“The Path of Lu Xun” exhibition was officially opened to the public at the Beijing Lu Xun Museum on October 19, 2021. Photo: IC PHOTO

Modern Chinese native-soil literature emerged from the encounter between “rural China” and Western modernity. Amid the crises of the time, some writers readily accepted Western cognitive frameworks —such as China vs. the West, tradition vs. modernity, and ignorance vs. civilization—to reinterpret “rural China.” These narratives often depicted desolate rural scenes and portrayed peasants as in dire need of enlightenment. However, this is not the whole picture of early native-soil literature. While critique of rural China was its main theme, early Chinese native-soil literature also expressed a longing for “rural revival.” It was exactly this call for revival that infused the genre with its distinctive vitality.

Subverting Western framing of modernity

In the context of new Chinese literature, Zhou Shuren, known by the pseudonym Lu Xun, was among the first prominent critics of “rural China.” Many of his works can be regarded as masterpieces exposing the ills of the rural landscape. However, Lu Xun was ultimately a great writer. On the one hand, he recognized the accumulated ignorance of “rural China” and the urgency of enlightenment. On the other hand, he had a deep distrust of the subject of enlightenment. In 1908, Lu Xun argued in “Toward A Refutation of Malevolent Voices” that the “anti-superstation,” enlightenment-advocating intellectuals were “pseudo-scholars,” accusing them of “plundering,” with their true motive being the pursuit of wealth in the guise of science. By “pseudo-scholars,” Lu Xun primarily meant those who superficially embraced the rhetoric of enlightenment while lacking a basic understanding of both European and American modernization and China’s realities. These individuals were not interested in “enlightenment” as an aspiration, but the power and wealth that the enlightenment discourse could bring them. Such figures were often satirized in Lu Xun’s fiction. Examples include the opportunistic “Imitation Foreign Devil,” who speculates on the outcomes of China’s revolution in “The True Story of Ah-Q,” the verbose “idealist,” who talks big in “The Story of Hair,” and Fang Xuanchuo, who enjoys the fruits of others’ labor in “Dragon Boat Festival.”

In addition to gradually stripping off the facade of opportunistic “pseudo-scholars,” Lu Xun consistently probed the souls of the intellectuals who returned to rural China. Such characters appear in works such as “My Old Home” and “The New Year’s Sacrifice.” While they initially exude confidence in their knowledge upon returning, they soon confront the inadequacy of the enlightenment discourse in addressing rural realities. For example, Jun-tu [a character in “My Old Home”] is impoverished not because of the “old rules,” and the suffering of Hsiang Lin’s Wife [a figure in “The New Year’s Sacrifice”] cannot be alleviated by scientific rationality. These intellectuals, far from being omniscient and omnipotent agents of enlightenment, are revealed as “outsiders,” unable to engage meaningfully with their hometowns. Ultimately, they retreat in disillusionment, condemned to loneliness and rootlessness.

It was precisely because he observed the vanity of the enlightenment discourse that Lu Xun began to question and reflect on the position and identity of the enlightener, consistently deconstructing the authority of the narrator/observer, rendering the structure of “seeing/being seen” extremely unstable. This challenged and, to some extent, subverted the Western binary cognitive framework of modernity that rigidly defines “advanced” versus “backward.” It can be argued that Lu Xun is both a pioneer and a disintegrator of the critical narrative model of native-soil literature, which demonstrates the sophistication and complexity of his thought.

Retelling rural China

If Lu Xun subverted the Western cognitive framework of modernity when telling the story of “rural China,” then the younger generation of writers in the 1930s went a step further, reinterpreting “rural China” beyond the Western framing. In their writings, the plight of “rural China” does not simply stem from the ignorance and backwardness of the peasants themselves, but more importantly from the broader “consequences of modernity.” In works such as “Spring Silkworms” by Mao Dun, Harvest by Yeh Tzu, and “The Harvest Bigger by a Bushel” by Ye Shengtao, the narrators are not superior to peasants; rather, they present the root causes of rural decline from the outlook of the peasants, offering an “us” perspective. Yeh Tzu’s Harvest describes the degradation of the gentry following the collapse of the patriarchal clan system and their evolving relations with commoners. Mao Dun’s “Spring Silkworms” explores the compounded negative effects of capitalist expansion on the national industry run by ethnic Chinese and China’s small-scale peasant economy. Ye Shengtao’s “The Harvest Bigger by a Bushel” depicts the manipulation of grain prices by international capital, revealing the helplessness of Chinese peasants caught in the mechanisms of the “market economy.”

The first consequence of modernity is the capitalist system which, under the banner of “globalization,” strengthens certain countries’ control over others. Since its inclusion in this globalized system, China’s traditional economic structures have suffered profound disruptions. The 1930s saw a global capitalist crisis that spurred self-preservation measures in the West, often at the expense of late modernizers like China. Massive dumping of grain and light industrial products destabilized Chinese agriculture, driving grain prices so low that even bumper harvests failed to provide basic sustenance. Consequently, many peasants had no choice but to abandon their land, turning either to risky ventures, like Kou-tzu in Wu Zuxiang’s Fan Village, to urban labor, like Hsiang-tz in Lao She’s Camel Hsiang-tz, or even to banditry, like Hai Jiao in Xiao Jun’s Third Generation. Another target of erosion was rural sideline industries, with the silk industry suffering the greatest blow. Once an important source of income for peasants in areas south of the Yangtze River, the silk industry faced collapse under the influx of foreign cocoons and silk. This left both silk farmers and factories in precarious positions, with the latter compelled to exploit farmers further to survive. This vicious cycle led to the inevitable bankruptcy of countless peasants, like Old Tung Pao [in Mao Dun’s “Spring Silkworms”].

The second consequence of modernity is the distorted modernization reforms carried out under the banner of “anti-feudalism,” which ended up harming the rights and interests of peasants. While these reforms dismantled the conventional values associated with China’s patriarchal clan system, they failed to establish a new social value system, leading to disorder in rural society and confusion among the rural populace. The societal disruption at the primary level first manifested in the fragmentation caused by warlord separatism. To gain comparative advantages, various warlords sought financial gains through levying heavier taxes. The increased tax burdens trickled down the hierarchy, with peasants at the bottom left to bear the full weight. Lacking any means to transfer these burdens, most peasants could not make ends meet, breaking the cycle of economic reproduction. The descriptions of heavy taxes and levies in the aforementioned literary works are direct reflections of this process. Another form of rural disorder arose from the “degradation” of the gentry class, which shifted from their traditional role of “protective broker” to the modern “profit-driven broker.” After the patriarchal clan system disintegrated, the gentry increasingly lost their function and sense of honor as local elites. Some abandoned the countryside altogether, while others degenerated into “evil gentry,” forming alliances with ruffians to fill the resulting power vacuum and using their personal resources to exploit people. Characters like Mr. Ho in Yeh Tzu’s Harvest and Song Baitang in Wu Zuxiang’s “One Thousand Eight Hundred Dan” are typical examples of this kind of “evil gentry.”

The 1920s and 1930s marked an important period in China’s quest for modernization. Ironically, during this period, some proponents of a new culture viewed peasants as the “other” in the context of China’s modernization, framing rural Chinese society as an obstacle to progress. The simultaneous deprivation of peasants’ subjectivity and rural bankruptcy were closely tied to reforms inspired by the Western modernization model advocated by the “enlightenment narrative.” These reforms, disconnected from China’s realities as it advanced, plunged rural communities into new crises. Early native-soil writers, such as Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Yeh Tzu, Ye Shengtao, and Wu Zuxiang, observed the consequences of blindly worshipping Western modernization and began to examine China’s specific context. They either questioned and reflected on the “enlightenment narrative,” reinterpreted the root causes of rural crises, or retold rural stories, eventually transcending not only Chinese tradition but also the Western cognitive framework of modernity. This dual transcendence has continued to inspire subsequent native-soil literary practice. For example, during the Yan’an period in the 1930s and 1940s and the “Seventeen-Year Literature Period” (1949–1966), literary works focused on the construction of the subjectivity of peasants. Since the Reform and Opening up, native-soil literature has emphasized articulating peasants’ pioneering spirit. These literary efforts aimed to reinterpret peasants, rural life, and China as a whole, moving beyond the constraints of Western discourse of modernity.

Xu Zhiwei is a professor from the School of Chinese Language and Literature at Harbin Normal University.