The Irony of Sparrows
In the Foreword, David Henry Wang notes, “Upon deciding that sparrows were harmful to the rice crop, for instance, Mao ordered the Chinese to hunt and kill them. While his directive did succeed in reducing the sparrow population, he had neglected to consider that birds also eat bugs; suddenly, the nation was besieged by a plague of insects.” The ironic aftermath of the mass annihilation of sparrows portrays Mao’s non-existent pragmatism. Although he is charming and popular, his policy on sparrows elicits further detriments of the bugs. Consequently, being magnetic is not an absolute warranty of fixing a country’s complications.
The Irony of the “Cultural Revolution”
David Henry Wang elucidates, “So the Cultural Revolution was born out of Mao’s genuine frustration and his desire to regain the upper hand in a power struggle that threatened his position…. Mao’s strategy, however, ended up bringing untold suffering to those very masses in whose name the battle was waged, as well as disabling an entire group of young people who are known as the “lost generation.” Mao had anticipated that the revolution would be constructive to the masses, but it underwrites their anguish. The unanticipated catastrophe of the revolution depicts the imperfections in its ideology since it sponsored self-defeating engagements.
The Irony of Superstitions
Jiang recounts, “An Yi said her uncle knew a family who spent a lot of money when their grandma died. First they had to keep a vigil by the coffin for a week…Then they burned spirit money so that the dead person would have money in heaven.” The superstitious motive of burning money is ironic. Once the money is burned, it would not be valuable at all. Accordingly, the chances of the money getting to heaven, if at all heaven is real, are nil because it has been reduced to ash. Accordingly, superstitions encourage faith in illogical actions that result in the wastage of valuable resources such as money.
