She Lao (1899–1966)

Reading this, I was struck by the perceptions of British people towards Chinese. This was written in 1929; the U.S.'s gift of their jobs to China is decades in the future, so China is a poor country with an undistinguished military or industry. Britons (and no doubt Americans) discriminated against Chinese and made fun of them. At the time of this review, China is the next world power and holds the debt of our country in their hands. Revenge, much?
The characterization of Mr Ma and his son is a bit undeveloped, nevertheless I sympathized with Ma Wei, and hated Mary and Mrs. Evans for their shallowness (Lao certainly knows how to characterize the shallow, hypocritical Briton.… (altro)

Bravo, Lao She! I'm only sorry that your idealism and integrity caused you to be tortured, and pushed you to take your own life.
Once I knew that this was a satire in Chinese life in the 30s, I couldn't help to see each situation as making fun of Chinese and the beginning of communism and the whole madness of Mao Zedong.
My fave quotes:
--"This was a good example of Cat Country logic: the ableist people ought to receive the lowest Rewards" (p.54).
--"the cat people were not accustomed to helping in anything that might be beneficial to someone else, even if that help only cost them a few words" (p.61).
--"anyway, I thought to myself, the cat people seem to consider Mutual plunder an entirely reasonable form of behavior, so why should I interfere?"(p.66).
--"You see, the victims of all this drum playing we're not exactly Angels themselves. None of those who were hindmost were willing to stay at the back, and would push, kick, crowd and even bite you in order to make their way in the world and become foremost. Those who were already foremost, on the other hand, kicked back with their heels, poked back with their elbows and leaned back hard in order to keep the hindmost in their proper place" (p.75).
--"Consequently, those who ought to have been killed were not; and those who ought to have been spared, on the contrary, lost their lives. The ones who were to have been killed but weren't, wormed their way into the Everybody SharesSchyism brawl and started corrupting it with Wiley schemes from within" (p.162).… (altro)