The Diary of Ma Yan: The Life of a Chinese Schoolgirl (trans)
The Diary of Ma Yan: the life of a Chinese schoolgirl is six(ish) months in the life of a young Hui girl in Ningxia Province in China. She went to school for a while, and then there was no money to send her and so she discontinued her schooling. Through a series of events (not detailed in her diary, though they are summarised by the introduction in my edition, and more details here), she ends up going back to school, and the publishing of her diary led to a lot of money being raised for children, particularly girls, in the district, to be sent to school. Ma Yan's life makes for an okay read, remembering that it is the diary of a 14 year old. She talks about the traveling to school, the distances people travel to work, and a lot of the current issues in this region of China. What frustrated me about the book was the editing.
The editor has removed any agency from Ma Yan. She has written her diary and he has annotated every page, often a page of notes for a page of diary. When Ma Yan writes, I don't know what she means by the word Mandarin, Haski explains it in footnotes to the reader, so that we ultimately have more knowledge than Ma. Even if I haven't got through the entrance exam this time, Ma writes, circumspect and hesitant to be more blatant about her failure. Haski will not give her this, explaining what this means in detail.
Although a number of the notes do seem like cultural explanation, probably necessary if this is your first introduction to China, and its Hui population, other notes make it clear that Haski feels he is pitching his editorial to morons. After spending many months fretting that she is not near to the top of the class, and therefore she is worthless, Ma finally comes second (behind someone who is repeating the class). She is so happy she is crying tears of joy. This detail is important to Ma Yan, the annotation tells us, as if we couldn't realise that from the tears of joy.
This was an interesting book. I just wish the editing hadn't let it down.
The editor has removed any agency from Ma Yan. She has written her diary and he has annotated every page, often a page of notes for a page of diary. When Ma Yan writes, I don't know what she means by the word Mandarin, Haski explains it in footnotes to the reader, so that we ultimately have more knowledge than Ma. Even if I haven't got through the entrance exam this time, Ma writes, circumspect and hesitant to be more blatant about her failure. Haski will not give her this, explaining what this means in detail.
Although a number of the notes do seem like cultural explanation, probably necessary if this is your first introduction to China, and its Hui population, other notes make it clear that Haski feels he is pitching his editorial to morons. After spending many months fretting that she is not near to the top of the class, and therefore she is worthless, Ma finally comes second (behind someone who is repeating the class). She is so happy she is crying tears of joy. This detail is important to Ma Yan, the annotation tells us, as if we couldn't realise that from the tears of joy.
This was an interesting book. I just wish the editing hadn't let it down.