Many Americans today are blind to what life is like in other countries. After watching Hollywood movies where Chinese are only portrayed as either Kung Fu masters or super geniuses, it is no wonder so few Americans know about the reality of China today. But novels like Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, written by Yiyun Li, help to show some of the more somber realities of contemporary China. When reading this novel, it seems as if Yiyun Li is portraying China as being filled with loneliness and despair, bringing about an overall tone of complacency for the novella “Kindness.” But contrary to the tone of this story, Li unveils hope hidden within the encounters of others and their positive and negative influences.
Li writes this novella in the form of a narrative, therefore the reader is never left wondering what Moyan is thinking. This is beneficial in determining the complacency in Moyan’s life. For the duration of this novella, Moyan is left with the feeling that she was meant to be lonely in life, this being shown with her thoughts about her family, “[W]e were the loneliest family in the world because we were meant to be that way” (Li 53). Even from the beginning Moyan believed she was meant to be alone and away from people as shown from the quote above, and this belief was influenced by her mentor, Professor Shan.
Moyan had met Professor Shan as a young girl, she was twelve while Professor Shan was in her mid-sixties. Professor Shan had intended on teaching Moyan English, she did so by reading her English novels, like Charles Dickens. Along with slowly teaching Moyan to read English, she also taught Moyan to have a bleak outlook on life. Professor Shan taught Moyan that it is better to be alone than to surround oneself with people. Pr...
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...rson that has come into [her] life” (Li 79). Acts of kindness make a positive imprint on a person, even a person whose life has been as melancholy as Moyans, “a random act of kindness that will continue living on in [my] memory” (Li 80).
Overall, the novel Gold Boy, Emerald Girl is filled with sorrow and regret, with the novella “Kindness” showing a complacent tone. But despite all the sorrow and loss in this novella, a ray of hope can be found in Moyan’s words. She might say things about having no hope and being meant to be lonely, but with her words of kindness, it is shown that she is a believer that things can get better. Overall, even though this book is filled with sadness, it also shows that even amongst sadness, there can always be hope found in the kindness of others.
Works Cited
Li, Yiyun. Gold Boy, Emerald Girl. New York, Random House, 2010. Print.
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Bei Dao, "13 Happiness Street." Contemporary Literature of Asia. Ed. Arthur Biddle et al. Blair: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996. 280-291.
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...the narrator and all people a way of finding meaning in their pains and joys. The two brothers again can live in brotherhood and harmony.
Zhong, Xueping, Zheng Wang, and Bai Di. Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing up in the Mao Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
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