The relationship between Zhang and her surroundings

A part of your exam question regarding “Gon-do-la” by Annemarie Neary asks for you to focus on the relationship between Zhang and her surroundings. When focusing on this point, it is important to take into consideration Zhang’s connection to present times and past times.

Present

In the present, Zhang works in a Chinese production factory which specialises in producing several objects – toys, lamps, objects for everyday use, etc.: “pencil sharpeners” (ll. 14-15), lamp gondolas (ll. 69-70), decorative gondolas, “Eiffel Tower backscratcher” (l. 101), “Great Wall of China draught excluder” (ll. 101-102). Such things remind readers of the many kitsch-looking objects which we deem as “made in China” because they look cheap and they are many times useless. Despite producing such objects, Zhang does not complain. Instead, she seems to be a productive worker and finds her tasks easy to do:

The office worker distributed leaflets, shoving them into people’s hands whether they wanted them or not. There was an assembly diagram – simple, Zhang agreed, easy – and an illustration of the boats swarming on a sky-blue river that ran through a golden city. (ll. 31-33)

Zhang does her work without complaining, ignores the co-workers she does not like, and even dreams about being awarded a prize for her forty years in the factory.

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Past

In the past, Zhang probably had a special connection to her surroundings. She was probably a field worker in the larger agricultural communes imagined by Mao Zedong and was probably at peace during that time.

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