Happy Together

Bridging the Australia-China Divide

David Walker, Li Yao, Karen Walker

• Publisher: Melbourne University Press Digital
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780522878547
• eBook ISBN:
  9780522878554
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

In the late nineteenth century, as crippling famine devastated northern China, the Li family had no choice but to leave Shanxi province. Heading north, they began a new life, farming the remote grasslands of Inner Mongolia. They prospered as landowners and teachers, but could not escape the ravages of warlords, soldiers and revolutionaries. Born into this pioneering family, Li Yao grew up in Mao's China. He dreamt of becoming a writer, but his dreams were torn apart by the Cultural Revolution. When the storm finally subsided, the young man turned to translation. In Australian writing, he found colourful tales set in new landscapes, a literature quite unfamiliar to him.Li Yao's story is interwoven with that of his friend, Australian historian David Walker. David's family had also settled in an unfamiliar and difficult land, a world away in distant South Australia. The two men became friends as Li Yao translated one of David's books into Chinese, and their personal histories provide a fascinating, illuminating window into life in China, an experience inevitably shaped by China's relations with the wider world.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter 1 Searching for the ancestral village
• Chapter 2 The strong devour the weak
• Chapter 3 Breaking new ground
• Chapter 4 Engaging the enemy
• Chapter 5 The birth of the little emperor
• Chapter 6 The sweet tangerine
• Chapter 7 The little literary giant
• Chapter 8 Leaping forward
• Chapter 9 The wind in the tower
• Chapter 10 Ghosts and monsters
• Chapter 11 White pigeons
• Chapter 12 Snowstorm on the grasslands
• Chapter 13 Facing contagions
• Chapter 14 The study class
• Chapter 15 Meeting places
• Chapter 16 Soaring peaks
• Chapter 17 Endings
• Chapter 18 Beginnings
• Chapter 19 Reading deep in willows
• Acknowledgements
• Select Bibliography
• Appendix—Translations by Li Yao
• About the Authors
• Index