Love in a Fallen City

Assignment#1- Love in a Fallen City

During the 20th century, Chinese society had major expectations as to what the “perfect” individual is. However there are rarely any of these “perfect” people, which shows the issues in Chinese culture. In Love in a Fallen City, two characters: Zhenbao and Liusu have completely different ranks in terms of popularity and reputation. While Zhenbao is described as the ideal modern Chinese man in his story and is respected by others, Liusu is the complete opposite; she is judged and hated by everyone, including her family members, making her an enemy to everyone. These two foils reveal many social norms, issues, and struggles of the Chinese culture during the 20th century.

Zhenbao must always keep his reputation in China clean as he is looked at as the ideal modern Chinese man. Chang states that, “If he did bump into something that was less than ideal, he bounced it around his mind for a while and---poof!---it was idealized: then everything fell into place” (255). This shows how Zhenbao has a positive mindset around him. Anything that is not important, he makes seem or look important. In addition, Zhenbaos’ body language even shows how much different he is than normal men. It is said that, “His posture was excellent and he didn’t joke around--- unless that is, it was appropriate to joke” (256). This shows another example of Zhenbao being the ideal modern Chinese man because of well he was able to balance between joking around and being serious. It can also be said how responsible and intelligent Zhenbao is for knowing when to act right. Because of this, people see him as the ideal modern Chinese man, by how professionally he acts around others. On the other hand, Liusu is the complete opposite of Zhenbao, as she is ranked extremely lower than Zhenbao. She is looked on more as an outsider, and is disliked by her family: “In the dim light, each word seemed to float in emptiness, far from the paper’s surface. Lisusu felt like one of those words, drifting and unconnected” (120). No matter what she tries, Liusu just can’t seem to fit with anyone. It’s like she’s not even a part of this world due to the fact that she feels drifted and unconnected from everyone. There’s almost no one that can click with her. This exposes the struggles of Chinese culture during the 20th century for Liusu because no one likes her, which leads to her becoming depressed and isolated from the world. She basically has no one but herself to take care of, since nobody even acknowledges her as a human being.

Zhenbao is also well educated and his intelligence made him the man that he currently is. Because of this intelligence, Zhenbao made the right choice in having a wife who was a university graduate. She, as well, had come from a very good family. We learn that, “Zhenbao had launched his career the proper way, by going to the West to get his degree and factory training. He was smart and well educated, and having worked his way through school, he had the energy and determination of a self-made man” (255). As a result of having a good education, Zhenbao goes on to making smart choices in his life, such as a marrying a woman who’s smart, and even preparing for his daughter’s future. It is cited that, “One daughter, age nine: already they’d made plans for her college tuition” (255). In other words, Zhenbao is smart has even benefited his young daughter for the future, so that she can succeed in life like both her parents are. For this reason, Zhenbao is lucky to have always have an education around him as well as having good family, which is one of the important traits that an ideal modern Chinese man would have during the 20th century. Without an education and a good family, Zhenbao would not be looked at as the ideal modern Chinese man because he would not be intelligent and would struggle creating a family of his own.

Because of the positions that these characters hold in their respective worlds, both Zhenbao and Liusu tend to struggle with their reputations in China. Even though Zhenbao is looked at as an ideal modern Chinese man, that doesn’t stop him from doing things that would ruin his reputation. For example, he drinks and flirts with other girls: “Zhenbao started drinking a lot, openly consorting with women outside the house. It was not at all like before, when he retained some scruples. He came home reeking of drink, or he didn’t come home at all” (309). As you can see, drinking has a heavy impact on Zhenbao and could’ve easily affected how others view him. This is because drinking results in him cheating on his wife and sleeping with other women. However, when Zhenbao first starts to drink and sleep with women, he realizes that what he is doing is extremely unacceptable, but as he starts to get addicted, he doesn’t even notice his mistakes and