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Xu Sanguan (许三观 / Xǔ Sānguān) is the fictional character of Yu Hua’s 1995 novel Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (and the titular character within the original Chinese edition ‘许三观卖血记 / Xǔ Sānguān Mài Xuě Jì’). The character is a strong-willed cart-pusher working in a silk factory living in rural China during the late 1940’s who decides to sell his blood for extra money to support his family. While it is shown throughout the novel that Xu Sanguan is selfish and cruel towards his wife and children, he seems to care about others more, valuing his social status over his loved ones. Although it seems this way, Xu Sanguan is portrayed to be the hero of the novel as he gives up both his energy and blood in order to fund his family and make sure that there is enough food on the table every night. The character of Xu Sanguan is not inspired by just one person; he is a representative of the struggling lower-class people in mid 20th century China.

The character of Xu Sanguan has been studied by scholars and has left the opportunity for many interpretations, but the majority of scholars have agreed that Xu Sanguan is the hero of the novel due to the selflessness that he shows throughout. The lesser interpretation places Xu Sanguan as the antagonist of the novel due to the fact that he appears to value face and status over anything else.

Character biography
Born in rural China to unnamed parents, Xu Sanguan grew up in his grandfather's village. He worked in a silk factory and occasionally helped his fourth uncle at his farm.

While sitting upon his fourth uncle's roof one day, Xu Sanguan discovered that some women would refuse to marry a man if he wasn’t in good enough health or if he didn’t sell enough blood. This inspired Xu Sanguan to start selling his own blood to earn the female gaze.

Xu Sanguan, sometime later, found himself selling blood for the first time amongst two other men - Ah Fang and Genlong - who demonstrated how to prepare to sell blood and what to do after. Xu Sanguan soon after fell into the routine of drinking gallons of water beforehand to further liquify his blood to be able to have more to sell and eating fried pork livers while drinking two shots of yellow rice wine afterwards to recover.

After having met Xu Yulan, he soon married her after convincing her father that her current fiancé was not good enough for her; they had three children named Yile, Erle and Sanle (translating to ‘first joy’, ‘second joy’ and ‘third joy’). Nine years later, Xu Sanguan learned that Yile was not his child - he was the child of Xu Yulan’s previous fiancé. From here on, Xu Sanguan chose not to see his firstborn as his legitimate child. This led to future complications; Yile hurt the village Blacksmith’s son and Xu Sanguan refused to pay the hospital bills due to Yile not being his son, but later he agreed to do so and sold his own blood to pay off their debt.

In 1958, Xu Sanguan’s family was caught in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward. The Great Chinese Famine was part of this aftermath and Xu Sanguan found that his family was left without food. Communal canteens run by the [Chinese Communist Party]] were soon closed due to the lack of food, and the factory in which Xu Sanguan worked also closed down, leaving his family without a source of income. After having survived on gruel for some months, Xu Sanguan sold his own blood again to afford his family a trip to eat noodles at the restaurant he goes to after selling blood; he chose to disallow Yile from coming with them due to his lengthy hatred for him.

After some time, Xu Sanguan began to warm up to his firstborn when his wife’s ex-lover was caught in an accident. Legend having said that if a man’s son calls from the rooftops then his soul will come back to his body, Yile was asked to do just that and refused, proclaiming that Xu Sanguan was his real father. This was a turning point within Xu Sanguan’s relationship with his child as he came to realise that although he was horrible to him, Yile still saw him as his father.

During the Cultural Revolution, Xu Sanguan’s wife is forced to go through struggle sessions after being wrongfully accused of prostitution. This brought stress upon himself and his children, and soon after his firstborn was sent to the countryside to fulfil the Communist Party’s re-education policy; his second born soon followed suit.

Xu Sanguan continued to earn money through the selling of his blood and found that his old friends Ah Fang and Genlong had died. Yile contracted hepatitis during that time and was sent to Shanghai for medication which their family could not afford. This led to Xu Sanguan selling extortionate amounts of blood in order to gather enough money to pay for his child’s treatment. Due to this, Xu Sanguan became weak and was hospitalised while travelling to Shanghai. He eventually got to Shanghai afterwards to see that his son was still alive and well.

After some years, Xu Sanguan’s children had moved out to marry and have children while balancing their family lives with stable jobs; he no longer sold blood due to there being less people in the household to spend on and went on to live his elderly years happily.

Portrayals
Xu Sanguan has been adapted into the character of Heo Sam-Gwan (played by Ha Jung-woo) in the Korean movie adaptation of the novel directed by Ha Jung-Woo named ‘Heosamgwan’ (허삼관). The film made its debut in South Korea on January 15th 2015.

Xu Sanguan has also been adapted into a stage play of the novel in Hong Kong which debuted in 2013.