Rickshaw Boy Author:Lau Shaw This is a very, very old book so keep that in mind when you read the term modern in the following excerpt from the inside cover.... — Peking, a thousand years old and more, is the setting of this modern novel of China by one of its best-known writers. Rickshaw Boy is Chinese in its plot, characters, and atmosphere. Its flavor is biting and stro... more »ng. It is China toiling and sweating, China loving and suffering, hoping and blundering, falling and getting up, again and still again. And laughing too, whenever it can--deep, earthy laughter....
...Happy Boy, a country lad, has come to the city. For the fulfillment of his modest ambitions, he has the strength and health, loyalty, and the will to work boundlessly, supported by guiding maxims of conduct going back beyond the time of Kublai Khan. There is a girl, there are other women. Happy Boy becomes the unsuspecting victim of social trends, in a world undreamed of by the maker of ancient maxims. When he is all but broken he takes the first conscious step to shape his own life.....
The book was translated from Chinese into English so some of the syntax is rather unusual, in addition to the maxims referred to in the synopsis above.« less
This is one of my all time favorite books. I have read it several times, and find the main character moving and infuriating at the same time. There is another translation also worth reading if you come across it.