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Chapter 10: That First Lonely Year
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mao’s Last Dancer, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Opportunity, Hard Work, and Success
Love and Family
The Power of Stories
Freedom vs. Repression
Summary
Analysis
As the Chinese New Year approaches, Cunxin becomes increasingly anxious to see his family, even though he worries that his poor grades will bring them shame. He’s so exhausted from all the tension that he sleeps most of the train ride home. Cunyuan meets him at the station and pedals him home on Dia’s precious bike. On the way, Cunxin tells Cunyuan about the hustle and bustle of Beijing, about the places he’s seen on his field trips, and about Madame Mao visiting the school. Cunyuan laughs over Cunxin’s complaints about the school’s toilets and makes him promise not to tell Niang about his homesickness. He reminds Cunxin about the harsh life he escaped, encouraging him to try harder at school.
Cunxin’s troubles seem very large to him when he’s at school, but Cunyuan reminds him that the life he left was far from perfect, too. Even the inconveniences of Beijing life seem like luxuries compared to life in the village—the toilets may be clogged, but at least Cunxin has running water in his dormitory. Cunxin faced a lifetime of hard work and struggle in the village, but at least at the dance academy his work has the potential to change his life for the better. For those who stayed behind, hard work may ensure survival but little else.
Themes
When Niang rushes out of the house to greet Cunxin, she looks older than he remembers. But she wears the same worn and patched clothing, and her embrace feels as heavenly as ever. Soon Niang’s friends start dropping by to see Cunxin, curious about Beijing and the academy. After a while, he escapes their questions to visit his friends. That first afternoon, Cunfar retrieves a glass jar from the shed. He’s saved his prized fighting cricket from the summer, named King, to show Cunxin. But when Cunxin shakes the jar, they discover that King has died. Cunfar is devastated, and Cunxin feels sad, too; King looks like he had been a marvelous cricket.
The parade of guests reminds Cunxin not just that he’s become a minor celebrity in the village, but also of the love and support that have helped him achieve his success. Niang’s friends kept her company when Cunxin left. And they continue to care about what happens to Cunxin even though he has gone so far away from home. Cunfar tried to save the cricket—the only gift he could afford—for Cunxin. But, like Cunxin’s bird Beautiful River Treasure, it cannot survive indefinitely in captivity. This suggests metaphorically that Cunxin can’t, either, although by recalling the story of Brave Hero, it also reminds him of how much he can accomplish if he finds his own fighting spirit.
Themes
Life in the family and the village is still very much the same, with a few small changes. The family has more—but still not enough—food to eat now that Cunyuan has started to work for the commune. Cunsang has joined the navy and will leave soon for his first post. People in the village long for hope, and Cunxin offers them stories of Beijing. His friends beg him to teach them a dance, and one day he offers to teach them some Beijing Opera Movement exercises and ballet positions. They struggle to move their bodies into the awkward, stylized poses and consider the lesson painful, un-fun, and unimpressive. Cunxin remembers Gao Dakun wrenching his body into position. He doesn’t know how to explain that dancing isn’t fun.
Cunxin’s overestimating of his friends’ abilities shows how much he has already changed, and improved. He changes tacks as soon as his friends complain, too, showing that he doesn’t have the desire to force people to conform or to treat his friends as he has been treated by his own instructors in Beijing. This moment also offers a powerful reminder of all the work that survival—much less success—requires, whether it’s the brute physical labor Cunyuan performs in the commune or Cunxin’s dance drills at the academy.
Themes
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On Cunxin’s last night at home, Dia hands him eight yuan and an envelope containing a beautiful blue fountain pen. He says he hopes that when Cunxin uses it, it will remind him of his parents’ love and expectations. The family hopes he will bring the family pride by earning better grades next year. Since before he left Beijing, Cunxin has been expecting a shame-inducing lecture. But Dia’s carefully chosen, calm words have a stronger effect than anger. Even though his parents don’t blame him, he feels he has let them down, and he wants to do better.
At the academy, the teachers and political heads “encourage” the students to think the right way or move their bodies the right way through brute force. In contrast, Dia uses the power of his relationship with Cunxin, and this proves far more powerful than the academy’s methods. People like Teacher Gao earn Cunxin’s fear but not his respect, and fear isn’t a good way to encourage success. Love, however, because it lies at the very center of human flourishing, is.
Themes
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