Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Individual Identity Under Communism
Class and Communism
Freedom of Expression vs. Propaganda
Political Oppression, Isolation, and Divided Communities
Storytelling, Family Connection, and History
Summary
Analysis
In Shanghai in 2016, Li-ling receives an unexpected call from Tofu Liu. His niece has connected him with someone he thinks Li-ling should meet: Yiwen, an old friend of Ai-ming’s. Since the protests, Yiwen has gone to study electrical engineering at Tokyo University, gotten married and divorced, and had a daughter, now in her teens. Li-ling asks about Ai-ming and her mother, and Yiwen tells her that Ling died in 1996. She says that Ai-ming returned in 1996 for her mother’s funeral and that she had neither a U.S. visa nor Chinese permanent residency. Ai-ming, Yiwen says, was unwell during that time—her mother’s death took a toll on her. In 1997, Ai-ming sent Yiwen a letter saying she was going to Western China and asking Yiwen if she would go with her—Yiwen, living in Tokyo, declined.
In this moment, Thien highlights the strength of family connections and community networks. Clearly, Tofu Liu cared a lot about Zhuli when he knew her—so much that he is willing to do the work to connect Ai-ming, whom he has just met, with Yiwen, who knows his niece. The fact that people are able to maintain such strong bonds and commitment to one another shows how dedicated they are to preserving community, and how no matter what efforts the government seeks to divide them, people find ways of staying connected.
Themes
Li-ling asks Yiwen whether Ling ever mentioned that Ai-ming had gone to live with her and her mother in Canada. Seeming surprised that she had asked, Yiwen responds that “it was just the way life was back then […] people lost one another. You could be sent five thousand kilometers away, with no hope of coming back. Everyone had so many people like this in their lives, people sent away.”
Yiwen speaks to the trauma of separation and isolation that many people experienced living under the repressive government of the 1980s. What Li-ling sees as a tragic separation, due to being raised in the less oppressive Canada, Yiwen sees as a normal consequence of living under a government that controls so many aspects of its people’s lives.
Themes
When Yiwen leaves, Li-ling begins to think of Kai again. She feels that when her father left, she was too young to understand any of the regrets that led him to take his own life. Her mother has told her that he was addicted to pills and alcohol and he was severely depressed. Li-ling wonders if Kai felt that what happened to Sparrow was his fault—he had loved Sparrow for his whole life. Li-ling reflects that although she has struggled to forgive her father for her entire life, now that she’s older, “[she] wish[es] most of all that he had been able to find a way to forgive himself.” Thinking of The Book of Records, Li-ling imagines that if her father were alive, she would tell him “to have faith that, one day, someone else will keep the record.”
Here, Li-ling finally finds forgiveness for her father. She sets him free by acknowledging that his ability to forgive himself is more important than her ability to forgive him. This idea harkens back to one of Zhuli’s last thoughts, that all of the Red Guards would individually have to reckon with the atrocities that they committed as a collective. Additionally, Li-ling seems to think that Kai was burdened by having to carry so many family secrets and tragedies. Clearly, she has stepped into the role of keeping the record, which is also a way of setting him free.
Themes
