Lao She's "Teahouse" is revered as a great work of realism precisely because it is so realistic. For example, in the famous scene between Chang Siye and Er Dezi, Chang Siye says: "Show some authority, go fight with the foreigners!" Er Dezi replies: "I can't even deal with foreigners, how can I deal with you?"
Lu Xun wrote in "A Madman's Diary": "I opened the history and checked, but this history has no dates, every crooked page is filled with the words 'benevolence, righteousness, morality.' I couldn't sleep, so I looked carefully all night, and from the cracks in the words, I saw that the whole book was filled with the two words 'cannibalism'! In 'Teahouse,' this logic of 'cannibalism' is constantly played out in the lower strata of society—not the strong devouring the weak, but the weak gnawing at each other. Moreover, the more incompetent a person is, the more they like to bully the weak. As Lu Xun said: The people at the bottom will harm each other; they are sheep, but also ferocious beasts; when they encounter a fiercer beast, they show their sheep-like nature, and when they meet a weaker sheep, they reveal their beastly nature. This is the evil of human nature and the mutual harm at the bottom.
Why is this the case?#
First is the economic predicament. In "Teahouse," the resources available to the lower class are very limited. For example, the teahouse owner Wang Lifafa often says: "Reform, reform, the more you reform, the colder it gets, ice cold!" Wang Lifafa is shrewd and hardworking, yet he cannot escape the increasingly heavy pressure of life, let alone other ordinary people. When survival resources are extremely scarce, the evil of human nature is triggered, and mutual harm among the lower class becomes an inevitable choice for survival. What is legal or illegal, what is moral or immoral, makes no difference in their eyes. In "Teahouse," the human trafficker Liu Mazi not only shows no compassion for the father and daughter of Kang Shunzi but takes advantage of the situation, tricking and deceiving to buy the 15-year-old Kang Shunzi for 200 taels, while only giving 10 taels to Kang Shunzi's father.
Secondly, there is psychological alienation. In a pyramid-shaped social model, the dignity of lower-class people is easily trampled upon. The difficulty of survival and the loss of dignity lead to fear and numbness dominating the collective psychology of the lower class; they cannot vent their dissatisfaction on those in higher classes, so they can only vent it on those even lower than themselves, thus falling into a vicious cycle of mutual harm. When lower-class people gain even a little power, they will bully those even lower than themselves even more. Because they clearly know that as fellow lower-class people, they have no power or influence, so they act even more unscrupulously. Moreover, they are particularly dog-like; in front of the strong, they bow their heads and wag their tails; in front of the weak, they show their fangs and reveal their ferocity. Flattering the powerful and bullying the weak is a typical manifestation of the evil of the lower class and the evil of mediocrity. For example, in "Teahouse," Er Dezi, when seeing foreigners and soldiers, either gets scared and keeps his distance or bows respectfully. However, when encountering a resting coachman or a begging beggar, he shows a fierce demeanor.
Finally, there is social oppression. In the society depicted in "Teahouse," power dominates everything; the lower-class people, in order to obtain a narrow space for survival, have to rely on various power systems, actively or passively becoming tools to oppress their peers. Therefore, mutual harm among the lower class is not because they enjoy harming each other, but because mutual harm is the only way to survive. For example, the Legalist design of resources being controlled by a single outlet means that all resources are in the hands of power, and to survive, one must defeat all competitors. Just like Chang Siye's cry: "I love our country, but who loves me?" This is akin to a group of dogs, where the owner monopolizes all the bones, occasionally throwing one into the pack; only the most vicious, cunning, and lucky dog can become the owner of that bone. If they do not harm each other, they cannot seize that bone that allows them to survive.
What is even more tragic is that many lower-class people not only accept the logic of oppression but also actively maintain the oppressive system. For example, in "Teahouse," Song Er Ye, although kind-hearted, only cares about his own birdcage. This tacit approval of oppression and avoidance of reality is, in fact, a disguised maintenance of the oppressive system, which in turn fosters mutual harm among the lower class. In such a model of mutual harm, the people become completely atomized, forever unable to form a collective force, and can only indulge in mutual harm after losing their ability to think, firmly believing in an inverted world.
In this mutual harm among the lower class, the beneficiaries are obvious. Hu Shi said: "The greatest evil of human nature is to hate others for having and to laugh at others for lacking, to despise you for being poor and to fear you for being rich." When people first meet, they first assess each other's status and worth, then choose whether to kneel before the other or to make the other kneel before them. The greatest evil of human nature is to make things as difficult as possible for others within the smallest range of one's own power.
In fact, being born in the lower class is not terrifying; what is terrifying is this weak mentality of mutual harm among the lower class. They will slowly exhaust their strength in repeated tugging, ultimately no one can escape the quagmire of the lower class. Because they have become accustomed to being slaves, in their eyes, it is either to make others their slaves or to be someone else's slave, never considering being a normal person.