The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Foreign Devil by Wang Ping
Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas

Wang Ping. Foreign Devil. Coffee House Press, 1996. 287 pp. $21.95.

Wang Ping grew up in mainland China but for more than a decade has lived in the U.S. where she has been establishing herself as a writer in English. Consequently, she might be taken as belonging to both contemporary Chinese and Chinese-American writers, and those familiar with either sorts of fiction will encounter much in Foreign Devil that they have read before: an autobiographical mode with particular emphasis on a female perspective, the historical backdrop of the Cultural Revolution and its immediate aftermath, a narrative of discovering identity and the struggle to retain a sense of self within a cultural and historical context that would deny, even annihilate the individual. As with so much recent Chinese fiction, considerable emphasis is laid on sexuality in reaction to the pervasive repression, both public and psychological, of Chinese society. The title refers to the fact that the protagonist, Ni Bing, feels and is seen by those around her as odd, not fitting into Chinese expectations and society, and indeed at the center of the narrative is Ni’s torturous path toward a chance to pursue her own life in the U.S. The novel ends rather predictably with the plane taking off on her journey to New York and the “foreign devil” about to become in fact a foreign devil in an alien country that holds out the promise of self-determination.

Wang Ping writes a very fluid and readable prose and for the most part skillfully interweaves the multitudinous narrative threads of the protago-nist’s memories. For readers who have yet to experience recent Chinese and especially Chinese-American fiction, this novel is certainly a good introduction. For others, however, much of the tale is likely to strike one as mining an overworked vein complete with the obligatory foot-binding scene, a difficult mother-daughter relationship which nonetheless ends in mutual acceptance and understanding, typical horrors of the Cultural Revolution, the psychological ravages of China’s social repression, and so on. Ni’s search for identity culminates, rather too literally, in a melodramatic revelation of her actual parentage, and a vision of universal forgiveness of all those whom she has struggled against to maintain her selfhood, not least of all her native culture, which comes across just a bit too neatly as she is leaving everything behind to fly off to the land of promise. I hope these are the weaknesses of a first novel and the latent promise of Wang Ping’s talents will manifest themselves more consistently in future efforts. [Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Foreign Devil by Wang Ping Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas Wang Ping. Foreign Devil. Coffee House Press, 1996. 287 pp. $21.95. Wang Ping grew up in mainland China but for more than a decade has lived in the U.S. where she has been establishing herself as a writer in English. Consequently, she might be taken as belonging to both contemporary Chinese and Chinese-American writers, and those familiar with either sorts of fiction will encounter much in Foreign Devil that they have read before: an autobiographical mode with particular emphasis on a female perspective, the historical backdrop of the Cultural Revolution and its immediate aftermath, a narrative of discovering identity and the struggle to retain a sense of self within a cultural and historical context that would deny, even annihilate the individual. As with so much recent Chinese fiction, considerable emphasis is laid on sexuality in reaction to the pervasive repression, both public and psychological, of Chinese society. The title refers to the fact that the protagonist, Ni Bing, feels and is seen by those around her as odd, not fitting into Chinese expectations and society, and indeed at the center of the narrative is Ni’s torturous path toward a chance to pursue her own life in the U.S. The novel ends rather predictably with the plane taking off on her journey to New York and the “foreign devil” about to become in fact a foreign devil in an alien country that holds out the promise of self-determination. Wang Ping writes a very fluid and readable prose and for the most part skillfully interweaves the multitudinous narrative threads of the protago-nist’s memories. For readers who have yet to experience recent Chinese and especially Chinese-American fiction, this novel is certainly a good introduction. For others, however, much of the tale is likely to strike one as mining an overworked vein complete with the obligatory foot-binding scene, a difficult mother-daughter relationship which nonetheless ends in mutual acceptance and understanding, typical horrors of the Cultural Revolution, the psychological ravages of China’s social repression, and so on. Ni’s search for identity culminates, rather too literally, in a melodramatic revelation of her actual parentage, and a vision of universal forgiveness of all those whom she has struggled against to maintain her selfhood, not least of all her native culture, which comes across just a bit too neatly as she is leaving everything behind to fly off to the land of promise. I hope these are the weaknesses of a first novel and the latent promise of Wang Ping’s talents will manifest themselves more consistently in future efforts. [Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas]

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