The Man Behind the Voice

Most people who read Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie never know who it is that is telling the story. He is referred to as the narrator by most people or is once referred to as the fiddler in the book. His name is actually Ma. In case you are wondering how this name was found, it is actually in the book, but you would have only been able to find it if you could read Chinese.
In the beginning of the book the narrator, Ma, and Lou get sent to a place called the Mountain of the Phoenix in the rural parts of china for their re-education. When Ma arrives with Lou he has no particular skills other than playing the violin. Lou out performs Ma everywhere. Lou can tell stories very well, engaging his audience in ways Ma can only dream of. Lou also falls in love and wins the love of the little seamstress.
As the book goes on Ma develops his skills and soon surpasses Lou in most things like telling the stories better than Lou. Ma also finds himself also to have fallen in love with the little seamstress and is in fact more capable of taking care of the little seamstress than Lou is. Ma proves this by arranging for the little seamstress an abortion. Lou could never have done that or may have wanted to have the little seamstress get an abortion, which would have put him and the little seamstress at deadly risk if the Chinese government were to find out.
This incident of the Lou getting the little seamstress pregnant and Ma having to clean up after him shows that Ma has surpasses Lou. Ma can take care of the little seamstress now; compare to when Lou first fell in love with her Ma could not take care of anyone except himself. Another thing Ma understood better than Lou is the fact that you should accept and cherish the way people are and not try to change who they are to fit what you think they should be. If you look at the way Ma takes care of the little seamstress, she should have dumped Lou gone with Ma to the city.