Yu Hua

Yu Hua at the 2005 Singapore Writers Festival [[1]]

Childhood

Yu Hua was born on April 3, 1960 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province of China.

Birth Place [[2]]

Yu Hua has very little written of his childhood other then what you can piece together from his novels. Yu, went to school and was raised during the cultural revolution. The cultural revolution was a time in china where people were told to focus on money. Yu Hua briefly mentions that the first twenty years of his live were spent in a impoverish state but the next twenty were lavishly spent. Yu grew up in and around a hospital where his parents were both doctors. Under the direction of his parents and government he studied to be a dentist.

Yu said this of dentistry in a interview with Michael Standaert, "I had been working as a dentist for five years, but I didn’t like the job because I was looking into people’s mouths the whole day. The mouth offers the worst scenic view in the world. I was still young and I wanted to see other more interesting things." (Michael Standaert).

The only other event that Yu Hua mentions of his childhood was the comical school experience relating to the death of Mao Zedong. Yu at the age of sixteen had been lead out of the school with thousands of other students for an announcement. Mao Zedong had died that morning, "everyone burst into tears. I started crying, too, but one person crying is a sad sight; more than a thousand people crying together, the sound echoing, turns into a funny spectacle, so I began to laugh. My body shook with my effort to control my laughter while I bent over the chair in front of me. The class leader later told me, admiringly, ‘Yu Hua, you were crying so fervently!’” (Pankaj Mishra).

Motivations

Yu Hua loves to laugh and during his time as a dentist he found it hard being himself. The lifestyle of a dentist was non-creative and boring. He hated the long hours and poor government allotted pay. Yu had watched the people at the cultural center as they seemingly wandered about the streets the whole day. Yu eventually asked why they weren't working and one man responded that he was, his job was to wander the streets. Yu Hua told himself that was the job for him. After writing some worthwhile articles he was able to make the transition. Securing a job working at the local cultural center. He said this of the new position, "I was still a poor bastard, but a poor bastard in the cultural center who had every minute to himself. I slept until noon nearly every day. Then I would spend my time wandering about in the streets. If there were absolutely no people left to play with me, I’d go home and write."

Yu was asked once what fueled his desires to write? what fueled his desires? His response was that he began writing because he wanted to be free to do whatever he wanted to do. He then mentioned that he would always have to write to express himself.

The change gave Yu the freedom to spend his day being social and seeing china from a view other then his dental office. Yu began to express himself though his writing.

Another of Yu's motivations was money. Growing up with two parents as doctors you would assume that he was wealthy, but that was not the case. The typical american doctor currently makes around 200,000 where a Chinese doctor on fixed wages by the government makes roughly 42,000. These numbers are not the same as twenty five years ago but you get the idea. Pay then for Yu's parents wasn't that spectacular.

As an experienced author, Yu dreams of those moments where he's writing and there's no distinguishable line between himself being the author or the reader. He enjoys the fluidity of listing to his inner voice and and being able to write what he feels and hears.

Writing Styles

Yu started a movement in china the french named "Avant-garde". Avant-garde stretches the boundaries of the Chinese government and the social norms of china's current cultural realm. This writing is what Yu became famous for. Yu Hua did this type of writing during the 1980's. Through writing about Extremes in the Cultural Revolution and the mass protests in 1989 he attracted a large audience. The Literary tools he used best were his vivid first-hand observations, and his graphic detail especially the during violent moments. Yu Hua has also been complemented in his writing for how he conveys a rich and complex view of China. The simplicity is something westerners have been waiting for some time. His writing enables westerners to obtain a deeper understanding of the modern and rich culture of china.

Yu switched to realism and melodrama in 1992 in his novel “To Live.” This atrocity-rich tale of a peasant whose son dies after a blood transfusion to save a party official. This sensationally dramatic piece exaggerated characters and exciting events to appeal to the emotions of Yu's audience.

Yu in his later years begins to change from his radical writing style "Avant-garde" to a more traditional style. After 1995, when he finished To Live and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, he started writing in a plain and less elaborate style. He explained his transition as him following his audiences needs. Yu also states that he started to hear the voice of his characters. "I began to dissolve into my writing, to become the characters in my work. This is a truly wonderful feeling." (Michael Standaert)

Legacy

• "Brothers," published in two parts in China, in 2005 and 2006, sold millions of copies and helped cement Yu's place as one of the country's few homegrown literary stars.

• Yu Hua's novels have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Persian, Spanish, Swedish, Serbian, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean and Malayalam.

• Yu Hua was the first Chinese Author to receive the James Joyce Award (2002).

• A film was made of "To Live" by China’s most prominent director Zhang Yimou. It won the Grand Prix at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.

Works

Short Stories

• Leaving Home at Eighteen
• The Past and the Punishments: Eight Stories (1996)
  • Blood and Plum Blossoms
  • Classical Love
• World Like Mist: Eight Stories
• China in Ten Words

Novels

• To Live (1992)
• Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (1995)
• Cries in the Drizzle (2003)
• Brothers (2005 novel)|Brothers (2005) shortlisted at the 2008

References

• A conversation with Yu Hua at UCLA

• A profile of Yu Hua in the New York Times Magazine

Sources

Mishra Pankaj. "Mishra Pankaj, The Bonfire of China’s Vanities" The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Jan. 2009. Web. 23 Jan. 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25hua-t.html?_r=2&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all&>.

Michael Standaert. "Michael Standaert, Interview with Yu Hua" MCLC Resource Center, Aug 30, 2003. <http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/yuhua.htm>.

Freudenberger Nell, The Secret Lives of Dentists, " Slate.com, 24 Oct. 2003, <http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2003/10/the_secret_lives_of_dentists.html>.