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Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
my grandmother once told me that while there is no suffering a person cannot endure, there is plenty of good fortune one can never hope to enjoy.
Don't for a minute think there was no pleasure in our lives back then. We had fun doing lots of things. Topping the list of fun things to do was gleefully eating something we'd never considered food before.
hunger made me realize how very important food is to people. Glory, causes, careers, and love mean nothing on an empty stomach. Because of food, I lost my self-respect; because of food, I suffered the humiliation of a lowly cur; and because of food I took up creative writing, with a vengeance.
A writer writes what he knows, in ways that are natural to him. I grew up hungry and lonely, a witness to human suffering and injustice; my mind is filled with sympathy for humanity in general and outrage over a society that bristles with inequality. That's what my stories are all about, that's all they could be about. Not surprisingly, as my stomach grew accustomed to being full when I wanted it to be, my literary output underwent a change. I have gradually come to realize that a life of eating jiaozi??three times a day can still be accompanied by pain and suffering, and that this spiritual suffering is no less painful than physical hunger. The act of giving voice to this spiritual suffering is, in my view, the sacred duty of a writer. But for me, writing about the suffering of the soul in no way supplants my concern for the physical agony brought about by hunger. I can't say whether this is my strength as a writer, or my weakness, but I know but it is what fate has decreed for me.
Life was tough, all right, but as long as you were willing to work hard and put your pride aside, you could always get by.
People were what he feared the most, and also what he missed the most.