speak of the past and air their grievances. It’s a question that still faces China, whether it will be able to reconcile itself to its more recent history of suffering, or like Sui Baopu, dam up the memories until they come to light?

— 文/ Fiona Lee