First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

Officially censored in China, and long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize, Yan Lianke’s Dream of Ding Village is a deeply moving and beautifully written novel, his most important work yet. Based on a real-life scandal in eastern China and drawing on three years of undercover work, it is a tale of one family in a poor village decimated by HIV/AIDS as a result of unregulated blood banks. While one son rises to the top of the Party by exploiting the situation, another is infected. Dream of Ding Village is an extraordinary critique of China’s ruthless path to development and what happens to those who get in the way.

Happy Friday everyone! Well, it is already Saturday. Just like that, we are already in the second half of the first month of the year. Despite the holiday break, I hope many of you have recovered and started gaining momentum. As we all know it, life must go on. I hope everyone is beating the slump. The past two weeks have been quite busy because I am rushing to complete a regulatory document. On top of this, I have to balance my personal life. Living can be difficult but it is also what makes it so fun. It is a balancing act. Anyway, I hope everyone ended the work week on a high note. I hope you were able to accomplish all your tasks for the week. It is time to slow down, unwind, and dive into the weekend; this means more sleep for me. More importantly, I hope you are all doing well in body, mind, and spirit.

Capping the week is a First Impression Friday update, albeit a day late. This weekly meme has become an integral part of my book blogging ritual. Not only did it allow me to take a break from my reading and reflect on the chapters and pages that I have finished so far but it also developed into a springboard upon which I built my book reviews. It allowed me to compare how a book initially made me feel with how it ultimately made me feel. The first two months – or maybe even the entire first quarter – of the year are dedicated to the works of East Asian literature. Several factors made me decide on this. For one, I have not hosted a Japanese Literature Month in 2024, the first time I was unable to do so. Second, Han Kang’s Nobel Prize in Literature recognition is a driver for me to open the year with the works of East Asian writers. Third, an older work of Han is going to be released in English later this month.

Another reason why I wanted to venture into East Asian literature is that Chinese literature is an uncharted territory for me. Despite its massive influence and vast landscape, it is part of the literary world that I rarely ventured into despite several attempts to do so. I also wanted to read the acclaimed Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature; I already read an abridged version of Dream of the Red Chambers. To redress this, I am already reading my second novel by a Chinese writer this year; three is the most I read in a year. It was during the most recent Big Bad Wolf Sale that I encountered Yan Lianke’s Dream of Ding Village. I barely had any iota about the writer now had I encountered any of his works before. Intrigued by the novel’s premise, I obtained a copy of it and made it part of my ongoing foray into the works of East Asian writers.

Originally published in 2006 in Chinese as 丁庄梦 (Dīng zhuāng mèng)), the novel was translated into English in 2011. Immediately, the readers are apprised of the events that are unfolding. The reader’s guide across this landscape is the spirit of twelve-year-old Ding Qiang. He was poisoned and died at the start of the novel. The perpetrator was not unmasked but the motivation for his killing was clear. The villagers were angry at Qiang’s family, especially his father Ding Hui. Over a decade ago, Hui rose to prominence by introducing to the village the blood trade; a visit to another Chinese city where the denizens grew rich by selling blood inspired him. In a short period, he became the village’s blood kingpin. What he did not foresee was that his reckless handling of the blood donors resulted in their contamination. The villagers who donated blood contracted HIV and AIDS.

How the mighty has fallen. One by one, the villagers started to manifest symptoms of AIDS. They simply referred to it as the “fever”. As death started to mount – in a village of 800, the dichotomy can clearly be seen – the anger toward the Ding family also grew. One of the voices of reason was Hui’s father – Qiang’s grandfather – Ding Shuiyang who was the caretaker of the school. He tried to rally for his fellow villagers; the village had no appointed chairman so he was de facto chairman. He also asked his son to bow before the victims and ask for their forgiveness. Hui, however, refused to do so. Instead, Hui tried everything in his power to capitalize on the situation. He also wanted to move out of the village and reestablish himself in the city. The villagers, on the other hand, are getting angrier.

This is simply a very interesting read because it is based on actual events. Lianke worked undercover to investigate the scandal which eventually sparked a major AIDS crisis in China. For three years, he posed as an assistant to an anthropologist, traveling from village to village to document the impact of the outbreak. It was no surprise the book was immediately banned after its initial publication; the ban, however, is said to have been lifted in 2011. The novel captured how disease and mortality unraveled rural life. It also vividly painted the portrait of a family on the cusp of collapse. More importantly, the novel is subtly scathing – the writer admitted scaling it down to pass China’s stringent censorship – commentary on China’s social and political structures, read: totalitarianism. We read how these structures have adversely impacted the denizens of the village. In a way, Ding village was a microcosm.

I am nearly done with the novel. I am approaching its climax and I am looking forward to understanding more about this concern that plagued China. How about you fellow reader? What book or books have you read over the weekend? I hope you get to enjoy whatever you are reading right now. Happy weekend!