Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh

Translator's Note

The term shifu is a generic and generally respectful term for skilled workers and the like; widely used, it has, in a sense, replaced other terms, such as “comrade.”It is common in China to use kinship or professional forms of address in preference to given names.

The Shen Garden in the story of that title, which was located in the southern city of Shaoxing over a millennium ago, is famous as a metaphor for encounters between once married couples. It is where the Southern Song poet Lu You is said to have met Tang Wan, whom his parents had forced him to divorce.

“The Cure” (literally, “effective medicine”) is an updated version of the famous story “Medicine” by Lu Xun (1881- 1936), twentieth-century China's most renowned literary figure. In the earlier story, a child is treated for consumption with the blood of a beheaded revolutionary, but dies nonetheless; it too is a caustic satire on contemporary society and politics.

The translator thanks the editor of the Hong Kong magazine Renditions for her editorial suggestions on the story “Soaring” and for permission to reprint. “The Cure” appeared in slightly modified form in my anthology Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused (Grove Press, 1995). As always, my thanks to Li-chun for checking the manuscript and to Mo Yan for his generosity and cooperation. Both have made the translator's job especially rewarding and enjoyable.