Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh is a novella by Mo Yan, first published in the second issue of Harvest in 1999. Its protagonist, Ding Shikou, is an elderly worker suddenly laid off just before retirement. With his apprentice’s help, he converts an abandoned bus into a small cabin where couples pay to meet in private, and earns his living from it. The English title, Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh, also serves as the title of an eight-story collection translated by Howard Goldblatt and published by Arcade in 2001. The individual work must therefore be distinguished from the English-language collection of the same name. (cflac.org.cn)
Publication and Editions
The Chinese work appeared in 1999, whereas 2001 is the publication year of the English-language collection; these are not first-publication dates for the same edition. The English volume opens with the title story and also includes translations of “Man and Beast,” “Soaring,” “Iron Child,” “The Cure,” “Love Story,” “Shen Garden,” and “Abandoned Child.” The collection brings together works on different subjects and from different periods of the author’s career, and should not be treated as a continuous story centered on Ding Shikou. (cflac.org.cn)
The first English edition also includes the author’s preface, “Hunger and Loneliness: My Muses,” and a translator’s note. The publisher’s description emphasizes the collection’s range, encompassing hardship, love, children’s experiences, and stories with fantastical elements, and combining stark depictions of reality with allegorical imagination. This selection offers English-language readers an introduction to Mo Yan’s shorter works of literature. (campusstore.miamioh.edu)
Plot and Characters
Ding Shikou has worked at the municipal agricultural machinery manufacturing and repair factory for forty-three years and has been honored as a provincial model worker, yet he is laid off with only one month remaining before retirement. He abruptly loses both the professional pride and the financial security built through a lifetime of work. A subsequent fracture and hospital stay exhaust his savings. By placing unemployment, injury, and arguments within the family in succession, the novella presents his predicament not merely as a loss of income but as a breakdown of his established way of life. (so03.tci-thaijo.org)
While searching for a way to make ends meet, Ding Shikou discovers that people are using an abandoned bus near a grove of trees for romantic encounters. With the help of his apprentice, Lü Xiaohu, he refurbishes the bus and runs it as a “Woodland Leisure Cabin,” charging couples who need a private space. Once respected for his skills and seniority, the master now needs his apprentice’s guidance to adapt to a new means of earning a living. Their relationship of mutual support survives, but the direction in which knowledge and experience flow has changed. (tsg.tjnu.edu.cn)
For a time, the cabin brings in a substantial income, and Ding Shikou begins calculating how much he will need for retirement. As the weather turns colder, customers gradually dwindle. On one occasion, he hears a man and woman crying inside, followed by silence. Mistakenly believing that they have died in a lovers’ suicide pact, he calls the police for help. When the police inspect the bus, they find it empty. The novella ends with this false alarm rather than presenting his business as a secure and unequivocally successful resolution. (so03.tci-thaijo.org)
Humor and Narrative Technique
The work’s narrative centers on an ordinary man whose circumstances keep changing. Its “humor” arises first from the mismatch between what the characters say and the difficulties they actually face. When Ding Shikou encounters unfamiliar aspects of everyday life, such as pay toilets, his earnest, awkward responses sound like jokes to his apprentice. The compliment in the title does not mean that the master’s life is becoming easier; instead, it accompanies his embarrassment and difficulty adjusting. Studies have accordingly interpreted the laughter in the work as black humor tinged with bitterness. (tsg.tjnu.edu.cn)
Another layer of irony comes from the contrast between his enthusiasm for work and the nature of his business. Ding Shikou refurbishes and maintains the cabin with the same conscientious attitude he once brought to his job, but that dedication no longer serves factory production; it now serves couples’ demand for privacy. Researchers note the contrast between the protagonist’s honesty and trusting nature and the perfunctory behavior of those around him. The work’s satire thus goes beyond ridiculing an individual’s behavior to reveal conflicts between different outlooks on life. (so03.tci-thaijo.org)
From the perspective of Literary Criticism, the form of address “shifu,” or “master,” provides an important key to understanding the work: it signifies both technical experience and the social respect once accorded to a skilled worker in the factory. A research article published by The Paper argues that the protagonist’s dependence on his apprentice after leaving his former workplace gives the title its ironic significance. The novella thus juxtaposes situations marked by comedy with a loss of identity that carries the weight of tragedy. (finance.sina.cn)
English Translation and Film Adaptation
The English title retains the transliteration “Shifu,” while its latter half uses a teasing English expression rather than a literal rendering of “becoming increasingly humorous.” It is both the translated title of the individual work and the title of the entire collection. Discussion of its translation therefore requires a distinction between three levels: the treatment of the title, the text of the individual work, and the arrangement of the collection. (campusstore.miamioh.edu)
Happy Times, directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Zhao Benshan and Dong Jie, draws on this novella but does not reproduce the original scene by scene. The film retains the elderly worker, the apprentice, and the idea of converting an abandoned bus, while adding characters such as the blind girl Wu Ying and shifting the main plot toward Old Zhao and his fellow workers’ efforts to help her. Comparative studies note that the original focuses on a laid-off worker’s struggle to earn a living, whereas the film reorganizes the story around care, kindness, and emotional relationships. The characters and ending added by the film should not, in turn, be treated as elements of the novella’s plot. (cflac.org.cn)