Selected Prose Works of Luo Dagon

Author: Luo Dagon
Editor-in-Chief: Du Ling
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: Luo Dagon's original name was Luo Dagang. He was born on May 21, 1909, in Changtang Village, Xiling County, Shaoxing Prefecture, Zhejiang Province, into a declining aristocratic landlord family. His ancestors were officials who passed down poetry and books through generations, and they also operated several salt evaporation ponds. However, by the time his grandfather took over, due to his eccentric personality from a young age and his disinterest in studying for the imperial examinations or managing the family's affairs, he instead devoted himself to the "I Ching," calling himself "Yixian" (Immortal of the Forest). This ultimately led to the family's decline and increasing hardship. His father, though a talented scholar who passed the imperial examinations at a young age, had his dreams of advancing through the system shattered by the "abolition of the imperial examinations" movement. At the time, local scholars had two choices after the abolition: either become a "Shaoxing master" (a renowned legal advisor) or study abroad, specifically in Japan. His father raised funds to study in Japan, where he attended the Normal Department of Waseda University for five years, majoring in biology. Upon returning to China, he taught at middle schools in Shaoxing and Hangzhou. Although Luo Dagon was the "eldest son of the eldest son" in this declining family, his father's failure and the resulting irritability and authoritarianism made his childhood unhappy, often filled with fear of his father's frequent beatings. However, his grandmother's kindness and tranquility, his mother's gentleness and love, along with the beautiful mountains and rivers of his hometown, provided him with strong protection and enough warmth, shaping his sensitive and straightforward personality from a young age.
Excerpt: The story of Robinson Crusoe, who struggles against unimaginable difficulties and dangers alone on a deserted island, once deeply impressed me. I was about twelve or thirteen at the time. One scene in the novel left a particularly strong impression on me. That is how the hero, stranded on a remote island, marks a line on a tree trunk every day with the blade of his knife to record the years he spends there. Each day he survives in hardship and danger is a victory over death. Thus, the knife marks on the tree are actually his record of triumphs. Yet, this act was something I, a young student, found particularly easy to imitate. At school, when no one was looking, I secretly used the blade of a pencil sharpener to draw a thin, long line on my desk every day. One day, for some unknown reason, the teacher ordered the students to switch seats, including me. This exposed my secret. The first student to discover it was overjoyed and immediately reported it to the teacher. Coincidentally, that day the teacher was in a bad mood and had a particularly volatile temper. I was immediately labeled a "vandal" and severely beaten with a ruler (jiensi). Strangely enough, every time I recall this incident, I still feel a sense of pride, because as I was being beaten, I thought, "You can kill me, but you won't make me betray Robinson Crusoe. I won't admit that I was inspired by him to mark my days on the desk."
Time flies, and over sixty years have passed since then. That admirable teacher has long since become a part of history, so I no longer feel the need to keep Robinson Crusoe's secret. The child I was then, considered "silly and dull, with little promise," has grown into an adult. Over the long years, a combination of complex subjective and objective factors led me, without realizing it, to the arduous path of making writing my profession. To this day, whenever I pick up my pen to write, whether it's a theoretical essay or a lyrical piece, I cannot help but think of Robinson Crusoe's knife marks on the tree and of myself, like an isolated island in the sea of people, marking my days on the desk in my youth. I think to myself, "Am I marking my days on the paper again this time?" I fear that writing articles is essentially no different from marking my days on the desk—it might just provoke others' anger. "Is this my fate?" I ask myself, trembling with uncertainty.