Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of political oppression and violence, and self-harm.

Two teenage boys, the unnamed Narrator and his best friend Luo, arrive in the isolated mountain village where they have been sent for re-education. Upon their arrival, the village Headman examines their possessions for anything “counter-revolutionary.” He mistakes the Narrator’s violin for a “bourgeoise toy” and almost destroys it, but Luo is able to save the instrument by having the Narrator play a Mozart sonata that Luo claims was written in Mao’s honor.

Luo and the Narrator grew up together, and neither has completed the years of high school education that would see them categorized as “young intellectuals”— a demographic exiled to the countryside en masse. They were instead sent for re-education because their parents were considered enemies of the state. The Narrator’s parents are doctors, whose success meant they were labeled “class enemies.” Luo’s father was a famous dentist branded a “counter-revolutionary” because he bragged about doing dental work for Mao and other high-ranking politicians. The Narrator recalls the only time that he and Luo ever fought: After they watched Luo’s father get denounced and interrogated by a violent revolutionary mob, Luo punched the Narrator for weeping.