Introduction to Copper Teeth of Crab Bay
The long rural novel Copper Teeth of Crab Bay is rooted in six centuries of clan history in the Xiong family village of Crab Bay, Pohu County. Its central storyline follows cultural historian Xiong Yan as he returns home to revise the family genealogy, weaving together four narrative threads: the clan's past, two romances spanning different eras, three generations' pursuit of education and knowledge, and the rise and fall of the lakeside dental industry.
The story begins with an account from the ninety-year-old Xiong Shouchun. It traces the roots of the clan's good fortune, beginning with the kindness of the Feng clan matriarch, who found an auspicious site in the early Ming dynasty, and the flourishing of six family branches. It then looks back on the poverty of rural life in the last century. Gifted Xiong Jinghong has to leave school because his family is poor and takes up copperworking. He and Su Wan, a studious young woman, fall in love, only to be separated by their different social standing. After achieving success, he establishes a chain of dental clinics and donates money to support education and improve the village. His childhood friend Xiong Tonglin defies opposition to marry his childhood sweetheart, Xiong Lian. He spends half his life traveling between township clinics to treat patients, while the couple live apart and endure the hardships of making a living at the bottom of society.
From the early Qing dynasty, when copperworkers first fashioned copper plates for false teeth, to the present day, when clan members run dental businesses across the country, the dental industry has lifted the entire village out of poverty. It has also given rise to real-world challenges such as growing wealth disparity, hollowed-out villages, and young people marrying later and having fewer children. Interweaving clan traditions, the joys and sorrows of love, educational aspirations, and the fortunes of an industry, the novel uses the changes in a village by Poyang Lake to explore the loss and preservation of rural bonds, ancestral virtues, and family values amid economic prosperity.
