The Shop of the Lin Family & Spring Silkworms

Bilingual Series in Modern Chinese Literature

by Mao Dun, Sidney Shapiro (Translator)

Mao Dun published both of these short stories, "The Shop of the Lin Family" and "Spring Silkworms, " in 1932. The first tells the story of a shop selling foreign goods in a small town in China, which Zhu Ziqing considers the best work written by Mao Dun. The second is about a silk weaver, Old Tong Bao, who takes very good care of his silkworms, until the armed conflicts caused by the Japanese in Shanghai in 1932 ruined his business. The stories are available here for the first time in traditional Chinese characters.

Genres: China, Fiction, Short Stories, Chinese Literature

200 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2003

About the author

Mao Dun (4 July 1896 – 27 March 1981) was the pen name of Shen Dehong (Shen Yanbing), a 20th-century Chinese novelist, cultural critic, and the Minister of Culture of People's Republic of China (1949–65). He is one of the most celebrated left-wing realist novelists of modern China. His most famous works are Ziye, a novel depicting life in cosmopolitan Shanghai, and Spring Silkworms. He also wrote many short stories.

He adopted "Mao Dun" (Chinese: 矛盾), meaning "contradiction", as his pen name to express the tension in the conflicting revolutionary ideology in China in the unstable 1920s. His friend Ye Shengtao changed the first character from 矛 to 茅, which literally means "thatch".

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dun Mao's reflects on the plight of the lower classes, both shop owners and farmers, during the period of unrest in the 1930s. Through the trials of making ends meet, we see the resulting changes of relationships between neighbors and family members, the changes in temperaments and spirits. Dun Mao offers inspiration to further study this period of Chinese history with it's internal strife brought on by the fall of the emperor, the rise of the communist parties, and the invasion of Japanese forces. His writing also makes you contemplate the justification China had for it's later isolated policies.

This edition offers a constant reminder that you are reading a translated text with Chinese and English pages side by side. The translation is often lacking in finesse, especially in dialogue, although the format reminds you of what you are reading and that Chinese prose and speech are very different from English making translation tricky. All in all, I was very impressed and will look for more translated editions of Chinese fiction in this format.

[Magda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Illuminating as to Chinese culture as it transitioned from traditional to modern. The characters, well-developed, conveyed the dismal sense of tension, uncertainty and powerless concession to these changes.
Yes, a good pair of novellas, though far from uplifting.

[Bread · Rating 4 out of 5]

short, mao dun's naturalism takes him to depicting the precarious status of shopkeepers & silkfarmers amid historical exigencies & networks of capital, debt, & econ pressures. he's sympathetic to their plight, humanising them quite well. the star of the show for me here is the shop of the lin family, particularly with its change of pov (& class position) in the ending. you've got the sinojapanese war, corrupt officials, ruthless competitors, & the people too impoverished to afford anything all layered

[Jeff Hobbs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read so far:

The shop of the Lin family --
Spring silkworms --2