Pusa Man

Author: Su Tong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: Why I Wrote Pusa Man — Su Tong
I have always wanted to depict in a novel the kind of commoner's life I have witnessed. I have been moved by the quality of the people in such a life, and I have always felt that there are certain individuals who view hardship and misfortune as their fate. It is these people who love and hate, living in this noisy world, spitting on others and being spat on by others. I have always wanted to portray this kind of loneliness—the loneliness of the commoner, not the loneliness of a philosopher or anyone else. That is why I wrote Pusa Man.
It is a story set in a commoner's family in the south, a traditional family story, but all the narration is completed through the ghost of the deceased father, Hua Jin Dou. The story takes place from the 1960s to the 1980s. The narrator, Hua Jin Dou, is a complaining and resentful ghost. This person has already died and exists as a wandering ghost, not needing to eat, saving on food, not needing to wear clothes, saving on fabric. This aspect makes him quite satisfied, but since he is already dead, he cannot concern himself with the affairs of his family, which leaves him still filled with anger in the heavens.
The dead do not rest in peace, destined to be a suffering and lonely ghost. Auntie is alive, so she must take care of the five children left behind by her brothers and sisters-in-law. Auntie's love for the children is like a thick porridge—invisible in its clarity, yet it is this porridge-like love that nourishes the children and helps them grow into adults. Over the long years, Auntie stubbornly rebukes the entire world while nurturing the children of the Hua family. Too busy and tired to think, she does not realize her own loneliness. In my view, women like Auntie, who do not understand loneliness, are themselves lonely.
Speaking of the children of the Hua family, apart from the second daughter, Xin Mei, almost all of them made Hua Jin Dou extremely disappointed. However, Xin Mei was tricked into pregnancy by a foolish man and died young. The remaining three daughters and one son grew up in constant opposition to their father's ghost. Although they grew up stammering into adulthood, what good are they? Especially the only son of the Hua family—he could not carry on the family line. He spent his days fooling around with men. Using the popular slang of Hong Kong and Taiwan, he was a detestable "fairy."
I wrote a grieving ghost who did not know why he was subjected to such suffering. Later, he no longer wanted to concern himself with the trivial matters of the human world. He wanted to go to hell, leaving greater loneliness for others, for me, and for all of us.