Ruiyan Xu, a Chinese, born and raised in Shanghai for the first ten years of her life and then transported to the US where she was immersed in English but knew not a word, wrote her first novel, a novel in part biographical, a novel on aphasia. Aphasia is typically an impairment of language, either of reception or production, but which does not affect intelligence. When Ruiyan later learned about aphasia in one of her university classes, she felt a connection because as a child, she felt lost in her abrupt move to the US when she was suddenly stripped of her language and her familiar social cues which replace language. Struggling with identity and language, Ruiyan identifies and creates a character similarly stripped of language and presented with a new life, one he would have to come to terms with as she as a child came to terms with English.
Her first book, The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai
The central character Li Jing had been raised in the US until 10 where he had acquired English, his first language. However, at the age of 10 his architect father had returned with young Li Jing to Shanghai and Li Jing had forgotten his English as he replaced it with Chinese. Years later as president of his own investment company, he charismatically meets, greets, manipulates and assures people and huge businesses of his savvy ability to invest their money. He is articulate. He is in control. And he is very good at what he does. However, his drive, his ability, his confidence is all blown up when an explosion in a building he and his father are in causes the building to collapse. His father, Professor Li, has a heart attack and soon dies, but Li Jing's damage goes much deeper. Physically Li Jing was scratched and bruised but mentally he was wounded, permanently, by a spray of exploding glass that struck his forehead and damaged the unique area in his brain where language is produced, Broca's area.
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The brain is complex, interwired, but also compartmentalized. Broca's area is the area which centralizes language production, meaning if that area is damaged, the person can still understand and receive language but just not be able to produce it. Wernicke's area, an area of the brain also on the left side of the brain but positioned further behind but not adjacent to Broca's is its counterpart and it is responsible for language reception. Damage to Wernicke's would have been much more serious as without understanding language, no language but only fluent sounds that are like language, could be produced. Li Jing woke from the accident to ... not no language, but limited English, the language of his childhood. His Chinese has been completely wiped from his mind.
Over night Li Jing loses his voice, therefore his ability to run his own company, his confidence, and most sadly his connection to his wife. She speaks Chinese. He speaks limited English. How do you speak of love, patience, offer encouragement, express sorrow or share remembrances without the language that linked you? The loss of both languages, Chinese and the language of love, are his inheritance from the explosion. The book takes them both on a journey of only having the past holding them together. The journey is long and remains long even as the book closes with Li Jing and son Pang Pang suddenly meeting wife/mother Meiling in a public park with glistening stretches of Chinese calligraphy being painted between them by a street artist. They carefully step around the rich and beautiful strokes of language on the ground as they slip from the public area to their private home ... as a family, leaving the Chinese behind them and possibilities of other language in front.
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Do I recommend this book? Well, it wasn't what I thought it would be. From the cover I had assumed it would be more of a study on language and identity with some deeper insights into Broca's area and more on the medical journey aspect, perhaps like the Still Alice on Alzheimers and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her Doctors, and a Collision of Two Cultures on epilepsy. The first half of the book promised that too, but the last half seemed to twist away from anything medical and the story oozed into a love triangle story, albeit the theme was still on language and identity. So while the first half was very enjoyable and I felt transported to Shanghai in the reading, the last half lost its rhythm and I didn't gain anything through the read. If you have my expectations for learning something from reading, then I don't recommend it. However, if you do want a book on language and identity with romance thrown in, then here is a good recommend.
