Family (家 Jia) is the first installment of the Turbulent Stream trilogy (激流三部曲 Jili Sanbuqu), by Ba Jin. Before being published as a novel in 1933, Family was serialized in 1931-1932. It was Ba Jin's first novel-length work. The second and third books in the series are entitled Spring (春 Chun), published in 1938, and Autumn (秋 Qiu), published in 1940. Though all three volumes received critical acclaim, only Family is remembered as a seminal work of modern Chinese literature.
The Foreign Languages Press in Beijing, China, published Sidney Shapiro's translation of the work in 1958. An edition edited by Olga Lang, biographer for Ba Jin, was released in 1972 by Anchor Books. The story of Family was adapted across various media. Most notably, famous playwright Cao Yu adapted the novel for the stage in 1941. Other cinematic adaptions include two films and a 2007 Chinese television series.
The most famous of Ba Jin's novels, the semi-autobiographical Family cemented Ba Jin's role as a revolutionary spokesperson for his generation. With its overtly anti-traditionalist sentiments, Family became a prevalent work among the Chinese youth of the Republican Era. Set in the 1920s following the New Culture Movement, Family was both a product of and contributor to its political and social context. Family takes place after the May Fourth Movement in 1919, when students in Beijing took to the streets to protest oppressive ideas, such as imperialism and traditional Confucian hierarchies. Influential contemporary texts popular among the Chinese youth at the time, such as A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, are referenced within the text.
Chengdu, Ba Jin's hometown and the setting for Family, underwent significant political turmoil during the Revolutionary period. From 1915 to 1924, Chengdu saw eleven successive governmental changes. Warlord and military cliques vied fiercely for control. Young men joined the army at alarming rates rather than work the land; locals called the presence of hundreds of thousands of soldiers "the plague of gray rats" because the soldiers wore gray uniforms. Rapid social change and economic pressures exacerbated political unrest. Chengdu simultaneously underwent modernization in sectors such as transportation, banking, and exports and imports, and Westernization through the influx of Christian missionaries, western dress, socialism, and translated Western literature, such as the works of Leo Tolstoy and Henrik Ibsen. This chaotic setting appealed to Ba Jin's young, educated, revolutionary readers, who saw themselves represented in Ba's rebellious, idealistic protagonists.
Note on Translation
The newest translation of Family uses the Wade-Giles system of romanization, an antiquated system created in the 1800s, to translate Chinese names and terms. Most modern Chinese translations use the Pinyin romanization. For the sake of clarity, the chapter summaries and analysis sections in this guide use the Wade-Giles names that appear in the text itself. The glossary of terms and the characters list use both the Wade-Giles translations, with the Pinyin and simplified characters appearing in parentheses, if the Wade-Giles appears in the text. If only the English translation of a term appears in the text, English and Pinyin are used.
