The Dark Road by Ma Jian

 “Meili, a young peasant woman born in the remote heart of China, is married to Kongzi, a village school teacher, and a distant descendant of Confucius. They have a daughter, but desperate for a son to carry on his illustrious family line, Kongzi gets Meili pregnant again without waiting for official permission. When family planning officers storm the village to arrest violators of the population control policy, mother, father and daughter escape to the Yangtze River and begin a fugitive life.

For years they drift south through the poisoned waterways and ruined landscapes of China, picking up work as they go along, scavenging for necessities and flying from police detection. As Meili's body continues to be invaded by her husband and assaulted by the state, she fights to regain control of her fate and that of her unborn child.”

Synopsis quoted from Goodreads. 

Date read: 01/06/17

This is a book that talk about China famous policy ---One Child Policy. Every family is only allowed to have only one child due to the increase population in China that their government want to keep control of. Therefore women who have given birth to a child should undergo the birth control procedure.

While I first read the synopsis of the book I was scared that this book maybe too boring to read on. But while I was reading, it keep me turning pages wanting to know the storyline more. All I can say that this book is quite cruel, intense, heart-breaking and selfish.

There are one scene that Meili is being caught by the government officer and was put on the operation table. The doctor brutally abort the child from Meili fetus. While Kongzi can’t do anything to help or comfort Meili. Meili is having major breakdown because the death of their baby and the baby is a boy which they have hope for. But after sometimes Kongzi still insist on having a son while Meili refused. 

The storyline depicts how Meili, Kongzi and Nanan live through different stages of life. When Meili get pregnant Kongzi would find them a boat and drift through the rivers and live their life on waters. They drift through the poison river and also come to see a lot of the baby corpse drift up on river shore. When it is safe to build a life on the land without having to worry about the government officer they stop by and plant some vegetable to sell to make money to sustain their life.

In the halfway of the novel, their marriage have come to an edge where Meili found out that Kongzi is having affair with other women. Meili is mad and run away from home leaving Nanan their only daughter behind but is being captured by a camp to make her into a slave which she did successfully escaped from.  Meili did come to meet a nice guy which is from a wealthy family and a higher hierarchy which he promise as long as Meili is with him, he did not care whether they are having a child or not. Meili feels touched but in the end she still decided to go back to her own family.

Maybe is the way that the book had been translated or maybe it is just me because when it comes to the last part of the novel I could not figure out the ending. Maybe the ending is unclear that I have to reread and rethink what the writer is trying to tell us.  Overall the novel is very dark themed as the titled has suggested. 

 This novel is brave and confrontational as it openly talks about the dark side of the one child policy in China. This novel also have us to rethink that we are fortunate for not having to gone through all of this struggles. This novel also tell us that Meili wanted to decide her fate on her own but in reality she can’t because her body belong to the government and her husband.

 To be honest, I couldn’t really decide how I should feel about this novel. Because this topic is too heavy to talk about and is like questioning ourselves whether this is a right thing to do. Should we only bow to our fate that we only have one chance to make things right. I will definitely recommend this novel to anyone else who is interested to know more about the one child policy and how the Chinese people live through.