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4.0 out of 5 stars
"Are you willing to go overseas to work?", Nov 19 2007
When slavery was abolished in many of the European colonies in the middle of the 19th century there was a shortage of labor, Latin American planters, particularly in the Caribbean, turned to China for an alternative source of labor. They used ambiguities in the "extraterritoriality clause," along with deception and intimidation to induce Chinese workers to immigrate to Latin America. This practice became known as the "coolie trade," and expanded during the 1840s and 1850s.
Some of the laborers signed contacts based on misleading promises, some were kidnapped, and some were victims of clan violence whose captors sold them to coolie brokers, while others sold themselves to pay off gambling debts. The terms of the contract were often not honored, so many laborers ended up working in Peruvian guano pits or on sugar plantations. Like slaves, many were sold at auction and most worked in gangs under the command of a strict overseer.
It is this scenario, which forms the core of Ruthanne Lum McCunn's God of Luck, a fascinating mixture of history and realism and a terrifying and ultimately heartbreaking tale of two lovers who are irrevocably split apart by the coolie trade and flung to opposite sides of the world. Ah Lung and his wife of six years, Bo See live an idyllic life in the small village of Strongworm. Family silk farmers by trade, they spend most of their days plying their wares in the market town downriver.
Ah Lung's twin sister, Moongirl cautions him to be vigilant. There are "foreign devils," who are rumored to be buying prisoners and employing pirates to kidnap unwary fishermen by raiding costal villages for men capable of heavy labor. Just as Ah is about to return home he's approached by two hard faced strongmen who seize him by the arms and legs and accuse him of owing debt. Ah tries to fight his captors, but bound and gagged, he's thrown into the bottom of his kidnapper's boat, the charge of debt a deliberate hoax.
Vowing to Fook Sing Gung, "the God of Luck" to help restore him to his life with Bo See, Ah's anxious prayers to little to alleviate his situation as the captive of these "man-stealers" and the devilish captains of the foreign devil-ships are who are without pity. Eventually shackled and thrown into line with other men, Ah is herded ashore to the Macao hiring hall to face the will of the iron-faced Magistrate Bau who tries to seducing the crowd of men with generous terms and promises of wealth.
But no amount of riches can tempt Ah from returning to his family and village where everything is familiar and life for the most part is good. As much as he wants silver dollars for his family, he refuses to risk his freedom for cash. Magistrate Bau, however has no intention of relinquishing Ah and the other men to their families. The hiring hall is a sham and the iron faced Magistrate is merely corrupt puppet for the autocratic captains of the devil-ships.
Forced to sign his life away, Ah is finally posted to work in the guano fields of Peru, his longing for Bo See his only solace as he tries to survive on a stinking and overloaded slave ship that takes him further and further away from his beloved wife and true love. Bo See is devastated when husband is kidnapped, and again and again her eyes scour the water looking for the shape of her husband's head, the curve of his shoulders, perhaps silhouetted on the deck of a sampan, "her heart flying out to meet him."
As word of Ah's capture spreads through Strongworm, the gossip becomes shrill with alarm and wild speculation. A rescue may be possible though the contacts that Moongirl promotes. Offering appropriate pleasantries, some of her patrons are the wives of men in positions of power so she attempts to seek their help in finding and ransoming her brother and bringing him home. She tells Bo See that the there is hope: Canton traders are saying that free Chinese in Peru can and do intercede on behalf of countrymen laboring under these bogus contracts.
Meanwhile, Ah endures the stench and stink of the ships, forced to sleep in births with no partitions, the water constantly slapping the hull, an ultimate captive of the devil ship the curse mutterings, harsh heaving, the fetid heat and flesh, and the clank of buckets, and the noise of the water pump. Even in the midst of a blood-soaked mutiny, where Ah is in danger of losing his life, the flicker of hope in his chest burns bright then wanes with the realization that he is always going to be a captive of the devil-ship squeezed in tight.
With her narrative unfolding in alternative chapters, McCunn brings to life the plight of both Ah Lung and Bo See as she frantically waits for her husband's return while also turning to her delicate silken threads in order to maintain her family's financial independence. The horrifying conditions that Ah must endure on the slave ship and later on the dunghills of Peru where he labors, give the novel much of its suspense.
The author truly excels in her descriptions of the broken, blood-soaked mutineers, the flashes of swords, axes and cleavers, the crush of devils and the men locked in battle, madly slashing and hacking while their captors endeavor to shut out the advance. Symbolism also plays an important part in the novel with Ah portrayed as no different from a silkworm spinning its own coffin, as much as Ah wants to believe he can yet break out of the darkness and fly free, he fears he'll die in the service of his masters. Mike Leonard November 07
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