Sounds of the River

Da Chen returns in his second memoir Sounds of the River (#157) to his days spent as a student and a neophyte teacher at the Beijing Languages Institute during the 1980s.  We first met him as a child in the rural southern village of Yellow Stone, where his future looked dim indeed as the grandson of a "landlord" in   Colors of the Mountain (See my post of 1/30/12.).   It chronicles his remarkable story to his point of departure for the big city.  Sounds of the River picks up his story as he struggles to excel where he is still an outsider, not considered good enough for Communist Party membership.

Chen's determination to rise to the top is fueled by the goal of going abroad.  The friends and enemies he makes along the way, the professors who befriend him because of his work ethic, and the Party cadres who put obstacles in the way of his success all play a role in guiding Chen to the place he is meant to be.  Although he graduates first in his class as an English major and is given a plum work assignment at the Beijing Languages Institute, it is ultimately his own efforts through helping others that win him a fellowship at an American college. Politics, policies, faith in a higher power, and bribery in the proper quarters work in his favor as well as he tells his tale.

I enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with Da Chen in this memoir, but again I'm left at the end of the book wanting to know what happens to him next; he's set to depart for Lincoln, Nebraska to take up a fellowship at a small school there.  How will Lincoln react to Da, and what will he make of his opportunities there? 

I did read a review on the Good Reads blog by a college student who said that this book was required reading for his incoming freshman class.  He apparently didn't get much out of the book other than the fact that the Chinese plumbing for native students was primitive in the extreme, and that oysters as an aphrodisiac can make a useful bribe.  But I can also see that reading this book without reading Colors of the Mountain first doesn't give the reader a chance to appreciate what Da has already gone through to get there, or why he might react to things the way he does.  While I would highly recommend this book, do yourself a favor if you do read it, and be sure to read these two books in sequence.  In the meantime, I'll be waiting for Mr. Chen to continue his memoirs with an American volume.