On Tuesday, May 23, 1989, Lu Decheng, a bus mechanic from Hunan province in China and his two friends Yu Dongyue and Yu Zhijian made their way to Tiananmen Square. Throngs of student protesters had been gathering there for days. The three men positioned themselves in front of the giant portrait of Mao hanging at the north end of the square, unpacked the paint-filled eggs they had carefully prepared, and took aim at the portrait.
This was more than an act of vandalism: it was a gesture of defiance, meant to inspire the student protesters to continue the fight for democracy. Instead, Decheng and his friends were arrested and imprisoned with the help of the students they had sought to inspire.
Denise Chong’s Egg on Mao tells the story of Lu Decheng. Chong goes back and forth between the events at Tiananmen Square and their aftermath to Decheng’s earlier life, all the while weaving the narrative into its larger political and historical context. It is a daunting task, one that might overwhelm a lesser writer, but Chong succeeds by keeping the story focused on the people and the details that bring them to life on the page. The book begins with a beautifully simple vignette from Decheng’s childhood: boys having a pebble-throwing competition at the side of the Liuyang River. Chong writes: “Decheng, confident of having a better throw in him yet, plucked another pebble from the sand. He tested its weight, arched his back, and unleashed.” It is an innocent gesture, parallel to the one Decheng makes in Tiananmen Square so many years later.
Chong has a strong ear for these narrative echoes, and uses them to anchor the story in the past. She tells the story of the love between Decheng and his first wife Qiuping, and how it sustains Decheng through his first years in prison. We learn about Decheng’s paternal grandmother – designated a martyr’s widow – who teaches Decheng about the value of being his own person and laments her own son’s conformity. We also learn of the death of his mother, when Decheng was nine; his contentious relationship with his father and stepmother; and of the loss of his and Qiuping’s first child. Piece by piece, Chong paints a portrait of a brave and thoughtful young man who is at odds with the difficult and rigid society in which he lives.
Chong has referred to Egg on Mao as “the biography of a gesture.” By the end of the book, she wanted readers to understand what led Decheng and his friends to risk their lives throwing paint-filled eggs at a portrait of Mao. And we do. We also understand that Chong herself has achieved something courageous and important in the writing of this story. Decheng and his friends did not succeed in bringing democracy to China and they spent years in prison for their actions. Thanks to this book, their gesture continues to reverberate around the world.
Maria Schamis Turner is the editor of carte blanche. (www.carte-blanche.org)
