Jia Pingwa’s novel derives its freshness from the unfamiliar setting of the protagonist — a village boy’s adventures in the big city, his mistreatment by locals, the loss of a loved one, and the love for one not yet found — all of which is a story to sympathise with. 

Hawa ‘Happy’ Liu, from Freshwind township, has it all sorted in his head. Having sold his kidney to buy a house for his potential wife, only to be cheated on, Happy now sets off with a pair of high heels in hand to an industrialised Xi’an with sidekick Wufu in search of a better life and redemption. There he meets Meng Yichun, the apparent Cinderella in his ambitious fairy tale, and falls in love. The catch: she, too, struggles to make ends meet in the big city and survives on prostitution. 

In what becomes an example of love transcending boundaries, Pingwa’s narrative is interspersed with pithy statements on the lower class as an altar for sacrificing conventional morality curated by and for the privileged upper class.

Happy is simultaneously on the lookout for the recipient of his kidney, a wealthy businessman, based on hearsay, and believes he will recognise him instantly. The prospect of this meeting serves as an incentive for Happy to endure the harsh realities of city life, by working first as a trash collector and later as a construction aide, all the while reserving his savings — whatever little he could – for Yichun’s liberation from her plight. Wufu, on the other hand, has a family to sustain back in Freshwind, and is seemingly accompanying Happy, influenced by an odd mixture of the protagonist’s optimism and his own affection for him. 

The main movement of the novel is towards the unravelling of events that led to Wufu’s death, accounted in the present in the first chapter. The rest of the novel, a fastidious flashback to their initial experiences as migrants, leads to the eventual divulgence of Wufu’s tragic and shockingly sudden demise. Although anti-climactic in that it was all the novel was heading towards in terms of plot, the preceding circumstances that stacked up like a deck of cards to conspire make for a satirical take on the apathy creeping into the once culturally rich and philosophically enlightened China.

Vishwajeet Gain