Title

Tears, the Yellow River, and Hydraulic Technology: The Flood Trauma in The Travels of Lao Can

Author

Hsu Hui-lin

Genre

Article

Pages

697-732

DOI

10.6503/THJCS.202012_50(4).0005

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

Liu E 劉鶚, The Travels of Lao Can 老殘遊記, the Yellow River flood, trauma, river engineering

Abstract

The late 19th century is widely known as the period of modernization in China. But it was also the time that witnessed the highest frequency of flooding of the Yellow River in history. Yellow River flood management, a top priority in internal affairs for the Chinese empire since antiquity, became an urgent and immediate task as well as a pivotal part of the modernization project for the Qing government in the late 19th century. As a technician deeply engaged in regulation of the Yellow River in the 1890s, the late Qing novelist Liu E 劉鶚 (1857-1909) begins his celebrated The Travels of Lao Can 老殘遊記 with the theme of Yellow River floods. The flooding caused by the Yellow River breach was an unbearable trauma for Liu E, who himself was unable to effectively control the Yellow River and personally witnessed the ensuing tragedy.

Prior to The Travels of Lao Can, there had never been a Chinese literary work that dealt directly with the traumatic experience of mass death. How did The Travels of Lao Can describe and deal with such trauma that had never been written about? Did the trauma caused by the flooding of the Yellow River involve a more complicated technical orientation for Liu E, who, compared with the simple bystanders of the disaster, was directly involved in river management? In the novel, what is the relationship between the recovery from this trauma and river technology? This paper sheds light on the relationship between environmental crises and the inception of national identity in late 19th and early 20th century China by examining how The Travels of Lao Can was shaped by and responded to the trauma caused by the Yellow River floods in Shandong in the year 1889.