Do Not Say We Have Nothing: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

In Canada, Li-ling waits for her mother to come back from dropping Ai-ming off at the U.S. border. Her mother arrives around seven in the evening, and as the two eat the dinner Li-ling has prepared, Li-ling’s mother shares how the day unfolded: before arriving at the border, Ai-ming stopped so she could buy Li-ling her favorite sponge cake. Li-ling’s mother waited until Ai-ming boarded the Greyhound and then she watched the bus pull away into the distance. 

That night in bed, Li-ling lies awake, missing Ai-ming, who has left her a letter: “We told each other secretly in the quiet midnight world / That we wished to fly to heaven, two birds joined wingtip to wingtip / And to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree. / Earth endures, heaven endures, even though they both shall end.” Reading the poem, Li-ling thinks to herself that Ai-ming was the link holding together their entire family: she unites Li-ling with her father and her mother. 

In 1965 Shanghai, Swirl has just been released from the re-education camp and he has gone to live with Big Mother Knife. Late one night, everyone but Sparrow —who is up late transcribing music—is fast asleep when a young man comes to the door. The thin stranger asks after Sparrow himself and he delivers a crumpled envelope with the same handwriting used in The Book of Records. The stranger says that he has news. Sparrow invites him in, but the stranger refuses, so Sparrow resolves to give him money instead. When the mysterious young man leaves, Sparrow returns to his room and he stays up all night reading the letter.

The letter, from Wen the Dreamer, lets Sparrow know that Wen has escaped from the re-education camp, where Wen says the conditions were indescribable. Wen reveals that he has been in Shanghai and he has seen his family—although his family wasn’t able to see him. It isn’t safe for Wen to stay in the area, so he’s on the run again. But he has attached another chapter of The Book of Records.

It isn’t long before authorities arrive at the door in search of Wen the Dreamer,  accusing Ba Lute “of harboring an enemy of the state.” At first, Ba Lute is calm in the face of their allegations, but when the officers demand that Swirl and Zhuli come in for question, Ba Lute flies into a rage. He “beg[ins] rampaging through the rooms” and shouts “I’ve had enough! […] You’ve wronging imprisoned [Wen’s] wife! […] You little shits have stained our Revolution and one day I’m going to haul you before Chen Yi himself and have him whip your balls. Donkeys! Do you have a clue who I am?” After the officers leave, Sparrow goes to look for Wen’s letter, which he hid in a can on the balcony,  but it has disappeared without a trace.

At the Shanghai Conservatory, where Sparrow teaches and Zhuli studies, the two cousins dedicate their mornings to their musical practice. On Sparrow’s way to his practice room, he passes the office of He Luting, the Shanghai Conservatory’s director. He seems to be having an argument with a visitor—“exactly what constitutes a crime these days?” he asks the other person, whose face Sparrow cannot see. Sparrow recalls the stories he knows about He Luting. For instance, He Luting’s brother had a French music text when they were growing up. Even as a child, He Luting adored the text so much that he would stay up late at night to sneak downstairs and copy it.

After spending the morning practicing, Zhuli goes to Sparrow’s practice room to invite him for lunch. Sparrow isn’t ready to take a break—he’s working on writing his own musical composition and he is so enthralled with the task that he often composes for 18 hours a day. As Zhuli is cajoling her cousin, insisting that he needs a break, Jiang Kai, one of the Conservatory’s best pianists, comes into the room. With Jiang Kai’s help, Zhuli manages to convince her cousin to take a break to eat something and go on a walk. As the three walk through the park, Kai and Sparrow pull ahead. Observing them, Zhuli thinks to herself that Kai “[wears] his rural background well, like a penny novel wrapped inside an elegant cover. When not smiling, though, he [has] a face that [can] only be described as vigilant.”

Zhuli decides that she is done practicing for the day and she goes home. There, she sees Swirl in the kitchen stealing beans—ever since returning from the re-education camp, Swirl has a habit of trying to pilfer food. This habit frustrates Zhuli, but soon she is distracted by something else: there are papers on the table, and she sees that Swirl has been copying The Book of Records. Swirl puts her finger on a map and she draws a long, winding trajectory, muttering to herself about where Wen the Dreamer is. Zhuli realizes that her mother is serious about trying to find him and she asks what Swirl will do when the public finds out she is “siding with a convicted rightist.”

Swirl tells Zhuli her detailed plan: just as the original author of The Book of Records used variations in the protagonists’ names—Da-wei and May Fourth—to hint at locations, Swirl plans to do the same in her transcription of the text. She will leave clues meant only for Wen the Dreamer so that he can find her in a safe location—a plant and flower clinic belonging to Lady Dostoevsky, who, after being released from the re-education camp, has been living in Gansu Province. The clinic, in Swirl’s opinion, has a wonderful name: Notes from the Underground.

Swirl tells Zhuli that she will leave the next morning. Zhuli, still afraid, embraces her mother. Swirl’s plan, and all the literature it involves, reminds Zhuli of her home in Bingpai, of all of the books and instruments they had hidden underground. For Zhuli, that place was a “magical kingdom.” She wonders if such caverns still exist and if she will ever be able to enter one again. Swirl warns Zhuli be careful about what she says and whom she trusts. “No one is immune,” Swirl tells her daughter, “Everyone thinks that with one betrayal they can save themselves and everyone they love.” She tells Zhuli not to take any risks, and rather, that she should concentrate only on her music.

Zhuli heads back to the Conservatory, where she meets Sparrow. The two talk about the piece Zhuli is practicing—the Ravel by Tchaikovsky, which her teacher hopes will earn her a place in the next Tchaikovsky Competition. Zhuli, though, is doubtful that she’ll be able to enter: “I’m the daughter of a convicted rightist,” she’s tells him. “I won’t be allowed to compete abroad.”

In fact, it’s possible that no one will be allowed to compete abroad. A couple of days before, Zhuli was speaking with Kai about the Ravel when he told her that most opportunities to win scholarships or participate in competitions would be withdrawn. The Conservatory was quiet that night, and Kai told her he suspected that one day it would close for good. Zhuli reminded Kai that his father is a Party member, to which Kai responded that he was a “pure seed of the earth. A peasant who joined the Revolution so early, even [Chairman Mao] didn’t know there was one.” Zhuli responded that she never believed anything Kai says. “I’m glad, Zhuli,” he replies. “Never trust me.” And, abruptly, Kai kissed her.   

After kissing Kai, Zhuli goes to her political studies class, where, although she is an hour early, she is the last to arrive. A girl wearing a red armband “[makes] a show of taking down her name.” That particular classmate was one of the few Conservatory students selected to take a trip out to the countryside last summer. (Since He Luting refused to stop classes, only “the children of cadres had been permitted to go.” All of those who returned from the field trip to the rural areas returned determined to “show[] their newfound knowledge by continuously questioning their teachers, their parents and music itself.” The students have written posters, for instance, interrogating the political utility of music. They have barred teachers from their classrooms and they have claimed that it doesn’t matter if they’re talented—in a Revolution, one must choose ugliness over beauty.

At the political studies meeting that day, Zhuli and her classmates begin by writing criticism of themselves and others for their bourgeois sentiments or lack of whole-hearted participation in the revolution. The girl sitting next to Zhuli mocks her for “favoring music in the ‘negative’ and ‘pessimistic’ key of E-flat minor, and continuing to play sonatas by revisionist Soviet composers,” for instance. To redeem herself, Zhuli “vow[s] to embrace the optimism of the C and G major keys” and makes sure to end her self-criticism by reciting various revolutionary slogans.

After the political studies class, Zhuli meets up with Sparrow and Kai again. She thinks to herself that although she and Kai are both talented, Sparrow is really the most gifted musician at the Conservatory. Sparrow’s music makes her remember that the present  is all there is, “yet is the one thing we will never learn to hold in our hands.” What’s more, Sparrow names his compositions with numbers, while other students at the Conservatory give their work revolutionary, poetic names like “Young Soldier’s Joy.”

Zhuli wonders if Sparrow has somehow encoded his music with secret messages, just as Wen the Dreamer has encoded his copy of The Book of Records with secret messages for Swirl. Thinking of her father, Zhuli recalls a conversation between her mother and Big Mother Knife, who had warned Swirl to be careful—“even ghosts” are illegal in this political climate. Big Mother Knife warned that another “purge” was on its way, that many more people would be sent to the camps. Still, Zhuli stays up with Kai and Sparrow almost all night, talking and playing music.