Reflections On Lín Juémín's Farewell Letter to His Wife

I read this letter for the first time when I was 20, around the same age Lín Juémín was when he died. At that age, dying for a belief felt clean. You give your life for something bigger than yourself. It made sense to me.

I reread it ten years later and it felt different. The revolution he helped start was as brutal as the dynasty it replaced. Famine and suffering followed. That is the world he left his wife and unborn child. His decision, which I once admired, now looks like it cost more than he imagined.

This reminds me of the closing lines of Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer: "nothing is more important than freedom and independence."

In the early 1900s, China was falling apart. The Qing dynasty had ruled for over two thousand years, and a generation of young Chinese wanted it gone. The decade before the 1911 Revolution was revolt after revolt, each one failing until the last one did not.

One of those failures was the Yellow Flower Mound Uprising in Guangzhou, 1911. Revolutionaries attacked the Qing and found early success, then Qing reinforcements arrived and killed most of them. The dead were not soldiers. They were students and teachers, overseas Chinese who had come back to fight.

Lín Juémín was one of the few who survived the battle. He escaped to his home province of Fujian, but Qing soldiers captured him days later. Three days before his arrest, he wrote this letter to his pregnant wife.

My Dearest Yiying,

When you hold this letter, I will have already become a memory among the shadows. It’s hard to write, to feel the tears blurring the ink and the pen growing heavy in my hand. I want to stop, to give up this task, but I fear you might not understand the whole of my heart. You might think I was willing to leave you, that I didn’t know how desperately you wished for me to live. And so, I will bear this sorrow and tell you everything ,

I love you more than anything. That is the truth of it, the simple, profound anchor that gives me the courage to face what’s to come ,

Since we met, I've carried a wish in my heart: that all those who love could be together, always. But look at our world—it is a landscape of violence, of endless suffering. How can we truly be happy when so many are not ,

You know the saying: "Love your elders, and extend that love to all elders; love your children, and extend that love to all children." I am doing the same with my love for you. I am taking the vastness of what I feel for you and extending it to all who love. That is why I must go. That is why I am choosing to die before you, to put the greater good above our own. My hope is that when you mourn for me, you will also hold the world in your heart, finding solace in the idea of a better future for everyone. Please, don't be sad ,

Do you remember that night, four or five years ago, when I told you I would rather you die before me? You were angry at first, but after I explained, you didn't have an answer. I meant what I said. I know how fragile you are and how unbearable the grief is. I would have carried that pain for you, gladly. Alas, who knew it would be me to leave first ,

I can't forget you. My mind keeps wandering back to the house on the back street, to our little room tucked away past the halls and corridors. I remember our first winter, the moonlight filtering through the bare plum branches, casting a faint pattern on the floor. We would stand side by side, holding hands, talking in low whispers about everything and nothing. Now, when I think of it, all that remains is the empty space, the wetness on my cheeks. And I remember six or seven years ago, when I returned after running away, and you cried, begging me to tell you if I ever had to leave again, so that you could follow. I promised I would. A couple of weeks ago, when I came home, I wanted to tell you about my journey, but when I saw your face, the words caught in my throat. And with our baby on the way, I was even more afraid of the sorrow it would bring you. So I just drank, trying to find some kind of escape in the bottom of a bottle. The pain was beyond words ,

I want to be with you, to grow old with you. But in this country, death is always waiting. It can come from a natural disaster, from violence, from corruption. We can die at any time, anywhere. What would I do if I had to watch you die? What would you do if you had to watch me? Even if we were spared, what if we were separated forever? A broken mirror cannot be made whole again. Such a life would be worse than death. How can we stand by while so many are suffering and being torn apart? My love, this is why I am choosing to die, without a second thought for myself or you. I have no regrets. The cause will live on in others. Yixin is five now; she will grow up in a blink. Raise her well, let her be like me. As for the child you are carrying, I believe it will be a girl, a little you. My heart is at peace with this thought. If it is a boy, teach him to carry on my work. Then, after I'm gone, there will be two of my spirits in the world. How lucky I would be ,

Our family will be poor, but don't worry about it. Poverty is not a hardship, and a simple life is a quiet, peaceful one ,

I can't say anymore. When I am in the earth, if I hear your cries, I will cry with you. I have never believed in ghosts, but now I hope they are real. They say that hearts can be connected across a great distance, and I hope this is true, too. Then, even in death, my spirit will be with you. You will never be alone ,

I never told you about my aspirations, and that was a mistake. But if I had, you would have worried for me every day. I was ready to sacrifice myself a hundred times over, but I could not bear to make you sad. My love for you is so deep that I worry I haven’t done enough for you. You were so lucky to find me, and yet so unlucky to be born in this time. I was so lucky to find you, and yet so unlucky to be born in this time, for I cannot just live for myself. The handkerchief is small, but what remains unsaid is vast. Imagine what my heart cannot put into words. I can no longer see you. But if you cannot let go of me, I will be waiting for you in your dreams ,

A final, heartbreaking salute